Fear the Turtle!Fear the Turtle!Our family has gotten a little nuts this year.
After much too long fielding one of the weaker teams in the Atlantic Coast Conference in both men's basketball and football, the Maryland Terrapins [a terrapin is a land turtle] reached the "Final Four" in the 2001 "March Madness," (which is to say that on the last weekend of the National Collegiate Athletic Association's [say: 'N C double-A'] tournament of the best men's college basketball teams in the country, Maryland was one of the last four teams left). They lost in a heart-breaking game to their arch-rival from the Atlantic Coast Conference, Duke University
As if that were not enough, the football team ended up ranked #7 in the nation and this earned them an invitation to the Orange Bowl. That they lost to the University of Florida could not diminish the excitement of the year's unaccustomed glory. But then, once again in 2002, the men's basketball team was one of the best teams in the nation and not only got back to the Final Four but, for the first time in the seventy-nine-year history of intercollegiate sports at Maryland, the "TERPS" WON IT ALL! Very exciting stuff.
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For all except eight years of my life I have lived in Maryland. [During those years in exile I lived either in Pennsylvania or the District of Columbia, both of which abut it.] To folks from around the world Maryland is that oddly shaped little eastern state which kinda wraps around Washington, D.C. [What is now the District of Columbia was once a part of Maryland. Neighboring Virginia had also given up some land to form the original District but that portion, now known as Arlington County, was ceded back to Virginia many, many years ago (in 1847).]
Maryland extends from the Atlantic Ocean on the east, through the land surrounding the magnificent Chesapeake Bay, through some lovely rolling dairy lands and on westward to the thrilling Appalachian mountains. (If you think think my adjectives have to be hyperbolic you don't know the country around here.) Historic Baltimore, Ellicott City, Annapolis (the State capital and home of the United States Naval Academy), Frederick, Cumberland and Chestertown are towns [well, Baltimore is a full-fledged big city] of unparalleled charm. The Savage River, past host of the World Canoeing and Kayaking Championship races, is breathtakingly beautiful.
In other than in the westernmost counties (Garrett and Allegany) where it seems to be snowing whenever I visit (except, perhaps, in July), our weather is mild. It can be hot, hazy and muggy in the summer but it seems that each year brings lovely, unexpected spells of moderation and our winters tend to be short (January and February, as a rule) and are rarely bitter. Spring and Fall simply have to be lived to be believed.
I grew up here and much of my family is here (although we are now more dispersed than in the past) and I love the place and part of living here has been rooting for Terps through thick and thin, but, while we have definitely had thick — a lot of thick — the recent decades have served up much too much thin. Until a few years ago when the men's basketball team hired a Maryland graduate named Gary Williams as its coach and things almost immediately started looking up. Then, last year, another alumnus, Ralph Friedgen, was hired to coach the football team. Suddenly all's right with the world. Of course with our diaspera my daughter now roots against Maryland and asked me the other day why I root for them. (I successfully resisted the temptation to call her a turncoat.) And her husband sends me video clips of my very own granddaughters doing cheers for other universities. Ugh!
Our family has gotten a little nuts this year. But it's a lot better than when we didn't really care about any of it.
