Some Maryland alums, boosters side with Lefty on court naming

Before you write off Lefty Driesell as a crank, maybe it helps to understand that he's not the only person with ties to the University of Maryland who isn't happy about the school naming its basketball court after former coach Gary Williams.

Driesell's complaints smack of resentment, especially if you don't know the entire story, which includes published allegations that somebody with very deep pockets might have influenced the decision to honor Williams.

Driesell must have known he was exposing himself to criticism when he wrote an email to Maryland Chancellor Brit Kirwan expressing his displeasure with Kirwan's decision to create "Gary Williams Court" at the Comcast Center. But for what it's worth, there are disgruntled alumni and boosters just as worked up over it.

"I don't have anything against Gary," Driesell said Thursday from his Virginia Beach condo, when asked about stories that originally ran in the Washington Post and Baltimore Sun prior to the court ceremonies.

"I'm not knocking Gary. He won the national championship. But I don't think anyone's name should be on the court."

Working out of Cole Field House, it was Lefty, starting in 1969, who lifted Maryland basketball off the scrapheap and carried it to national prominence over 17 years.

Williams became Maryland's winningest coach over a span of 22 seasons, the past several spent dining out on the 2002 NCAA title.

Driesell, who turned 80 on Christmas Day, argues that "Gary Williams Court" is "sort of an insult" to his former players, and also to Williams' players.

"They're the people that really put Maryland on the map in basketball," he said.

You could just as easily make the same argument about courts named after Duke's Mike Krzyzewski, Syracuse's Jim Boeheim, Oklahoma State's Eddie Sutton or Tennessee's Pat Summitt. At North Carolina, Dean Smith's name is affixed to an entire arena.

Driesell, whose 786 victories make him ninth all-time among Division I coaches, is the only coach in NCAA history to win 100 games at four different colleges, and one of only four coaches to take four different schools to the NCAA tournament.

Driesell's last coaching stop was at Georgia State, a program that couldn't fog a mirror before he took the team to the 2001 NCAA tournament, where it upset Wisconsin.

Though he coached there less than six seasons, the school named its court after Driesell upon his retirement.

Court-naming is a fairly recent craze, and Maryland is following the trend. But for those who stand with the Lefthander in protest, one big sticking point is the dismal academic record of Williams' players. In his last 15 years at Maryland, only 21.4 percent of his players graduated. It was the fifth-worst graduation rate in Division I, according to the NCAA.

Driesell's player graduation rate at Maryland was much higher - he claims 84 percent - and he's always been proud of coaching Tom McMillen, a Rhodes Scholar, and Len Elmore, who went on to graduate from Harvard Law School.

Clearly, coaches don't get courts named after them because of how many players graduate, but charges of hypocrisy flew when Kirwan, who serves as co-chair of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, championed Williams. It's the Knight Commission, after all, that advocates that teams with graduation rates below 50 percent be barred from postseason.

Meanwhile, members of the Maryland Board of Regents told the Sun that as they met to discuss whether the floor should be named for Williams, they were told of a large financial gift that could be tied to their decision.

Kirwan denies that any money is involved, but people will think what they want about an athletic program in such bad financial straits that it recently dropped eight sports.

Arguments in favor of "Gary Williams Court" are many. He retired as the third-winningest ACC coach behind Krzyzewski and Smith. He took Maryland to a pair of Final Fours. His admirers note that he rescued the program after Len Bias' drug-related death, Driesell's departure and three seasons with Bob Wade that resulted in NCAA sanctions.

Williams retired last spring after missing out on the NCAA tournament too many times in recent years. But this week, he returned to see his name emblazoned on the Maryland court.

"It's going to stay on there forever," Driesell said.

Bob Molinaro, 757-446-2373, bob.molinaro@pilotonline.com

Twitter@BobMolinaro