After years of silence, Maryland honoring Lefty Driesell speaks volumes

[madinmaryland]

He walks with a cane a lot of the time now.

“My legs are weak,” he said on Friday. “When I go to a game, I really can’t get around the building without the cane. I hope I don’t need it on Saturday but my doctor told me if I fall I could break my hip, so I guess I have to be careful.”

“Careful” was never a word in Lefty Driesell’s vocabulary. He wasn’t careful about what he said or about how he approached a game or an opponent or a confrontation. Those legs that feel weak now, especially the left one, spent a lot of time stomping the floor at Cole Field House with 14,500 people watching his every move.

At halftime of Maryland’s game against Clemson on Saturday, the school finally — finally — got around to acknowledging the 17 remarkable seasons Driesell contributed to life at the school. For years, different leaders acted as if that period in Maryland basketball history, when he built the Terrapins from doormat to national power, never existed. In 2002, when Maryland invited almost anyone who had ever set foot on campus back for the closing of Cole Field House, Driesell wasn’t on the invitation list.

“Must’ve gotten lost in the mail,” he joked back then when asked about the non-invite, but the snub had to hurt.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/colleges/after-years-of-silence-maryland-honoring-lefty-driesell-speaks-volumes/2013/02/23/1cd0a2b6-7dee-11e2-82e8-61a46c2cde3d_story.html

[era veteran]

1. Don't call me Lefty

Almost made me tear up.... A scapegoat, not fair.. forgotten; On July 12, 1973, Driesell saved the lives of at least ten children from several burning buildings. He and two other men were surf fishing around midnight in Bethany Beach, Delaware when he saw flames coming from a seashore resort. Driesell broke down a door and rescued several children from the fire that eventually destroyed four townhouses.

The Rhodes Scholar, Tom McMillen, always a classy man.
"It was McMillen, a member of the Maryland Board of Trustees and a part of what was arguably Driesell’s greatest team (the 1974 team that lost a classic overtime game to eventual national champion North Carolina State in the ACC tournament final) who finally pushed through the idea that it was long past time to honor Driesell."

[TZ]

2. I despise the man

He ran an out of control program and the years that were spent under NCAA sanctions can be traced directly back to him and his loose program.
Sorry, the University felt they "needed" to do this. Yuck.