N.C. State AD Debbie Yow, who used to be the AD at Maryland, says the Terp basketball coach Gary Williams tried to sabotage her coaching search for a basketball coach to replace Sidney Lowe. For his part, Williams denies the claim. The Baltimore Sun in an online blog has provided the public with a brief history of their relationship.
Here’s what the paper said:
“Williams’ and Yow’s relationship has been characterized by ill feelings and distrust, according to many current and former Maryland officials and supporters.
“Each usually seemed inclined to keep details of the relationship private.
“But raw feelings surfaced in 2009 when Williams and the athletic department offered conflicting accounts of the circumstances under which two Maryland recruits — Gus Gilchrist and Tyree Evans – ended up at other schools. “It wasn’t my fault that they’re not here. That was somebody else’s call,” Williams told reporters.
“The next day, Kathleen Worthington, a senior associate athletic director under Yow, called some media outlets, including the Baltimore Sun, to ‘clarify’ Willams’ statements.
“Williams, feeling undercut, told reporters that evening: ‘Kathy Worthington doesn’t speak for me, she has never won a national championship, she has never done anything. She’s an associate AD. This is just giving you guys stuff to make me look bad.’
“The divisions were well-known enough that Maryland insiders talked about “camps” of supporters lined up variously behind Williams, Yow or former football coach Ralph Friedgen, who also had a trying relationship with Yow. “There are Gary people and there are Ralph people and they lash out at the athletic director, and it’s wrong,” state Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, told The Sun in a December 2009 interview. “I’m in all three camps. I like all three very much.”
“Longtime Terrapin Club member Barry DesRoches, a Gary Williams advocate, said in an e-mail that Yow’s comments on Tuesday were “unwarranted” and that “this type of behavior is not what we need from an athletic director at a member institution in the ACC.”
“Like DesRoches, many others connected to Maryland seemed long ago to have taken sides. ‘It doesn’t seem like there’s much in the middle,’ Fabian Jimenez, a Maryland supporter, said at a time in 2009 when the Yow-Williams dispute was still simmering.”