Debbie Yow

COLLEGE PARK -- The University of Maryland today named Debbie Yow as its new athletic director. Ms. Yow signed a five-year contract with the Terrapins with a base salary of $130,000 per year.Ms. Yow, who compiled an impressive record as a women's basketball coach early in her career, has been athletic director at Saint Louis University since 1990.A native of North Carolina, Ms. Yow, 42, was the first coach in NCAA history to lead previously unranked women's basketball teams at three different Division I schools to a Top 20 ranking.

Maryland has yet to respond to the Atlantic Coast Conference's pre-emptive lawsuit seeking to force the school to pay a $52 million exit fee as it prepares to join the Big Ten Conference. Not that university president Wallace D. Loh has ever wavered in his belief that the increased fee would be interpreted as a punishment by the courts and therefore an illegal restraint of trade. He was one of two ACC presidents who voted against its implementation in September. He's got an ally in that belief.

MIAMI - Shortly after Debbie Yow settled in as the University of Maryland's athletic director in 1994, rumors began to circulate that she would log a few years in College Park, then leave for a better job. Instead, Yow has turned the stewardship of Maryland sports into one of those better jobs. Yow spent 18 years working at five colleges across the Midwest and South before arriving at Maryland, where most Terrapins teams were struggling to succeed in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Now, she ranks third among the ACC's nine athletic directors in seniority, and Maryland is enjoying its greatest athletic success since the mid-1970s.

Kevin Anderson has taken his share of criticism since coming from Army to Maryland 27 months ago. The athletic director got off to a rocky start with Maryland fans - and many in the local media - for the clumsy way he handled the firing of Ralph Friedgen in December 2010 and the subsequent hiring a few days later of Randy Edsall as the school's football coach. And that was before the Terps were a disastrous 2-10 in Edsall's first season. Then there was the cutting of seven sports to help trim a multi-million dollar deficit Anderson inherited from his predecessor, Debbie Yow. Given the timing of the announcement - in the middle of that nightmarish 2011 football season - Anderson became something of an easy target.

A 17-member search committee has begun meeting to select the University of Maryland's next athletic director. "We're having a meeting today," committee member Len Elmore, a former Maryland and NBA basketball player, said in an interview Thursday. The committee will recommend a replacement for Debbie Yow, who left Maryland on July 10 to take the same position at North Carolina State. Elmore said he expected the committee would act in an advisory capacity to the university's next president.

Maryland has yet to respond to the Atlantic Coast Conference's pre-emptive lawsuit seeking to force the school to pay a $52 million exit fee as it prepares to join the Big Ten Conference. Not that university president Wallace D. Loh has ever wavered in his belief that the increased fee would be interpreted as a punishment by the courts and therefore an illegal restraint of trade. He was one of two ACC presidents who voted against its implementation in September. He's got an ally in that belief.

Maryland has extended the contract of athletic director Debbie Yow for two years through 2004, the university announced yesterday."Debbie Yow is doing a terrific job managing one of the most complex and most successful athletic programs in the nation," said Maryland president C. D. Mote Jr."She has excelled in fiscal management, competitive results and in compliance. More importantly, she has excelled as a leader, ensuring that we can take great pride in all the coaches and athletes who represent the University of Maryland."

Sandra Kay Yow is the name her mother, Elizabeth, and her father, Hilton, gave her 62 years ago. There's another name by which the world knows her: Coach. North Carolina State women's basketball coach. Olympic gold-medal-winning coach. Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame coach. Coach. "I think, like a lot of people who coach, the thing you think of first is being a coach. It's not Sandra Kay Yow, it's Coach Yow. Once a coach, you're always referred to as Coach by so many people. It's really hard to separate that part of your identity."

Since Maryland athletic director Debbie Yow took over six years ago, she and her sister Kay, the women's basketball coach at N.C State, have always found time for lunch on Kay's visits to Maryland. Debbie Yow was out of town yesterday on Atlantic Coast Conference business, but her sister still found Cole Field House hospitable enough, escaping with a 74-66 win over the Terps. "Sometimes, when you play family, that makes it even tougher. This is the first time I've ever played here that we didn't spend some time together," said Kay Yow. The 11th-ranked Wolfpack (19-4, 10-2 in the ACC)

The Maryland football team is set to open five weeks of spring practice today, culminating with the annual Red-White game April 24. The Terps return 12 starters from last year's team that went 2-10, losing its last seven games. That team had a relatively small senior class - 14 players, compared with 30 the previous year - and played 24 freshmen. Maryland, which opens with Navy on Sept. 6 at M&T Bank Stadium, will practice three times a week until the spring game April 24 at 3:30 p.m. at Byrd Stadium.

William & Mary, Sept. 1 : Pssst, nobody wants to talk about it, but Maryland enters the season with an eight-game losing streak hanging around -- like a nagging cold -- from last year. No win is guaranteed, but the largely inexperienced Terps and their coaches are likely happy to open the year against a Colonial Athletic Association team rather than a major-conference team like California, which routed Maryland, 52-13, in the 2009 opener. William & Mary lost its all-time rushing leader, Jonathan Grimes, and is picked seventh in the CAA by the media.

As a reporter, you are taught to keep your opinions out of the stories you write. But the blogosphere has allowed certain freedoms that didn't exist before. As someone who has covered and followed University of Maryland athletics since coming to The Baltimore Sun more than 25 years ago, I have the unique perspective of not only comparing coaches but athletic directors as well. I think it's too soon to judge Kevin Anderson's tenure in College Park, but in talking with Anderson for a story that appeared on the Sun's website Wednesday night and in the newspaper on Thursday, my feelings for the job he has done over the past 18 months have certainly changed.

The first months of a college athletic director's tenure are typically spent getting a feel for the landscape. For Maryland athletic director Kevin Anderson, his first seven months included leading a major overhaul that included the messy divorce with a popular football coach who also happens to be an alum and the sudden retirement of one of the country's most respected men's basketball coaches. Add to that the decision to eliminate as many as eight teams. A little more than a year after Anderson replaced Debbie Yow, and you get a feeling of - if not quite have some sympathy for - what he has faced since coming here from Army in October of 2010.

Maryland's decision to name the Comcast Center court for its all-time winningest men's basketball coach, Gary Williams, was bumpier than the public knew and came despite the objections from the coach with the second most wins in program history - Lefty Driesell. Driesell recently detailed his concerns in an email to chancellor William "Brit" Kirwan. The retired coach, 80, emphasized that he was not advocating for his own name on the court, nor that of any coach. "It's not fair to my players that they would put Gary Williams' name on the court," Driesell said Tuesday.

In September 2009, Maryland held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for its new Tyser Tower, a $50.8 million football stadium modernization project that included 63 luxury suites with bars and flat-screen TVs. It was telling that a university official told the audience of dignitaries and boosters that suites "are still available if you want to call me afterwards. " More than two years later, 20 luxury suites and nearly 200 mezzanine seats remain unsold, and the financially disappointing Byrd Stadium tower project looms as an important factor in the severe budget crunch that caused a university commission to recommend the elimination of multiple athletic teams.

With Maryland opening at Byrd Stadium Monday night against Miami, here is a game-by-game look at the Terps ' season: • Miami, Monday night: Maryland has eyed a rematch since dropping a 26-20 game to Hurricanes in which Terps DBs Dexter McDougle and Kenny Tate got embarrassed by a late TD pass last season. That was before Miami's program was engulfed by news of a booster bearing gifts. • West Virginia (Sept. 17): It will be Maryland's second game in a row against a team with a new coach (Dana Holgorsen)

North Carolina State athletic director Debbie Yow, who feuded with men's basketball coach Gary Williams while holding the same position at Maryland, has accused Williams of sabotaging the Wolfpack's recent search for a new men's basketball coach. "I don’t have a reputation across all men’s basketball as being difficult to work with," Yow said during today's press conference introducing coach Mark Gottfried. "I have a reputation of not getting along with Gary Williams, who has tried to sabotage the search.

As a reporter, you are taught to keep your opinions out of the stories you write. But the blogosphere has allowed certain freedoms that didn't exist before. As someone who has covered and followed University of Maryland athletics since coming to The Baltimore Sun more than 25 years ago, I have the unique perspective of not only comparing coaches but athletic directors as well. I think it's too soon to judge Kevin Anderson's tenure in College Park, but in talking with Anderson for a story that appeared on the Sun's website Wednesday night and in the newspaper on Thursday, my feelings for the job he has done over the past 18 months have certainly changed.

Shortly after the news broke Thursday that Maryland basketball coach Gary Williams was retiring, Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon of ESPN's "Pardon the Interruption" discussed his legacy. Both hosts covered Williams for years when they worked for The Washington Post and said that they consider him a friend, so they obviously had high praise for the outgoing coach. "I thought it might come in another year or two, but when your best player, who, by the way, has no business trying to go to the NBA," Wilbon said, referencing Jordan Williams, who just announced that he is entering the NBA draft.

Longtime Maryland basketball coach Gary Williams explained his sudden decision to retire Thursday in terms that anybody could understand, and — with all due respect for his Hall of Fame-worthy career — I still don't understand it. "It's the right time," he said in a news release. Frankly, I can't think of a worse time, either for the coaching legend that is Gary Williams at Maryland or the Terrapins men's basketball program that he pulled out of the ashes 22 years ago and maintained at a level of national prominence for nearly a generation.