Reputation

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Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot called on Towson University President Maravene Loeschke to resign, saying her actions in attempting to cut the baseball and men's soccer teams represented "a lack of leadership that has done great damage to the school's reputation. " Franchot, who originally made the statement Wednesday morning at a Board of Public Works meeting in Annapolis, reiterated his feelings in a phone interview with The Baltimore Sun. Loeschke was scheduled to appear at the meeting but did not. Franchot said she had given a "phony excuse" for why she could not make the trip.

A Cockeysville real estate investor has filed a $60 million libel suit against The Sun and one of its reporters, alleging that an award-winning series that began last December ruined his reputation and crippled his business. James M. Stein, of the 12000 block of Happy Hollow Road, contends that the articles identifying him as a slumlord and a "silent real estate partner" of a convicted drug dealer were inaccurate and caused "catastrophic financial losses." The suit names Jim Haner, the reporter who wrote the articles, and The Sun as defendants.

As a Johns Hopkins University alumna, I am deeply disappointed in the school's decision to chide Dr. Benjamin Carson to the point that he has stepped down from delivering the commencement address to the graduating class ("Dr. Ben Carson steps down as speaker at Hopkins graduation," April 11). A university, especially one with Hopkins' vaunted reputation, should stand for the value of free speech in the marketplace of ideas and the respect for diversity that are the hallmarks of a free and civil society.

THE TERPS didn't culminate their dream football season with an Orange Bowl victory. But the state -- the Baltimore area in particular -- still has reason to celebrate a collegiate championship. We're talking grids here, not gridiron. And we're talking UMBC, which was recently crowned co-champion of the Pan-Am Intercollegiate Championship. The tournament is regarded as the biggest collegiate chess competition in the Western Hemisphere. UMBC has dominated the competition over a six-year period as no other university team has -- not Harvard, Yale or Columbia.

TORONTO -- Even though no out was recorded, last night's key play in Game 1 was one of two defensive gems turned in by Toronto Blue Jays second baseman Roberto Alomar. And it undoubtedly was the Philadelphia Phillies' scouting report that kept them from taking the lead on the play.It came in the sixth inning, with the score tied at 4 and the Phillies threatening to break the game open. Al Leiter had replaced erratic starter Juan Guzman and faced Mariano Duncan with runners on first and second and two out.Duncan lined a sharp bouncer up the middle on which Alomar made a sensational diving stop, preventing the ball from going into center field.

Shellie Seyer, a Long and Foster real estate agent, had almost closed the deal -- the house in Disney Estates was perfect for the young couple who were expecting their first child. There was only one glitch -- the less than stellar reputation of the local schools.The $225,000 house was in the Meade High School feeder system, a network of 12 schools in the western part of the county that has, over the years, developed a reputation for low academic performance and disruptive students, some of whom live in poverty.

Scott Nicholson wasn't surprised that his friends hadn't heard of the college he had chosen to attend, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. After all, he hadn't either until deep into his college search. "They didn't even know what I was talking about. They said, `University of Maryland, basketball, awesome!'" said the junior from Los Angeles, recalling how his friends confused UMBC with the state's flagship campus at College Park. "But now, that's changing a little bit." And how. These days, the school with the ungainly initials attracts widespread notice that eluded it for decades.

CLEVELAND -- There was a hyper-extended left elbow that put him on the disabled list in June and out of the All-Star Game at Jacobs Field. There is a partially torn tendon in his left knee that will require surgery after the season is over. There is a jammed shoulder hurt diving back on a pickoff play in Game 2 of the American League Championship Series.Things are back to normal for David Justice.Except for this: Justice is still playing.A reputation for not always playing hurt during his eight years with the Atlanta Braves has been overcome during his first season with the Cleveland Indians, largely due to the luxury of being used as a designated hitter.

WASHINGTON - David L. Gunn left a comfortable retirement in a brown saltbox home on the coast of Nova Scotia to take the helm of Amtrak a year ago last spring. Had they asked him to do it five years ago, he would have declined, he says. "I have a philosophy about this kind of situation, that until the problem is really serious, no one will really deal with it," he says. "It's serious. Actually, it's a little more serious than I thought." In more than 30 years in the railroad business, the 65-year-old Gunn has built a reputation for parachuting in on troubled rail systems - in New York, Philadelphia and Toronto - to slash costs, bolster infrastructure and set passenger trains right.

What if Facebook isn't the intrusive, all-seeing eye that we fear? What if it isn't just a place where workers waste time and young people post regrettable pictures of themselves? What if it is not just a stage for narcissists who think everything they say is funny and everything they do is important? What if isn't just a place where heartless teens wound each other? What if Facebook is an Internet bar where everybody knows your name, where you can go to feel better after a bad day?

Baltimore helped the avant-garde painter Max Weber forge a national reputation in 1915. Now, nearly 100 years later, this could be the city where the late artist begins his long-overdue comeback. It's not that critics and curators are unfamiliar with the Russian-born, Brooklyn-raised painter's work. As a new exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Art makes clear, Weber has long been considered one of the most significant American artists of the 20th century. But, at the peak of his career, Weber was a bona fide celebrity, with spreads in "Time," "Life," "Look" and 'The Saturday Evening Post.

Troubled former Louisiana State star cornerback Tyrann Mathieu is painfully aware of just how much he's damage he's inflicted on his reputation with potential NFL employers, and how his many transgressions with drugs have cost him financially. Mathieu's dollar-value estimate on what he's done to his draft stock? Millions of dollars. Along with several other NFL draft prospects hoping to rebuild their stock after off-field issues, Mathieu is hoping he'll be given a chance to redeem himself at the professional level after positive drug tests ended his college career.

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When the Ravens won the Super Bowl in 2001 and Ray Lewis, as MVP, got a new SUV, he didn't want just a plain, ordinary one. He wanted icing on that cake. So Lewis took his prize to the Belair Road body shop that has become the go-to place for Baltimore notables to trick their rides. No Limit turned that burgundy GMC Denali white, embroidered the names of Lewis' children onto the head rests and made it so when the famously devout defenseman popped the hatch, a light would come on, showing off the Lord's Prayer inscribed inside.

Legg Mason Inc. plans to lay off an undisclosed number of employees as it folds its once high-profile Legg Mason Capital Management unit in Baltimore into a much larger investment division based in New York. Capital Management rose to fame under star money manager Bill Miller, whose Legg Mason Value Trust fund made headlines year after year for beating its stock market benchmark. Though Capital Management's investment team will remain at Legg's headquarters in Harbor East, the merger is a symbolic loss for the city.

PHILADELPHIA - It is a few minutes after practice, and Terrell Owens is sitting on a black leather couch, telling a visitor why he thinks it's too late to change his image as one of the NFL's most controversial players. Speaking barely above a whisper, he seems nothing like the trash-talker he was labeled during his days with the San Francisco 49ers. Now with the Philadelphia Eagles after rejecting an offseason trade to the Ravens, he leans back on the couch in an office at their training complex and shakes his head.

A crowd gathered in the lobby of Howard Community College's new 105,000-square-foot instructional lab building last month to watch a group of students cut the ceremonial ribbon. "We stand here in our brand-new building ... but we don't stop," said Roger N. Caplan, chairman of the board of trustees. "Now we're looking to just the other side of the quad," he said, where builders will break ground for a nearly $20 million arts and humanities building in the spring. Students, faculty, staff and supporters are thrilled to have the school's first new classroom, office and computer lab space in a decade.

Of this, there is not much debate: no one in sports has mastered the pregame speech like Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis. And his gift for hyper intense gab - the way he builds to furious crescendo, cajoling those listening to rise up against an enemy that has always committed the ultimate sin of underestimating him and his brethren - will continue to make him money. Whether or not he opts to take on a broadcast role - which can be time consuming - Lewis will spend part of his future getting paid to talk.

COLLEGE PARK -- No one knew quite what to make of Alex Len when he arrived at the University of Maryland a year ago. On the one hand, he was a 7-foot-1 center with enough athletic ability to execute a perfect cartwheel before dunking the basketball at Maryland's Midnight Madness celebration. On the other, he was a kid who spoke so little English that he sometimes struggled with coaching instructions, who appeared timid when jostled by the well-muscled inside players of the Atlantic Coast Conference.