[NU Sports] Ron V at Maryland

[Roy Lamberton]

Since I drive around listening to the radio station that carried Maryland games
until this year, and have in-laws who are huge Maryland fans, I thought I'd try
to explain some of the talk that I heard regarding Ron Vanderlinden's early
dismissal from Maryland a few years ago [anyway, to the best of my knowledge].

1. The powers that be at MD didn't like the way the team was playing. They'd
recruited a lot of stud HS kids from Maryland, but the team was mediocre at
best. They couldn't beat anyone important.

2. The players didn't think they had to go to class. After Fridge was hired, he
had a rule that you had to go and if you cut a class you had to run the football
stands at 6 AM. He told the story about the first week he was there, it seemed
that most of the football team was out there running the grandstand. By the end
of the semester, there was one kid left. He told this on one of the radio
Coach's show on WBAL.

3. The new AD at Maryland saw a chance to hire an alum who had a reputation for
building an offense, and who was very good at working with alumni, just the way
they had resurrected the Basketball program a few years before.

4. I gather that the alums weren't very forthcoming with money to improve the
stadium at Maryland during Vanderlinden's tenure. The Fridge was able to get
enough money to make major renovations his first year.

5. Vanderlinden used to get very angry on WBAL during his coach's show at some
of the call-in questions. Quite frankly he sounded very arrogant at times,
talked down to some of the callers [they were the same guys, so he was probably
tired of their questions], and could sound pretty hostile, while talking to fans
on a radio station that covers all of MD during the day, and most of the
north-east at night. 

He started the Maryland-Vanderlinden school of coach radio shows - MD's
basketball coach will also get surly at times, but then he's won a national
championship and beaten Duke at home.

6. Fridge is 10x better at working the alumni - he holds a football breakfast
for season ticket holders on Friday before each home games and answers questions
until the fans are done. [My in-laws go every week] He's always personable,
open, and in their opinion friendly and funny. I get the impression from my
in-laws, long time Maryland fans, that Vanderlinden was not that way.

7. Vanderlinden did recruit well while at Maryland, but just couldn't win the
"big" games against the top of the ACC. His tenure coincided with the rise of
Virginia Tech, the rebirth of Georgia Tech and improvements at many of the ACC
teams. Quite honestly, it looked like Maryland, another team located in a top
media market, just wasn't going to get any better, regardless of how well the
coach recruited.

8. Remember too that Pat Fitzgerald was a grad assistant at Maryland, but left
very quickly to return to Colorado. He admits to having been on the MD staff,
but doesn't talk much about his time in College Park, at least not the way he
talks about his other assistant coach positions. I don't think he enjoyed his
time here on the East Coast, but that's an impression, not fact.

To his credit, Ron Vanderlinden did some amazing things with the NU defense, and
remember he did them with the same D-Back coach that we have now. Gary B's teams
since 1996/97 have not been as good defensively as they were with Van, but the
PSU defense with him as an assistant is as good as they've been in years. 

Turning to the record book - 
NU's defense was on the losing end of 8 games in 1992, 9 games in 93, and 7 in
94 before turning the corner in 1995, and continuing in 1996. Our present DC has
been here 3 years, his teams lost 7 games in 2003, 6 in 2004 and 4 this year.
Statistically, Colby is ahead of Van heading into his 4th year. I'm not sure
where either coordinator is in regards to yards allowed, etc, but under Colby's
first 3 years, NU is 5 wins better than during Van's first 3 years. 

Anyway, remember that OUR football coach is under contract until 2007. 

I think all the hire/fire/renew/don't renew talk is just a little premature when
you're talking about 3 6 win seasons, a 7-4 record, and 2 years left on a
contract, don't you? Or are you fire Walker guys confusing us with that other
"NU" a few states over?

Go Cats

rsl

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Roy S. Lamberton - Senior Associate
Computer Applications & Support Associates
and Publisher of Purple Reign, 
The Scout.com Northwestern University Site
(http://www.purplewildcats.com)
AIM Handle: CoachRoy74
======== Go Cats -  Beat 'em All ===========
Every time I think I've got this Computer 
Biz handled 
            -- There's another upgrade.
============================================