Athletic Director

To squelch a rampant rumor that has been circulating in football and county athletic circles, Brad Best has no plans to resign as football coach and athletic director at St. Mary's in Annapolis.Best, Saints' coach for the past 10 years (59-41, .590), led them to their greatest season in 1996 (8-2). That year they won the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association A Conference championship and finished No. 1 in The Sun's Top 15 for the first time.Best also was named The Sun's county and metro Coach of the Year in 1996.

Maryland athletic director Kevin Anderson said Friday that he has faith in the direction and leadership of the Terps' football program and that he was encouraged by the team's performance in the final game of a difficult, injury-ravaged 4-8 season. “I feel confident that we're moving this program in the right direction,” Anderson said. Maryland lost its last six games. Anderson, who likes to take the pulse of the team on road trips, traveled to the University of North Carolina for the final game.

Mike Williams, a former social studies teacher, coach and athletic director at Glenelg High School, says the groundwork is in place for him to return to his old school.Williams, who left Glenelg nearly a decade ago to pursue a master's degree, and later taught at OaklandMills High School, replaces Chuck Struhar as Glenelg's athletic director.Struhar stepped down from the position last week after four years."I feel it's a real advantage that Chuck has been here. Everything is organized," says Williams, 40. "It's not a matter of coming in here and fixing anything.

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.

Dick Filbert, the school's longtime gymnastics coach, said last night that Towson University most likely will drop women's gymnastics and four minor men's sports in September, but the athletic director said that no such decision has been made. The four men's sports that appear on the way out are swimming, cross country, outdoor track and field and indoor track and field, Filbert said. "I've had an inkling this was coming for three years," said Filbert, who is in his 22nd year as the Tigers' gymnastics coach.

The former athletic director of Baltimore County's Carver Center for the Arts and Technology who admitted sexually abusing a 15-year-old female student was given a suspended jail term and four years of probation yesterday.Stuart Price Tarlton, 36, of Finksburg, who was reassigned to a nonteaching position in April after he was charged, told Circuit Judge Robert E. Cadigan that he was pleading guilty because he is guilty.Despite his guilty plea, 10 prominent character witnesses testified in the sentencing phase that followed that Tarlton is innocent, and the courtroom was filled with supporters.

THEY'RE GIVING thanks for more than turkey and trimmings at College Park this week. University of Maryland students, boosters and fans are grateful that athletic director Debbie Yow hired Ralph Friedgen as the Terrapins' head football coach around last Thanksgiving. Mr. Friedgen had been passed over for head coaching jobs several times. Now, many athletic directors must be shaking their heads. He has worked wonders in his first year, raising expectations along with his team's status.

When Howard County athletic directors left their monthly meeting Tuesday at Hammond, they had agreed that teams would not practice next Tuesday and Wednesday during exam week.But that has changed.Principals at Glenelg and Mount Hebron have decided to allow their teams one-hour practices each day. The eight other schools will abide by an agreement made at the athletic directors' meeting and not practice."It's disappointing to hear that we're not in unity," Hammond athletic director Bob Maxey said yesterday.

The Howard County school board voted unanimously yesterday to reinstate the former athletic director of Oakland Mills High School in Columbia, who was suspended after he was implicated in a grade-changing scandal that forced the football team to forfeit a playoff game and its seven regular-season victories. In making its decision, the school board rejected the recommendation of John R. O'Rourke, then superintendent, that Kenneth O. Hovet Jr., who also coached the football team, be fired.

Coaches like to say that things are never as bad as they seem nor asgood as they appear, and that pretty much applies to most of what happens in sports.Everything that is with the exception of being anAnne Arundel County high school athletic director. Things are as badas they seem.That's the reason we lost another quality person as a county athletic director this week in Broadneck's Kevin McMullen. McMullen, who succeeded his older brother, Tim, has announced his resignation effective the end of this school year after just one year on the thanklessjob.