February 15, 2010|By Don Markus | don.markus@baltsun.com
"Nothing replaces success in the revenue sports. Nothing," Yow said. "That's not to take away from the success in the Olympic sports - they do matter. It isn't a replacement for success in the flagship sports. We need to be successful in those, and we have been. The men who were successful are still here. There's no reason we can't do that again. I have faith in their abilities. Neither of them has forgotten how to coach."
During an interview in early January, Yow seemed confident the men's basketball team would be in the NCAA tournament again this year - even before it played its first ACC game.
Before Friedgen and his staff put together a recruiting class ranked by many as in the top 40, Yow said she's confident the football team, given the experience many of its underclassmen received last season, will return to a bowl game next season.
Barry Gossett, who would become the athletic department's biggest donor and one of Yow's biggest supporters, said he thinks Yow has done a "credible" job under difficult circumstances. "She has a tough job managing the egos of the coaches," Gossett said.
Yow has acknowledged her relationship with Friedgen became strained last season, starting shortly after the Terps were crushed at California in the opener.
She said she has had a more personal relationship with Friedgen than with Williams, admitting that "we've never shared a meal together."
Passing 'Curley' Byrd
But she says she has always been supportive of Williams, even when some fans were calling for the coach to retire or be fired after last year's 41-point loss at Duke. Mote said of the Yow-Williams dynamic that "it's generally understood that they don't get along, personally," adding that he spoke with each "individually" after their spats became public last year.
"The more they keep it out of the newspapers, the better," Mote said.
In September, Yow will pass the legendary Harry C. "Curley" Byrd - a former football coach who would also become the university's president - as the school's longest-tenured athletic director.
While her name has been mentioned for several jobs, Yow said she has come close to leaving only once - in 2002, when Kentucky wooed her.
A former women's basketball coach in Lexington, Yow was tempted. But she thought about her late mother, Elizabeth, a Lefty Driesell fan in a house filled with Tar Heels and Wolfpack fans in Gibsonville, N.C., who died 10 months before her middle daughter became a Terp.
Yow is pleased she decided to stay and doesn't seem to have any thoughts of leaving - or retiring.
"I feel like I'm in midstream. I'm as energetic as I was on Day One," Yow said.
With that comment, her BlackBerry is sure to start buzzing.
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