The retirement of Gary Williams was ALMOST as big a story in DC as was the killing of Osama bin Laden. In fact, it may have been more bipartisan, since Williams was a fairly well known Republican and is friends with former Republican Maryland governor Bob Ehrlich, and Republicans hated giving the President credit for bringing bin Laden to justice.
Even if he is a Republican, one has to respect Gary Williams' career at Maryland. It's easy to forget how bad Maryland basketball was when Williams took over his alma mater's basketball program. Not only did Williams come back to a school that was on probation and was still haunted by the 1984 cocaine death of Len Bias, he gave up a choice job at a big time school, the Ohio State University.
He loved Maryland enough to leave a school most coaches would dream of retiring from to take over a program in the toilet. Have to respect that kind of loyalty and - though it's a cliche - school spirit.
And you have to respect - maybe not agree but respect - his stubborn refusal to recruit kids associated with AAU teams, posses, and hangers on. Instead of pursuing local superstars like Kevin Durant, Rudy Gay and Ty Lawson (just 3 of the great local players who grew up within 20 minutes of College Park) Williams favored 'coaching up' non-blue chip players like Juan Dixon and Lonnie Baxter, guys who won him and his school a national championship in 2002.
In retrospect, Williams probably should have recruited more kids like Durant and Lawson, two generally modest kids (unlike Gay, who played for an almost notorious AAU team in high school) instead of relying on developing diamonds in the rough like Dixon. After all, a reliance on those players resulted in Maryland falling on semi-hard times since 2002, missing the NCAA tournament more times than they made it since winning it all.
But we're quibbling now. Williams left a great job to rescue his alma mater's basketball program, and though he didn't turn College Park in the "UCLA of the East" he did win a national championship while doing it his way. Not a bad summation of any career.
A few more hoops notes
One notable player Williams developed was Drew Nicholas, a reserve on the 2002 team and a second-team All-ACC player his senior year in College Park. Over the weekend Nicholas helped lead Greek-favorite team Panathinaikos to the 2011 Euroleague championship over Maccabi of Israel. It was Pana's sixth Euroleague title, signifying the best professional team on the Continent, and third in the last 5 years.
The 'Octopus Man,' Dimitri Diamantidis, was named both the Euroleague AND Euroleague Final Four most valuable player. Diamantidis had double-doubles in both of Panathinaikos' final four wins over the weekend. He's now in his late 20s, but of all the modern Greek basketball players he would have been a good-to-great NBA player. Diamantidis is a long, athletic player and can run the point and hit some threes, but who would have made his mark in the League as a defender, kind of a Hellenic Stacey Augman or James Posey or Luol Deng.
Another former Grizzlies player, Antonis Fotsis, had a nice game including a nasty dunk during the Nicholas-led run in the third. I wish Fotsis had staying in the League more than one year; athletically he could have stuck around but he has thrived in Athens with Panathinaikos - and has won three championships there.
