Alma Mater

Seattle -- Seasonal sounds -- brittle leaves crackling underfoot, migrating birds calling overhead -- will soon surround us. None is more stirring than the strange music that issues from American campuses as football crowds serenade themselves with songs expressing eternal devotion to alma mater and a desire to eviscerate this Saturday's opponent.However, here at the University of Washington, the music of autumnal mayhem is peculiar in one particular. Its song should be sung at the other edge of the continent, as the anthem of the federal bureaucracy.

Why doesn't someone do a story on the rising costs of a college education? The starting salary in my first job has increased about six times - $675 a month to $4,200 a month - since 1969. Meanwhile, the price of gas has gone up 12 times ($.30 to $3.60). But the price of my alma mater, Loyola University, has gone up 60 times since then - $850 to around $50,000 a year today. I am pretty sure this increase is similar to other colleges around the country except at state-supported schools like the University of Maryland, which benefit from taxes that make up the difference.

DALLAS -- Going home is not always a good idea. A coach, on the whole, should reconsider returning to his alma mater. The road is fraught with all manner of danger, mostly falling alumni. The better he was as a player, the more he's expected to do as a coach. For every Bear Bryant at Alabama or Johnny Majors at Tennessee, there is a David McWilliams at Texas. Or Jerry Stovall at LSU.There was Joe Kapp at California.Kapp was an All-America quarterback. He took the Bears to the Rose Bowl in 1958, which wasn't particularly shocking at the time.

James and Denise Carnaggio, of Bel Air, announce the engagement of their daughter, Cortney Jayne, to Robert Andrew Flock, son of John and Debra Flock of Fallston. The bride to be graduated in 2006 from the John Carroll School and Salisbury University with a B.S.N in nursing. She is an oncology nurse at Johns Hopkins Hospital. She also coaches varsity field hockey at her alma mater. The prospective groom is a 2006 graduate of Fallston High School. He is the Whole Goods Coordinator for Atlantic Tractor in Whiteford.

COLLEGE PARK -- This time, it's just not another game. This time, it's Syracuse, home of the Orangemen and alma mater of University of Maryland head football coach Joe Krivak."

They say you can't go home again, but that's just what CBS weather forecaster Mark McEwen did yesterday, and he got to take the country with him.He's bragged about his alma mater on the air for years, but the 1972 graduate got to show it off to viewers as he broadcast Monday's weather for "CBS This Morning" from inside his beloved Arundel High School.Anchors Harry Smith and Paula Zahn were at the Maryland Science Center.Mr. McEwen said they've been hearing him talk about the school, and his wrestling coach, for years.

Juan Dixon was still engaging a small group of local media at Verizon Center when his coach, the Toronto Raptors' Sam Mitchell, yelled from an adjoining hallway, "You played at University of Maryland, didn't you? They're not going to get far." "We're the hottest team in college basketball," Dixon responded to the ribbing. Quickly, Mitchell shot back: "They haven't won since you were there, right?" Dixon's answer, of course, was, no. "Oh, well," Mitchell said, turning away in mock dejection.

CHICAGO -- The date, Oct. 15, is one of college basketball's totems, the little box on the calendar that marks the opening of practice and symbolizes the dawning of a fresh season. But for Eddie Sutton, now in his first year at Oklahoma State, it is more. It is now, with him, a symbolic way to encapsulate the voyage he has traveled so recently.That voyage began one minute into the Oct. 15 of 1988, that minute his Kentucky team sprinted onto the floor of Lexington's old Memorial Coliseum and was greeted by a standing ovation from 10,000 delirious fans.

Robert Mack Bell arrived at Morgan State University in fall 1961 as a poor, skinny kid from East Baltimore. After a semester, he was hospitalized with tuberculosis.He returned in fall 1963 and took to his course work, finishing all but two credits by his senior year, graduating in 1966 and going on to Harvard Law School.Yesterday, during Morgan State's founders' day ceremonies, Bell gave his first major address since being named chief judge of the Maryland Court of Appeals two weeks ago.Bell recounted some of his humble beginnings and challenged the several hundred students assembled to use him as a role model.

After three seasons as a Ravens assistant coach, Rick Neuheisel is going home. Returning to his beloved college ranks and his alma mater, yesterday Neuheisel was named head coach of UCLA, the school he quarterbacked to a Rose Bowl victory in 1984. Neuheisel will be on the Ravens' sideline for today's regular-season finale against the Pittsburgh Steelers. "[The college game] is something that has been in my blood," Neuheisel said. "I've missed it the last five years." His five-year contract reportedly will pay him $1.25 million each season, plus incentives.

Maryvale Preparatory School, an all-girls Catholic school in Brooklandville, named Tracey Ford its president on Thursday. She will become the first lay leader in the school's 66-year history on July 1. Ford, 56, currently director of development at Towson University, will replace Sister Shawn Marie Maguire, a member of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, who is retiring after overseeing the school since 1981. A graduate of the University of Virginia, who holds a master of administrative science from Johns Hopkins' Carey Business School, Ford brings 25 years of experience in education to her new job. She also has worked with in other all girl-enrollment schools, including staff positions at St. Paul's School for Girls and Notre Dame Preparatory School, her own alma mater, and even had a brief stint as a trustee at Maryvale.

Jayne Miller , WBAL-TV's chief investigative reporter, might be taking on a new role shortly as a member of the board of trustees of Penn State University. The troubled school is expected to publish a ballot online later today with a slate on nominees for the board that runs the school, and Miller will likely be on it. The 1976 journalism graduate has been nominated by 50 Penn State alumni. "I really would like to do it," Miller said Wednesday morning when asked in a telephone interview whether or not she will serve on the board if alma mater calls.

Delaware's 19-6 rout of Detroit Mercy on Saturday kicked off the college lacrosse campaign, and ESPN analyst and former Syracuse midfielder Paul Carcaterra participated in a few conference calls Tuesday to prepare for the coming season. Carcaterra found some time in his packed scheduled to discuss interesting storylines. Were you surprised by the decision by Syracuse to join Pittsburgh in moving from the Big East to the Atlantic Coast Conference in 2014? I wasn't because I was able to have some information financially as to why it made sense for Syracuse as an athletic department to make that move.

With trembling hands, he reached for the phone and dialed the number. He was nervous, but his mind was clear. He was done with Maryland football. Finished. Three head coaches in three years had told him 300 different things, and none of them seemed able to give him a straight answer. He was going to put College Park in his rearview mirror and never look back. There were other schools that would take him, maybe even let him play quarterback again. He just needed an opportunity. Ralph Friedgen had only one thing left to do. It was time to break the news to The Bear . For as long as he could remember, people had given his father nicknames like "Big Ralph" and "Ice Box," but "The Bear " seemed most fitting, and with good reason.

As the chandeliers began to swing and the ceiling panels shifted to and fro, the interviewers seated around the hotel conference table seemed uncertain how to react. Was Baltimore really experiencing an earthquake? In the middle of a meeting vital to the future of Towson University? Maravene Loeschke probably had the most reason to be nervous. After all, she was the one interviewing for the presidency of her alma mater. But in her many years as an actor and director, Loeschke had seen performers nearly flattened by falling curtains and productions marred by rain pouring through the ceiling.

Nick Good-Malloy, a former All-County lineman at Annapolis, has left Glen Burnie to take over the football program at his alma mater. “Any time you have a chance to coach at your alma mater, that's an exciting opportunity,” Good-Malloy said. “Playing at Annapolis and growing up in the city of Annapolis, Annapolis High School is a place I take great pride in. I think there's a lot of potential and based on talking to athletic director [Dave] Gehrdes and Mr. [Donald] Lilley, the principal, they seem extremely focused on supporting the football program and getting things going in a great direction.” Gehrdes said he received a number of applications, but Good-Malloy was offered the position Tuesday.

It took 13 years for John Charles Linthicum to persuade his fellow Congressmen to declare "The Star-Spangled Banner" thenational anthem.But it took 97 years and a quirk of fate to get his portrait hung at his alma mater -- Towson State University, where a hall housing the university's College of Liberal Arts already had been named for him.Yesterday, the late Mr. Linthicum and his descendants, including 86-year-old nephew Sweetser Linthicum, were honored at...

The day Harriet Tubman High School's second graduating class celebrated its 40th reunion was the day it reclaimed its alma mater.Nearly a dozen graduates of Howard County's only all-black high school gathered on the school's steps yesterday to put up a banner with the school's name -- reclaiming their piece of history and righting a wrong.They say that when they were high-schoolers, the county school system was so against teaching blacks that it didn't even want to put the name on the building.

In an instant Russell and Kim Hurd went from planning their daughter's wedding to arranging her funeral. Nearly four years ago, Heather L. Hurd was killed by a tractor-trailer truck driver who was texting while driving and slammed into nine cars on a Florida highway. She was 26, engaged to be married and working at her dream job at Walt Disney World. The Harford County parents have channeled grief over the loss of their only daughter into activism that has helped spawn legislation against distracted driving.

The first day of practice for the St. Frances boys basketball team on Wednesday had a much different feel than expected. Coach Mark Karcher, a 1997 alum who is regarded as one of the finest players to ever come out of Baltimore, resigned suddenly Saturday after three seasons, leaving the school to announce on Wednesday morning that assistant coach Nick Myles has taken over the duties. Karcher, who turns 33 later this month, leaves his alma mater appreciating the time he spent coaching there, but also disappointed.