terrapinsanity.com

The Washington Post coverage begain:

At a bar named Looney’s, more than a week after just about every other major high school player announced his college choice, in a circus-like atmosphere, the University of Maryland football program landed its biggest recruit in years when Good Counsel’s Stefon Diggs announced his intention to play in College Park.

Really? At a bar?

Is there any more effective way to promote a party atmosphere on campus than to bring high school draft picks to a local watering hole to announce his plans to play football at College Park? Forget the wink and nod – way too subtle. Set the party at a student hang out immediately adjacent campus and make sure you have a packed house. Have the athletic foundation pick up tabs on food and drink. (Not to worry, we can cancel another low-priority sport to pay for it.) Make sure your coaches do media reports from there too. Go Terps!

Does this mean the campus now wants professors to recruit scholars from, say, Montgomery Blair High School science magnet program by partying with them at local bars? Huh, wonder what local principals would think about that. Didn’t the faculty senate just have a long discussion about the problems of promoting underage drinking? None of that particularly seems relevant any more.

Yes, campus leaders are changing the environment. Yesterday they got coveted statewide media coverage at the Sun, featuring photos of the most famous UM alumni. Number four on the list, ahead of legislator/scholar Tom McMillen or even Jim Henson? Len Bias, whose claim to fame is his death of a cocaine overdose while partying after being recruited to play basketball by the Celtics.

Now that’s some serious partying, and recruiting high school athletes like Stefon Diggs in local bars seems like we are trying to keep up the tradition. Maybe someday Diggs will be just as famous as Bias.