D12 EZ SU THE WASHINGTON POST.WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18 , 2019
BY EMILY GIAMBALVO
Just after Michael Locksley
helped guide Illinois to the Rose
Bowl, he sat in the parking lot of a
Marriott with Ralph Friedgen.
Locksley talked with Friedgen,
then the head coach at Maryland
and once his boss, about return-
ing to the Te rrapins’ coaching
staff.
This was in 2008, with Lock-
sley’s career on the upswing after
his fourth season as the Fighting
Illini’s offensive coordinator. They
talked for three hours — until
Friedgen’s car battery died. Ulti-
mately, Locksley accepted his first
head coaching gig at New Mexico
instead of returning to College
Park.
“If he had taken the job then, he
would have been the head coach
at Maryland a lot earlier,” Fried-
gen said matter-of-factly this
week, after Locksley retold the
story.
“I knew that was coming!”
Locksley s aid, laughing.
With Locksley in his first year
at the helm for the Te rrapins —
after 2^1 / 2 seasons at New Mexico, a
return to College Park as offensive
coordinator and then three criti-
cal years in Nick Saban’s program
at Alabama — Maryland has
strengthened frayed ties to Fried-
gen, the most successful coach in
recent program history. Locksley
announced Tuesday that the pro-
gram will h onor Friedgen, the for-
mer Te rrapins offensive lineman
who worked on Maryland’s staff
for three separate stints, on the
field during the team’s Sept. 27
home game a gainst Penn State.
The school fired Friedgen in
2010 even though he is the only
coach in the past four decades to
lead Maryland to a 10-win season.
He won at least that many games
three t imes. Friedgen, 72, has rare-
ly stepped on campus since he was
let go. Until last year, Maryland
still employed Kevin Anderson,
the athletic director who fired
Friedgen. Nobody a ssociated with
the program reached out to Fried-
gen until former coach DJ Durkin
did so last year.
But Locksley, a Washington na-
tive, watched the 1980s Maryland
teams when Friedgen oversaw the
offense. Locksley later worked
under Friedgen during the 2001
and 2002 seasons, and they have
stayed in touch. Locksley has
mentioned Friedgen numerous
times since he was hired as some-
one who shaped him as a coach
and showed what’s possible for
the Te rps’ program. Locksley lik-
ens Friedgen to Gary Williams,
the legendary and beloved Mary-
land basketball coach.
“I see Ralph as that person for
Maryland football in that he
helped get this program back to
where it once was,” Locksley said.
“A nd I think a s an ambassador for
our football program, a n alumnus
of the school, a guy that loves
Maryland and loved Maryland
like h e did, and just the passion in
which he coached, I feel it’s really
important for us as a program to
make sure that we honor him.”
Locksley, who first joinedMaryland’s football staff as the
running backs coach in 1997, had
only watched Friedgen from afar
until 2000, during Friedgen’s in-
terview process to be the Te rps’
head coach. Locksley r emained on
the staff and was tasked with as-
sembling a panel of football play-
ers to ask questions of some of the
candidates.
“The best interview of the
whole deal was the players that
Mike p ut together,” Friedgen said.
Locksley and then-receiverscoach James Franklin were the
only assistants retained from the
previous Maryland staff, and they
joined Friedgen in working to sal-
vage a recruiting class full of play-
ers in danger of decommitting if
they hadn’t already. During those
early home visits, Friedgen re-
members the recruits and their
families asking tough questions
about the coaching change and
Maryland’s new regime. Locksley
always had the right answers.
Future third-round NFL draftpick Domonique Foxworth, who
had decommitted, reaffirmed his
Maryland pledge. Locksley stayed
on the phone with Randy Starks’s
mother for nearly three hours.
(“And he just was relentless,”
Friedgen said of Locksley’s re-
cruiting work. “I would have lost
my p atience long ago on that.”)
That staff propelled Maryland
into national relevance in 2001,
Friedgen’s first year in charge.
Maryland won the ACC that sea-
son, the first of three straight
years with at least 10 wins. Lock-
sley calls those the “renaissance
years,” because the basketball
team, w hich won the national t itle
in 2002, had strong seasons, too.
“I think it’s really important
when we go out and recruit that
people understand as much of a
sleeping giant as we want to make
it, we’ve kind of been one of theupper-echelon programs,” Lock-
sley said, “but just haven’t been
able to sustain the success like
some other programs.”
The Te rrapins haven’t w on that
many football games in a season
or a conference championship
since. Friedgen’s 10-year Mary-
land tenure finished with a 75-50
record, seven bowl appearances
and five bowl wins. After a 9-4
campaign in 2010, he was fired.
Friedgen worked as Rutgers’s
offensive coordinator in 2014 and
as a special assistant in 2015. Dur-
ing his first year with the Scarlet
Knights, Friedgen’s team over-
came a 25-point deficit to win in
College Park. The only other time
Friedgen visited was in 2018 when
Durkin invited him to speak at a
coaches clinic.
Friedgen now lives in Isle of
Palms, S .C.
As Locksley says, coaches are
“hired to be fired,” but alumni
hold onto their programs. Fried-
gen knows of both paths. He still
watched Maryland games, but his
wife would leave the house when
he did so on Saturdays.
Kevin Glover, a former Te rps
player who is the program’s direc-
tor of player development, called
Friedgen a few weeks ago to see if
he would come up for the Penn
State game. Friedgen said he
might visit for a different game
when the program honors the
1984 team that earned a marquee
comeback win over Miami.
“Well, we want you to come
back for Penn State because we’re
only going to honor one person,”
Glover said.
“Who’s t hat?” Friedgen said.
Glover explained. Friedgen
took a day or two before he agreed.
He s aid he still doesn’t c ompletely
understand how or why the school
wants to single him out. But next
Friday, his family will fly in from
around the country, he’ll watch
the game from a suite, and fans
will cheer when he is recognized
on the field where he stood when
Maryland football last flourished.
“The more I talked to people,”
Friedgen said, “the more I realized
that they were really going out of
the way to make this a very nice
thing for me. And I think that’s
pretty special.”
[email protected]Friedgen, back in the fold at Maryland, will be honored there
Locksley, an assistant on the former coach’s staff, has helped strengthen the school’s frayed ties to the most successful leader in the program’s recent history
JOHN MCDONNELL/THE WASHINGTON POST
Ralph Friedgen — shown after winning the 2010 Military Bowl, his final game as Maryland’s coach — has rarely made it back to campus.“I see Ralph as that person for Maryland
football in that he helped get this program
back to where it once was.”
Michael Locksley, Maryland football coach, comparing Ralph
Friedgen to former Terrapins men’s basketball coach Gary WilliamsGET YOUR TICKETS NOW ATNATIONALS.COM/TICKETSSEPT 23-26SEPT 27-29STEPHENSTRASBURG37MAXSCHERZER31PATRICKCORBIN46