Home Is Sweet Again For No. 9 Maryland

Look for a moment at Cole Field House and its crusty old interior and you can see Lefty Driesell striding confidently toward the bench, ready for battle, slamming a fist into the air as he salutes the Maryland students.

Listen closely and you can hear them greet his arrival with high-pitched, head-throbbing screams.

Driesell is gone. But the roar is back. And that is not welcome news among ACC basketball teams visiting the Terps and coach Gary Williams, now in his sixth season and reaping some rewards of a tedious rebuilding process.

In the barrel Saturday is Wake Forest, the first of the conference’s Carolinas teams to play at Maryland this season. When the Deacons arrive for their 2 p.m. game they will find a hostile crowd of 14,500 making noise on a parallel with the Terps’ recent rise in the national standings.

Now No. 9, Maryland (12-3, 2-1) is finding unprecedented support at home. For the first time in school history, each game was sold out before the season.

The turnaround is a satisfying one for Maryland’s longtime fans, accustomed to good times in the multi-purpose field house that has been home for the Terps for almost 40 years. It is the third-oldest arena in the ACC Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium and N.C. State’s Reynolds Coliseum have been around longer.

It is also a major part of the program’s return, though Williams had his skeptics as he tried to put the pieces back together at his alma mater after several lackluster seasons and some NCAA rules violations under a previous coach.

“That was part of the fight, to get people to believe that we could be good again,” Williams said Friday. “The toughest part was right here at this school, because the basketball program had had some negative things for a while.”

Williams does not lightly use the word “fight” - that’s what he had to do in pushing for improvements at Cole Field House he considered critical for recruiting. Courtside seats have been added with some additional revenue paying for improved locker rooms for players and coaches, a medical facility and a team meeting room and lounge.

The building has also undergone cosmetic changes inside, from new paint to upgrading of the sound system, concourse areas and concession stands.

“The locker room was the same as when I was in school,” said Williams, who played for the Terps from 1964 through 1967. “Yes, those things make a difference in recruiting.

“And when I played there were no seats on the floor. The only games we filled the gym was in my sophomore year when we were pretty good, except when Duke and (North) Carolina came because they were always good.

“It is special to me to see it now. I’m in a situation very few coaches get in, going back to coach at your alma mater. But at the same time if we weren’t successful the fact that I played here wouldn’t matter at all.”

It was Williams’ recruiting and the hint of better days to come that began bringing more people back, even before the wins started on a more regular basis. This season’s sophomore class, featuring star center Joe Smith and forward Keith Booth, had a huge effect. That class and the one that proceeded it - forward Exree Hipp and guards Johnny Rhodes and Duane Simpkins - make up the starting lineup.

The success last season, with a rush to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament, and preseason predictions that had Maryland in the nation’s Top 10 and rated second in the ACC.

“The tradition was always here, we had just gone through some tough times,” said Williams.

“We’re in a big metropolitan area where you have to compete hard for the entertainment dollar. Someone can see pro football, pro basketball, they can see Big East or Atlantic 10 games probably within 10 miles of each other, as well as the ACC.

“The thing we had even when we weren’t very good was we had Walt Williams, who was an All-American and an exciting player. The advantage we had was people were looking for something good, and signing these (sophomores) was it.”

As good as this group is, the program remains on relatively soft ground until Williams can add additional strong recruiting classes. The new life at Cole Field House, he believes, will help.

“A lot of schools have kind of gotten good for a year or two and then fallen back,” he said. “We still have a long way to go with our program, I believe, and we have to keep building.