Athletic Director

Two members of the state university system's Board of Regents yesterday urged an end to the "unhealthy" infighting between Maryland men's basketball coach Gary Williams and athletic department managers over two former recruits. One board member called the public bickering a "fiasco." Another said flatly, "It just needs to stop." "This stuff has got to get settled because it's hurting everybody," said Tom McMillen, a regent who served in Congress after playing basketball at Maryland and in the NBA. "It's very unhealthy to see these kinds of struggles get into the paper," said McMillen, who frequently attends Terrapins games.

College Park -- University of Maryland scholarship athletes recorded a 78 percent graduation success rate - the athletic department's highest in the past three years and above the national average - according to data released by the NCAA yesterday for athletes who entered school between 1997 and 2000 and graduated within the NCAA's six-year window. Though the Terps' GSR increased two percentage points from the previous two years, there were only two schools in the Atlantic Coast Conference - North Carolina State and Georgia Tech - with lower scores.

The sounds and sights around the Boys' Latin baseball field and the makeshift batting cages are a relentless ping, ping, ping of balls making contact with aluminum bats combined with the image of balls flying through the air or on the ground or trapped against netting. Eventually, though, the eyes and ears are drawn to the sight of a man with flecks of gray hair around where his baseball cap fits on his head, holding a fungo bat, taped heavily around the barrel. And the sound coming from the bat is immediately foreign, but ultimately familiar, that of wood meeting horsehide, probably the way God intended it and certainly the way Mike Bordick has always known the game.

Future football games between Maryland and Navy are once again a possibility, as the athletic directors of both schools agreed yesterday to reconsider scheduling a game in Baltimore on Sept. 4, 2010, and another in 2014. Maryland athletic director Debbie Yow and Navy athletic director Chet Gladchuk said yesterday that they would like to play the games but just need to agree on financial terms. "I called Chet and we have agreed to continue discussions about the possibility of a Maryland-Navy football game," Yow said.

During Jerry Molyneaux's 20 years as coach of the track programs at Western, the Doves captured three state titles and 16 Baltimore City championships outdoors, and every city title indoors going back to the early '90s. Now, Molyneaux is starting with a clean slate and in a new place. Molyneaux left Western to take over as athletic director at Northwestern this fall. He'll be coaching the girls and trying to revitalize the school's long-dormant track and field program, while hoping to give a spark to the entire Northwestern athletic scene.

J. Richard Carpenter, Western Maryland College's athletic director for the past 15 years, has announced his resignation, effective July 1.Carpenter, 52, will retain his position as professor of physical education and exercise science, and will coordinate the department's graduate program, college officials said. He was hired at Western Maryland as a physical education instructor in 1969."There has been an evolution in college athletics over the past several years," Carpenter said in a statement.

Dave Gehrdes will have some big shoes to fill when he assumes the position of Annapolis High athletic director at the end of this school year.Gehrdes has been named by a four-member committee to succeed an Annapolis legend in Fred Stauffer and will give up coaching boys soccer and wrestling, but retain the head girls lacrosse position. Anne Arundel County regulations allow an athletic director to coach only one sport.Stauffer, a county institution, first came to Annapolis in 1963 as a math teacher.

Tomorrow the final day for submitting applications for the 17th The Sun's All-Anne Arundel County Academic-Athletic Team. Ten boys and 10 girls will be selected and honored at a banquet June 3 at Michael's Eighth Avenue in Glen Burnie.Each of the 20 outstanding student/athletes will receive a plaque, and two overall winners, one boy and one girl, will receive $5,000 scholarships from Times Mirror and The Baltimore Sun.The 20 team members will be profiled here before the banquet, which is open to the public.

While it is "no way etched in stone," the proposed new boys and girls basketball schedule for next year is rather interesting, according to Marlene Kelly, Anne Arundel County coordinator of physical education.The proposal is a dramatic change from the current schedule and sets up an in-county tournament of sorts, with all 12 public schools participating on county championship day.Devised by Southern athletic director and boys basketball coach Tom Albright and Annapolis athletic director Fred Stauffer, the concept also would be used for baseball and softball, with the other sports staying the same.

Brad Best, who turned a small Catholic school known for lacrosse into a county football power, and Mike Codd are switching football positions at St. Mary's High in Annapolis.With increasing duties as the Saints' athletic director, Best resigned yesterday as head football coach after 10 seasons and elevated his longtime assistant Codd to head coach, a position Codd held once before.Best compiled a 59-41 record (.590) with the Saints and won Maryland Interscholastic Association A Conference tri-championships in 1995 and 1996 and a C Conference tri-championship in 1990.

Men's college basketball Reggie Williams named coach of Chesapeake College Former Dunbar High and Georgetown star Reggie Williams has been named coach at Chesapeake College, a community college in Wye Mills in Talbot County. Williams, 45, was hired Monday to replace John Mappas, who guided the Skipjacks to an NJCAA Region XX championship in 2008 but retired last week because of family considerations. Williams became available when Towson Catholic closed in July; he had been hired as boys coach in May. Williams, who played 10 NBA seasons, coached the Washington Justice of the National Rookie League - at that time an unaffiliated minor league for the NBA - to the 2000 championship.

Playing special teams might be the closest a man will get to a game of human pinball. For the most part, it's the lowest rung on the NFL food chain, where rookies bide their time until they earn the right to start, and where undrafted free agents scratch and claw to prove they belong. The best special teams players sacrifice their bodies on a regular basis, and it's not a surprise that every kickoff or punt ends in a tangled pile of limbs and shoulder pads. Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo is a millionaire because he does it about as well as anyone in football.

George H. Gernand, longtime Dulaney High School athletic director who led the Lions to a regional lacrosse championship in 1976, died Sunday of prostate cancer at Gilchrist Hospice Care. He was 82. Mr. Gernand was born and raised in Union Bridge. After graduating in 1944 from the old Elmer A. Wolfe High School, he enlisted in the Navy. "He enlisted on his 17th birthday," said a daughter, Leslie Baldacci of Chicago. Mr. Gernand served in the Pacific as a gunner's mate aboard the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown during the last year of the war. After being discharged, he enrolled at Springfield College in Springfield, Mass.

Two members of the state university system's Board of Regents yesterday urged an end to the "unhealthy" infighting between Maryland men's basketball coach Gary Williams and athletic department managers over two former recruits. One board member called the public bickering a "fiasco." Another said flatly, "It just needs to stop." "This stuff has got to get settled because it's hurting everybody," said Tom McMillen, a regent who served in Congress after playing basketball at Maryland and in the NBA. "It's very unhealthy to see these kinds of struggles get into the paper," said McMillen, who frequently attends Terrapins games.

Charles Richard Gamper, a retired Gilman School teacher, athletics director and coach, died Tuesday of cancer at the Pickersgill retirement community in Towson. He was 89. He also headed the old Maryland Scholastic Association, the sports league that governed private, public and Catholic high school sports. "He was the quintessential teacher-coach," Gilman Headmaster John E. Schmick said. "He was a man of great principles and integrity." Born in Halethorpe and raised in Philadelphia, he played football at the Culver Military Academy in Indiana and earned an education degree at the University of Pennsylvania, where he played football on a team in an intercollegiate league for players weighing no more than 150 pounds.

Arundel girls basketball coach Lee Rogers has been named the school's athletic director, taking over for Bernie Walter. This summer, Walter, the school's longtime baseball coach, stepped down as athletic director after 27 years. Rogers, who has led the Wildcats to three state titles and the past six county championships in his 19 seasons, will remain girls basketball coach. "Bernie left us off very well, and we're just trying to pick up where he left off," said Rogers, who said fellow coaches, parents and boosters have been supportive in the transition.

Schumacher named AD of the Year Diane Schumacher, athletic director at Howard Community College, has been named Athletic Director of the Year by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics. She is one of 30 athletic directors from four geographic regions to receive the award. Candidates must have served as athletic directors for at least five academic years. They were judged on their demonstrated commitment to higher education and student athletes, teamwork, loyalty and excellence, and their ability to inspire individuals or groups to high levels of achievement.

If only this were really about second chances. I have little doubt that Maryland's athletic director and its men's basketball coach spend most of their time operating on the same page. They both want to win. They want athletes in class. They want them to stay out of trouble. For the better part of 14 years, whatever battles they had remained relatively minor. As long as shared goals, expectations and standards remained consistent, life at Comcast Center rolled on. But what we have this week doesn't feel like a simple misunderstanding or just another blip in the relationship.

The Archbishop Spalding boys and girls athletic teams are having quite a spring. No other metro-area school is ranked in all four of the spring's major polls - baseball, softball, boys and girls lacrosse - as the Cavaliers are. Each of the four teams plays in the A Conference of either the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association (boys) or Interscholastic Athletic Association of Maryland (girls). The golf team is competing for an MIAA B Conference title, as is the undefeated tennis team.

Few high school careers end the way Bubby Graham's did. The Annapolis wrestler won his third consecutive state title with his 97th straight victory last weekend at the University of Maryland, College Park. The senior was 36-0 this season, his last win a pin of North Harford's Tom Stewart in the Class 4A-3A 160-pound state final. It was his third pin in four state bouts. It made Graham one of four area wrestlers who were undefeated state champions. Graham had a career record of 121-8, including his 32-0 junior season at 152 pounds.