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The chairman of the board of directors of the University of Maryland, Maryland, on Wednesday defended the decision of the governing body to retain the services of the head coach and sports director of the University of Maryland, despite the death of offensive lineman Jordan McNair and the subsequent investigation of ubiquitous problems.
In an interview with the Baltimore Sun editorial board, James T. Brady said the regents had followed a "thorough process" before deciding that coach DJ Durkin and sports director Damon Evans deserved to keep their posts well. paid at the top of the country's priorities. most visible department.
University president Wallace Loh announced his resignation in June. Brady said that decision was made by Loh, despite several reports pointing in the opposite direction.
In the past 24 hours, the revolt has erupted on campus and in the political sphere. Many people wonder why the people most closely linked to the football team should stay on campus while the university president goes away. Brady said at a press conference that all three shared responsibility for widespread dysfunction in the sports department, but dismissed the idea that this malfunction had led to McNair's death.
"From the beginning, we knew that no matter what answer we could find, an element of controversy would result. It's a complicated question and I understand everyone's concerns about everything related to it, "said Brady in his interview with The Sun. "I think the process we went through was an excellent process."
Brady strongly defended Durkin, saying the 40-year-old was a young coach who was not properly trained or hired by supervisors when he took over the Terps football team.
"When DJ arrived, he did not get all the help he needed. Being a head coach of a college football team in 2018, as part of a big conference like the Big Ten, is a big job, "said Brady.
After the Regents met Durkin in person last week, they determined he was "a good man and a good coach," ready to take on the formidable challenge of bringing together a fractured team. Brady said Loh had mentioned that Durkin would likely face additional difficulties in recruiting players and convincing their families to join the troubled program.
"It was a problem we had too, but a problem that we thought we could deal with," said Brady. "We had this conversation with him and we were convinced that he was ready to take up this challenge and achieve it successfully.
"We want to give him the opportunity to do things right," he said.
The Regents oversaw two reports – initially requested by Loh – who were evaluating the football program after McNair's death from heat stroke as a result of a football training at College Park.
The first survey was commissioned to review the sports department's procedures and protocols the day McNair became ill. The investigation, led by Dr. Rod Walters, a sports medicine consultant, revealed that the staff had made many mistakes, including not plunging McNair into cold water, which experts say would be the best practices and could have saved his life. The report determined that the trainers had failed to move the immersion tanks into the field because the practice site had changed at the last minute.
The second survey focused on the culture of the football team, following an explosive article published by ESPN that described the atmosphere as "toxic". A commission of eight people later discovered that the football program "favored a culture in which problems spread because too many players were afraid to express themselves".
His report of about 200 pages brought to light cases of mental and physical abuse of players and looked into two years of problems within the sports department. The commission found that the department "lacked a culture of responsibility" and suffered frequent staff changes, dissensions and internal conflicts.
For a transcript of The Sun interview with Brady, click here.
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