Fundraising will focus on aidFirst stage of next campaign will begin July 1, shortly after Great Expectations
By Savannah Doane-MalotteSta� writer
With the first stage of the uni-versity’s next fundraising campaign beginning July 1, o� cials are just be-ginning to strategize.
But one goal is clear: The 10-year operation must focus heavily on fi -nancial aid, said Peter Weiler, Uni-versity Relations vice president.
Projects that were a part of Great Expectations are expected to close by the end of this semester, and the extra money raised after the goal was reached will be considered a part of the upcoming campaign, Weiler said. Though a monetary goal has not been determined for the new plan, the money raised will primarily go toward academic excellence, student support and the Academy for Entre-preneurship and Innovation, he said. Those areas are especially vital now that higher education faces an 8.2 See FUNDRAISING, Page 3
By Jim BachSenior sta� writer
Students outside the state’s borders may find limited op-portunities to attend University System of Maryland schools if a state bill to limit out-of-state students passes the General Assembly.
The bill would cap the number of out-of-state undergraduate students at 20 percent of the student body for all 12 system institutions and 30 percent for out-of-state graduate students. Because out-of-state students’ tuition rates are about three times
Bill could limit out-of-state student body
Spicing things upBerwyn’s Smile Herb o� ers customers variety of herbal medications
By Annika McGinnisSta� writer
Tucked away in a serene, story-book Berwyn neighborhood is an herbal sanctuary.
The light blue, two-story house conjures nostalgic memories of a childhood home rather than a shop of medicinal herbs. On the white porch,
a rainbow of silky, pastel-colored scarves fl utters in the wind. Inside, jars of spices and herbs, teas and suncatchers fi ll the dimly lit rooms fl oor to ceiling, and herbal candles wish customers good health, love, laughter and prosperity.
“Nettles are probably the best thing for allergies,” a middle-aged employee advises a woman musing
over the selection. “Cinnamon is the best thing for diabetes.”
The woman thanks the man and smiles — a common sight in Smile Herb, the 38-year-old medicinal herb shop down the street from Fishnet on Berwyn Road. Over its long, rich history, the store
See HERB, Page 2
smile herb, a 38-year-old medicinal herb shop on Berwyn Road, is based on Eastern philosophy and works to provide its customers with nontraditional remedies to various problems, said co-owner Tom Wolfe, who runs the store with his wife. At age 22, Wolfe started the shop when he came back to Berwyn. alexis jenkins/the diamondback
students rallied for a� ordable tuition last year after failed negotiations threatened a double-digit hike. The university’s next fundraising campaign will focus on � nancial aid, o� cials said. � le photo/the diamondback
By Daniel GallenSenior sta� writer
Most of this university’s sports teams will get to take on the Uni-versity of Notre Dame next year, one year ahead of its scheduled 2014-2015 move to the ACC, Commissioner John Swofford announced yesterday.
Notre Dame was able to accel-erate a large part of its conference switch after the Big East came to an agreement with the “Catholic 7” schools — a group of basket-ball-only schools in the confer-ence — that allows them to exit and form their own league July 1. Notre Dame was right behind those schools when it negotiated an agreement to avoid an exit fee because it did not seek any en-trance or exit fee revenue, accord-ing to an ESPN report.
The Fighting Irish provide a boost to most of the ACC’s sports,
Notre Dame to join ACC early in sportsWill begin conference play a year ahead of 2014 move, except in football and hockey
particularly in basketball and la-crosse — especially when combined
See acc, Page 2
See enrollment, Page 3
more than in-state students, the university would lose an estimated $140 million in revenue in fi scal 2014, according to estimates by the state’s Department of Legislative Services.
Additionally, this university stands to lose about 1,100 out-of-state undergraduate students. However, out-of-state students make up 66 percent of the graduate student body, meaning the university would lose nearly 5,000 students total.
“I think ‘devastating’ would be a good word to use,” said university lobbyist Ross Stern, who opposes the bill. “It would pretty much
DIVERSIONS How the Red Hot Chili Peppers made one writer cool p. 6FINDING A HOMETerps’ Wells ready to lead team in ACC tournament OPINION Help Center administrators write part two of a mental health series p. 4
notre dame women’s basketball will now play in the ACC next year. file photo/the diamondback
Member explains importance to city council
By Teddy AmenabarSta� writer
While the state House of Delegates suggested cutting funding of the city’s planned charter school, the College Park Academy will have one more chance to secure $500,000 in additional funding.
A joint congressional com-mittee will decide in the coming weeks whether some of the state’s higher education budget will go toward developing grants for university student programs at the academy, which will open with about 300 spots in the fall with or without state support. Involvement from residents and See charter, Page 3
SGA plans to lobby for charter school funding
students could help sway lawmak-ers in Annapolis, said Ryan Heis-inger, the Student Government Association’s academic a� airs vice president.
Members of the SGA have been working to ensure the money Gov. Martin O’Malley designated for the school remains, Heisinger told the College Park City Council Tuesday night. In addition to creating student programs, the state funding would go toward repairing and restoring the former Calvert School building, where the charter school will reside after its fi rst year.
In September, the academy will open in a space in Hyattsville, right
percent cut in federal funding due to sequestration, a series of automatic, across-the-board federal cuts that went into e� ect March 1.
“We will always continue to be
raising money to lessen the fi nancial burden on students,” Weiler said. “One of the most compelling issues
INSERT
2 THE DIAMONDBACK | NEWS | WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 2013
has grown into a thriving oasis of herbal medication based on Eastern philosophy, essential in a time of rising healthcare costs and inad-equate mental health services, said Tom Wolfe, the store’s co-owner. But although some students fre-quent the shop, many don’t seem to know the place exists, Wolfe said.
In 1975, at 22 years old, Wolfe came to College Park looking for an old girlfriend and stumbled upon a tiny basement shop owned by a woman who called herself “Sweet Cicely,” after her favorite herb. Wolfe was suffering from a bad cough, and he asked the woman if she had anything that would help.
“[Doctors] would give me antibiotics and it would sort of go away, but then it would come back three months later,” Wolfe said. “She had me take a half gallon of yarrow tea, and I spit up all this bloody mucus, and it just went away and never came back.”
That was Wolfe’s first experi-ence with herbal medication, and he was immediately captivated. But after he’d worked with Sweet Cicely for just six weeks, she took off to become a rock ‘n’ roll mu-sician. For $200, he became the new owner of Smile Herb.
His parents thought it was just a phase: It was the 1970s, and alter-
native medications were often as-sociated with drugs and radicalism.
“We were all flower children,” Wolfe said. “And then we became flower children that knew the bo-tanical names.”
Although Wolfe said the culture of the time helped him experiment with a different lifestyle, he has seen the perception of his shop trans-form over the decades.
“Over 38 years, it went from, ‘Oh my God, there goes the neighbor-hood,’ to being respectable busi-ness people who have a product that helps people heal,” Wolfe said.
After a year, Wolfe and his wife and co-owner, Linda, moved their store to a house down the street — one originally home to the area’s first telephone exchange, which was dragged to its current spot by horses. It was most likely built in the late 1800s, Wolfe said.
To save money, the Wolfes lived on the floor above their shop. They sold coffee, teas and herbs, making about $80 a day. Slowly, they added vitamins and supplements, chil-dren’s toys and cosmetics. The business grew 12 percent a year for 24 straight years, Wolfe said. Smile Herb tries to remedy problems in a way Western medication can’t, because doctors often prescribe drugs that address symptoms rather than causes, Wolfe said.
Up a creaky purple staircase with banisters of chipping white paint, Wolfe sits with 53-year-old Sonia
HERBFrom PAGE 1
Francis in a small, incense-scented room. The two reach their arms up to the sky, cross them in front of their chests and then hold hands.
The exercise represents the three elements in the Eastern traditional medicine Ayurveda, Wolfe said: air, fire and water. Francis, who lives in Hyattsville, was receiving a free introduction to an Ayurveda class. The store also offers classes in professional herbalism.
Francis said she’s suffered from rheumatic fever since she was a child, but the insulin shots she takes don’t cure her condition.
The first time she went to Smile Herb, a worker convinced her to try herbal remedies.
“Before, I always thought the natural kind was not good because I thought they were like bush doctors,” Francis said. “But now that I’m growing older, I realize herbal medication is good for you.”
Francis, who works as a home nurse, said a lot of her patients have become frustrated with prescription medications and are now turning to herbs. At Smile Herb, one of the most popular remedies is hawthorn and garlic for high blood pressure.
Nestled far away from the retail culture of Route 1, Smile Herb doesn’t advertise widely to the university. But Wolfe said about 20 percent of its customer base consists of students, who often buy allergy and flu medica-tions or energy-giving products during exam time.
But, he added, more students seem to be interested in “beer and pizza” than herbs.
“You think you’re immortal in college,” he said. “People don’t have health issues at 19, generally. But by the time you’re 35, half the people will be chronically ill. … It would be much better if people prevented it at your age.”
However, students frequently work at the shop. Jennifer Kuhlman, a 2005 graduate who worked at Smile Herb for about two years, said she decided to become a massage therapist after working there.
“I was never really sure what I
wanted to be, and Smile gave me a little more direction,” Kuhlman said.
Now working in San Jose, Calif., Kuhlman said she still frequently drinks ginger tea to treat nausea and motion sickness.
George Bean, a cell biology and molecular genetics professor at the university, has been taking his me-dicinal and poisonous plants classes to Smile Herb for about a decade as an introduction to their study of “complementary” medications. In his class, students learn to analyze all types of medicine, he said.
“I think when people finish up the course, they’re much more informed,” Bean said. “They have to be aware there’s poten-tial problems with these comple-mentary medications, as there are with prescription drugs.”
But with the rising cost of healthcare, Wolfe said herbal medications are becoming more mainstream. And with the coun-try’s concern over mental health services — especially in the after-math of an off-campus murder-suicide by a student who report-edly suffered from mental illness — Wolfe said herbal remedies are worth a try.
“It’s absurd the way we treat mental health,” Wolfe said. “We’re over-drugging people who are sad.”
Instead, Wolfe said herbs, such as holy basil, can stabilize blood sugar and cortisol levels.
At Smile, health is treated holistically, merging the emo-tional, social and spiritual with the physical. A tribute on the door calls the shop a “safe haven” radiating “warm energy.” Even the sign outside spreads love to busy passersby: “If you can’t stop, smile as you go by.”
Kuhlman said Smile Herb is different from all of its neigh-borhood surroundings.
“I just really love alternative medication as an option,” she said. “I’d encourage people to go check the place out. … It’s almost kind of a magical little place tucked into the middle of things.”
smile herb, located in Berwyn, has sold a variety of teas and herbal remedies, based on Eastern philosophy and alternative medication, for the past 38 years. alexis jenkins/the diamondback
with Syracuse University and the University of Pittsburgh, two more schools joining the conference this fall. Next year’s ACC has five men’s basketball teams currently in the Associ-ated Press’ Top 25.
“From a basketball perspec-tive, the level of competition will be second to none,” Swof-ford said in a release. “As we look towards the future, there’s no denying that ACC basketball will continue to set even higher standards of excitement and excellence. The competition will be brutal, which is a great thing for our league and fans.”
T h e a g r e e m e n t o f f i v e football games every season between Notre Dame and ACC schools will still begin in 2014, so the Fighting Irish can main-tain their independence. The school’s hockey team is playing the final year of the Central Collegiate Hockey Associa-tion and will join Hockey East in 2013-14.
Notre Dame brings an ath-letic department boasting 13 nationally ranked teams that are currently competing, in-cluding No. 2 women’s bas-ketball, No. 3 men’s lacrosse, No. 6 women’s lacrosse, No. 17 baseball and No. 24 men’s basketball, according to the release. In the fall, men’s soccer finished the regular season ranked No. 3, while women’s soccer finished the postseason ranked No. 13.
“Notre Dame now looks forward with great anticipa-tion to becoming a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference,” Notre Dame Vice President and Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick
said in the release. “We are thrilled to join a great group of institutions who share our commitment to the integration of athletics into the academic mission of the university.”
Notre Dame announced in September it would join the ACC in all sports except foot-ball after the ACC’s Council of Presidents unanimously approved the conference ad-dition. The agreement to play five games per season against ACC football was announced at that time, too. And with Syra-cuse and Pittsburgh already set to join the conference, the ACC seemed to be on solid footing. But since then, much has changed.
Less than 10 days after this university announced it would leave the ACC — a conference it helped form in 1953 — for the Big Ten, the ACC responded by adding the Big East’s University of Louisville, a move also effec-tive for the 2014-15 school year.
While the impact of the move on this university will be short lived, Swarbrick is embracing it for the future of Fighting Irish athletics, now in a seemingly more stable league than the practically defunct Big East.
“Our coaches and student-athletes across our athletic programs are truly excited a b o u t t h e n ew c h a l l e n ge s ahead,” Swarbrick said.
New student groupsite replaces STARS By Laura BlaseySenior staff writer
Student group leaders who once struggled to stay organized may find their jobs easier thanks to OrgSync, a new student group management software.
The new system, which re-placed the Student Activities Reporting System, or STARS, is the culmination of years’ worth of effort, said Joe Calizo, student activities assistant director. STARS helped transfer student group registration online, and the Student Government As-sociation used it to help with allocating funding.
The university purchased a two-year contract with Org-Sync’s parent company using funds from the student technolo-gy fee, Calizo said. OrgSync cur-rently provides its management system to schools in 42 states.
The switch came after univer-sity officials realized STARS didn’t have much else to offer student groups and the university quickly outgrew the software, Calizo said.
“STARS served these purposes well for a number of years, but it was limited in providing other technological tools to help groups succeed,” Calizo wrote in an email. “If you were a member of an or-ganization, but not the President or Treasurer of a group, there was no reason for you to use STARS.”
The system is designed to be friendlier to today’s students, and includes messaging and information storage tools that help group members connect online. OrgSync can also com-plement Facebook and Twitter pages for groups to make man-agement seamless.
Some student leaders, such as Chinese Student Association President Steven Wang, said they were happy to see STARS go.
“I thought that STARS was definitely out of date,” the senior business major said. “There weren’t too many functions to STARS, and it was pretty useless.”
The biggest challenge, some feel, is getting students to tran-sition to the new system and actu-ally use it. The Student Organiza-tion Resource Center is working
on a campaign with Stamp mar-keting that includes raffles and prizes for groups that use the site. Some resources will be available exclusively through OrgSync.
But it may be too late, as stu-dents said they found ways to get around STARS’ poor organization tools and feel hesitant to give up their tried and true methods.
The Chinese Student Associa-tion created its own Google list-serv as an alternative to STARS that has worked well, Wang said.
Andrew Aggabao, president of the Filipino Cultural As-sociation, said his group also looked elsewhere to find the tools STARS couldn’t offer them. Now, he said, his group is weigh-ing the pros and cons of moving its listserv and documents to the OrgSync system, which could take some time.
Justin Dent, the SGA’s Student Groups committee chairman, said while the SGA will be more lenient this year, groups that fail to switch over may risk their chances of re-ceiving SGA funding.
“A group won’t not be funded because they’re not on OrgSync yet because we know that it’s going to be a little while before every group is,” Dent said. “Next year, that would probably be the case. It just makes everyone’s life easier.”
The SGA recognizes groups for funding by looking in the system, Dent said, noting he has been working closely with the Student Organization Resources Center on the project.
“It’s not so much a funding thing as an organization thing,” Dent added.
Aggabao said the biggest benefit of moving to OrgSync is its record-keeping capa-bilities. Transferring old fliers, plans and meeting minutes from officer to officer and from year to year can be difficult, and with OrgSync’s archiving capabili-ties, he hopes group manage-ment will be more consistent.
“We’re really excited about the capabilities and exploring what it has to offer,” Aggabao said. “We hope in the long term it will be beneficial.”
“our coaches and student-athletes across our athletic programs are truly excited about the new challenges ahead.”
JACK SWARBRICKNotre Dame vice president and athletic director
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 2012 | NEWS | THE DIAMONDBACK 3
decimate the graduate enterprise of the university and really of the state.”
Proponents of the bill, however, argue that taxpaying residents should receive priority in admissions. State universities should not be worried about collecting the premium made off accepting more out-of-state students who pay higher tuition rates, said Del. Susan Aumann (R-Baltimore County), a co-sponsor of the bill.
“There has been some conversa-tion in the past couple years about how Maryland students are not being selected for potential spots because the universities themselves make more money on the out-of-state students,” Aumann said. “It shouldn’t be all about money; it should be about educating, and the priority should be educating Maryland students because they’re the taxpayers that support the institution.”
But as a top-20 public research in-
stitution, the university’s efforts to attract talented graduate students would be hampered by such a bill, Stern said. This would affect not only the university, but the broader state economy that feeds off this university’s research programs for jobs, he said.
“The university is now a national research powerhouse,” Stern said. “If our ability to recruit the best graduate students is limited by a bill like this — and it would be significantly limited — it would affect not only the revenues to the campus, but it would affect the quality of our graduates, it would affect our ability to continue to bring in $500 million a year of sponsored research. It’s a cascading effect.”
This university is an outlier compared to other system schools when it comes to out-of-state graduate admissions. The second highest percentage of out-of-state graduate students after this uni-versity is at University of Maryland Uni-versity College, where it is 34 percent. As such, this university would absorb a large portion of the losses of this bill.
ENROLLMENTFrom PAGE 1
But Stern said in the context of this university’s peer institutions, the 66 percent is not an oddity when com-pared to other state schools.
As the law stands, public institu-tions are largely in control of setting the breakdown of student admissions. The university system policy does, however, require the out-of-state undergraduate population be capped at 30 percent.
“We have these institutions that are supported by our tax base and by our citizens of Maryland, and we are di-recting policies that make it less open to them and more open to those that are non-residents,” Aumann said.
By expanding the in-state population, supporters say, there’s a better chance graduates will stay in the state when they get jobs, ultimately contributing to the state economy in the long run.
“I want to make sure those oppor-tunities are open to the residents of Maryland so they don’t have to go out of state,” Aumann said.
of higher education is cost.” As a result of the university’s previous
campaign, more than $250 million went to financial aid and scholarships, $171 million was funneled into innovation and entrepreneurship, $129 million went to recruiting, retaining and advancing pre-eminent faculty and $303 million was invested in high-tech buildings and upgrading facilities. The next operation should take about two years to develop, said university President Wallace Loh, but officials are already planning to set a much larger goal.
“It’s one thing to raise $1 billion,” Loh said. “The next campaign, you can be sure it’s going to be far more than $1 billion, and you need people for that. You need to hire fundraisers.”
In planning the campaign, the uni-versity should consider placing an even greater emphasis on providing students with financial support, said freshman business major Dale Park.
“Many students depend on either scholarships or Pell Grants to afford college,” Park said. “Because of the sequester, Maryland will be losing significant funding, which would affect the university’s ability to award financial aid. The number of students matriculating to the university will see a significant drop if less scholar-ships are awarded.”
All 15 university departments are involved in the campaign, Weiler said. Money designated for each college could be used specifically to renovate facilities, create or enhance opportunities for faculty or support research.
“The university needs funds to be able to attract students and compete with the world’s universities,” Weiler said. “Each department will deter-mine what they will use these funds for to make each college even better than they already are.”
Innovation and entrepreneurship programs within all departments should also see opportunities to improve, as Loh and many other university officials have stated their support of integrating these skills in
campuswide curriculums through the newly added academy.
Weiler also aims to raise scholar-ship and financial support for incom-ing students. For the 200 low-income undergraduate students and 1,500 graduate research assistants at this university, those funds are critical, and more money is needed every year to accommodate and attract more people. Graduate students will also reap benefits from the new cam-paign, as officials are planning to use a portion of the funds specifically to support their research and develop more scholarship opportunities.
Another campaign goal is to teach students how to help the university and donate to a variety of causes later in their lifetimes. The new plan will engage the enthusiasm the student body has already displayed for giving, through events such as TerpThon and the Do Good Challenge in which stu-dents raise donations and reach out to the community.
“What we expect for students is for them to take part in volunteer activi-ties and become experienced with the culture of philanthropy,” Weiler said. “So many students are already in-volved in terrific events, and we plan to create similar projects to involve the student body in fundraising for the university.”
And while the next campaign is not yet on the horizon, the university isn’t relaxing its efforts, Loh said.
“[Weiler] still does fundraising with higher goals than the preced-ing year,” Loh said. “For the coming year, there will be a number above $100 million.”
Weiler said from his experience with the Great Expectations fund-raising, he can tell the community is eager to donate. But the university needs to learn how to better engage its audience and persuade potential donors to give, he added.
“Our alumni and parents really do care deeply and understand that higher education can solve our world’s prob-lems,” he said. “We just need to get better at appealing to that belief. People will give if you ask the right way.”
on the College Park border.“I think everyone wants this school
to have all the resources it needs,” Heis-inger told the city council. “The Univer-sity System of Maryland was able to get Governor O’Malley to secure $500,000 in his budget for the academy, but that funding is at serious risk of being cut.”
Earlier this month, the state House voted to eliminate the cost, though the Senate announced Tuesday it planned to maintain the academy’s funding, Heisinger said. The final decision rests with a joint commis-sion, which could deliberate until early April, Heisinger added.
A lack of awareness about the op-portunities the College Park Academy can provide for the community has con-tributed to hesitation from lawmakers in Annapolis, Heisinger said.
“I have spoken to a few state senators about it, and I know my peers have too.
What I’ve found is that they’re receptive to the idea once they understand it,” he said. “The problem is that most haven’t even heard of it.”
And though the charter school will allow students to graduate with up to 60 university credits, some state offi-cials disagree with the higher education budget supporting a public school, Heis-inger said after the city council meeting.
“It really has been gratifying to see the way students have been engaged in this and really have outshone us in terms of lobbying,” College Park Mayor Andy Fellows said following Heisinger’s speech.
Denise Mitchell, District 4 city councilwoman, said she was looking forward to seeing the results of the city’s and university’s partnership. In particular, she said, blended online learning will bring more depth and rigor to educational opportunities in the county.
“This is a program that is not like any other in the county,” Mitchell said. “We hope that after we open residents
charterFrom PAGE 1
the college park city council heard a presentation Tuesday night on the College Park Academy, a charter school collaboration between the university and city. The school will open in September regardless of whether it sees $500,000 in state funds, but the money would help develop university-student programming. file photo/the diamondback
will see the benefit of the program and start to apply.”
Though the majority of the first 300 students are not from College Park, Mitch-ell said, she hopes to see those numbers change in the next three or four years.
District 3 councilman Robert Day said his son is “extremely excited” that he was chosen to attend the academy next year.
“I think it’s an opportunity that we have not seen in this county, and we need to take advantage of it,” Day said.
Looking toward the fall, Heisinger said he hopes — funding permitted — the academy will be a tool for university students, especially education majors, to have hands-on experience at a cut-ting-edge school before graduating.
“We have the opportunity to shape the education of many students at the University of Maryland,” Heisinger said, “and provide a higher quality educa-tion to the students of College Park and Prince George’s County in general, and we should hop on that opportunity.”
Dove’s Real Beauty campaign: Time to make real changes
Tired of seeing airbrushed models on the cover of every magazine and in every adver-tisement? So was Dove. So it decided to do something.
In 2004, Dove launched the Campaign For Real Beauty. Its aim was to start “conversation about the need for a wider definition of beauty .”
The campaign features photographs of six women in their bras and underwear with no photo editing whatsoever.
The Maryland Panhellenic Association was fortunate enough to have one of the six women, Stacy Nadeau, serve as its spring speaker.
Little did I know, Nadeau would soon become my role model.
The campaign reveals just how unattainable these images of women that advertisers put out truly are. Dove created a video showing a model before, during and after photoshop for an advertisement.
For more of Jessica Evans’ post, check out The Diamondback’s student blogs at diamondbackonline.com.
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University expanding environmentally friendly spaces120 offices LEEDcertified silver and bronze since 2011
By Madeleine ListStaff writer
With the increase in LEED-certi-fied buildings and the recent switch to single-stream recycling in dorms, the university has been cultivating a more sustainable campus and is now working to extend green initiatives to university offices.
Under the Office of Sustainability’s Green Office Program, offices can achieve bronze, silver or gold level certification based on their ability to complete at least 75 percent of the items on a checklist of sustainable activities, said Aynsley Toews, a sustainability office project manager. The program has certified 120 university offices as environmentally friendly since 2011, Toews said.
The certification lasts a year, and between certifications, offices are encouraged to work toward a higher level, Toews said.
The geographical sciences de-partment recently became the first department to certify each of its 11 offices, both on and off the campus. Lydia Prentiss, a research coordina-tor with the department who works in the Hartwick building, said achieving the certification was simple, partly because of the faculty’s commitment to the green cause.
“Going bronze was really easy for us,” Prentiss said. “We have a lot of enthusiasm here. All of the researchers care a lot about the environment, so they’re willing to do things that make our carbon footprint smaller.”
Switching from normal paper to re-cycled was one of the biggest changes the department made. To compensate for the increased cost of recycled paper, office members came up with ways to reduce paper use and save money in the long run, Prentiss said. The change has helped increase morale in the office, she added.
“It’s the way of the future. We can’t live unsustainable lives,” she said. “It’s also a great way to improve your work situation. People feel good about what
they’re doing. They feel good about coming to the office.”
The offices in Hornbake and McK-eldin libraries were among the first to pilot the Green Office Program during summer 2011, said Doug McElrath, li-brarian in Hornbake special collections.
Hornbake’s bronze certification is set to expire in April, and the staff is working to up the level to silver, which will be much more difficult, McElrath said. There are only four silver-certi-fied offices on the campus, according to the sustainability office’s website, in part because that certification includes measures such as reducing single-car commuting to work.
“I think it’s some of these behavioral changes that you really have to start thinking about,” McElrath said. “Not driving to work can be pretty hard for people who commute.”
The most important factor in reach-ing a higher level of sustainability is teamwork, said Vera Wiest, a teacher at the Center for Young Children, one of the silver-certified office buildings. Employees at the center started com-posting, began using reusable dishes
and cups instead of disposable ones, bought environmentally friendly power strips and eliminated bottled water to improve their certification level.
“I think it’s great for helping ev-erybody work as a team,” Wiest said. “Every little bit helps. We may just be saving a few paper plates at a time, but across the university it will make a difference.”
Pat Perfetto, conferences and visitor services director, said no office should be exempt from working to become more sustainable. If an office uses a great deal of paper or employs a lot of people, it may have a harder time completing some of the actions, Toews added, but the checklist is flexible to accommodate the many different types of offices on the campus and the dif-ferent obstacles they face.
The key to an office’s success is having a leader who can educate other office members and make sure every-one participates, said Perfetto, who served on the Green Office Program’s advisory committee in 2011.
“You have to have a champion,” he said. “A person who’s going to
be the conscience. It’s about that person being educated and passing on what they learn, and also acting as a watchdog.”
Although there are no gold-certified offices on the campus, Toews said she hopes every office will participate in the program in some way in the future.
It is important for the university to act sustainably, not only for its own benefit, but also to set an example for the rest of the world, McElrath said.
“Universities are a place that can set the standard and be good models for other organizations and businesses out there,” he said. “They not only inspire other outlets to do similar things, but as students graduate and go out into the workforce, they will become ambassadors for sustainability in their workplaces.”
“It’s the way of the future. We can’t live unsustainable lives.”
LYDIA PRENTISSGeographical sciences department
research coordinator
On fracking
DANNY DVORAK
EDITOR’S NOTE: The last names of students have been withheld due to the sensitive nature of their com-ments and to protect their privacy.
College is an overwhelming ex-perience for many students. This time can be fi lled with success and achievement, but it may also be tainted with feelings of loneliness and hopelessness. Students must cope with leaving home, some trav-eling many miles from their family to go to school.
Furthermore, mental illness is most likely to manifest during the late teens and early 20s — right when students face the added stressors of college life. About one in four students has a mental disorder, which means that nearly 6,700 students at this university are coping with difficult feelings such as anxiety and depression, for which they may need to seek help.
One would hope when students are brave enough to ask for help, they get help. That is not the case.
MENTAL HEALTH SERIES
Many students are forced to wait weeks, even months, to see a counselor.
When Help Center volunteer Grace Freund, whose experience with this university’s mental health services was recently featured in The Baltimore Sun, called the Counseling Center to make an appointment, she was told to call back later. Though she was struggling with depression, she could not see a counselor because someone had decided she was not in immediate danger of harming herself or others.
While depression may not start out severe, untreated depression can lead to suicide. Additionally, a common symptom of depression is a lack of motivation. If a depressed student is turned away from counseling, it’s likely the student will not seek help again.
Alumna Julie sought help while coping with depression, but after a long waiting period and inadequate service, she finally had to leave the university her junior year. Further-more, in The Diamondback’s October article “Counseling Center wait times draw concerns,” Ashli spoke about her own problems with waiting times and said, “I wasn’t suicidal anymore. … I was only considering dropping out of college, which isn’t an emergency, ap-parently.” Since October, the waiting
times seem to be only getting worse.Unfortunately, these experiences
are not isolated incidents. Get Help UMD has been surveying students about their experiences with mental health services on the campus. Ap-proximately half of all students who answered the survey reported being placed on a waiting list when they tried to seek help, with wait times ranging from three weeks to three months.
Our respective experiences as the administrator of the Help Center hotline and president of Active Minds at Maryland — a student-run mental health advocacy group — have also pre-sented us with many cases in which students are turned away from campus health facilities. When students call the Help Center or reach out to Active Minds for support, we are forced to tell them that they may not be able to fi nd the help they need on the campus.
Even if a student wants to fi nd help, it’s nearly impossible to know where to start. Services for mental health are housed in several separate, uncon-nected departments: the Counsel-ing Center, Mental Health Services in the Health Center, the Help Center, the Center for Healthy Families, the Psychology Clinic and more. There is no centralized place for students
Nursing our minds back to health
ASHLEY ZACHERY/the diamondback
EDITORIAL CARTOON
Last week, the state Senate voted against two separate bills: one that sought to impose an outright ban
on hydraulic fracturing (also known as fracking), and another that aimed to impose a moratorium on the issue of fracking permits. Before proceed-ing, it’s important to understand both of these unique actions as well as the history of fracking in the United States.
Firstly, a moratorium is defi ned by Merriam-Webster as “a legally autho-rized period of delay in the performance of a legal obligation or the payment of a debt.” In this case, the time provided by a moratorium would be used to study the environmental impacts of fracking. At the conclusion of 18 months, legis-lators would sit down, review relevant scientific data and decide by vote to allow or ban fracking within this state. It is not, as some have described, a ban.
Those who identify it as a ban may be confusing one piece of legislation with a similar one. Alongside the bill seeking a moratorium, another pro-posed an outright ban on the activity. The bill’s supporters were concerned energy production companies would wait out the moratorium, then use their infl uence to ensure fracking abili-ties in the future. As to why some may fear such involvement, look no further than the 2005 Energy Policy Act.
When this bill was passed during the Bush administration, then-Vice Presi-dent Dick Cheney was instrumental in including a portion that defined the chemicals used in the fracking process as intellectual property, thus not requiring companies to disclose those chemicals to any regulation. This exempted fracking from por-tions of the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act and the CERCLA Superfund toxic substance cleanup program. What’s important is that Cheney used to serve as CEO of Halliburton, an energy company that practices fracking.
Much of the language about both bills is based on existing scientifi c re-search. Whenever discussing science in the realm of politics, we must consider the basic tenets of scientifi c research. Most important is a lack of scientifi c certainty — we accept much of the work scientists perform, but know all hypotheses and theories we accept are built o� of assuming some key things about the world. This means scien-tists must not shy away from di� er-ent schools of thought merely because they contradict current beliefs; ruling out uncommon ideas led humanity to believe the world was anything but round for hundreds of years. Scientifi c uncertainty does not mean there is no purpose in using research to guide our policy, nor that we should halt research on projects because we may never be 100 percent sure of our fi ndings. Policy can also dictate how far our science progresses. For example, there has been no concrete scientifi c connection between the fl uids used in fracking and any damage caused to communities. At the same time, some policies seek to prevent scientists from acquiring the resources to conduct such studies.
Personally, I support a moratorium over a ban. Perhaps it is my naivety, but I believe that given prior scien-tifi c research and the concerns of their constituents, the Maryland legislative body can reach a consensus on how to proceed with fracking within our state. However, I would support either endeavor if the alternative was merely allowing the process to go on in a slow and controlled manner in order to fi nd out potential dangers. I simply cannot follow the logic that our state would allow a potential catastrophe to the health and welfare of its citizens in ex-change for economic gain rather than allowing time to review the dangers.
During the previous legislative session, Maryland passed a bill man-dating a percentage of electricity to be wind-based clean energy. I question how such a progressive policy action toward public health could come from the same body that would potentially endanger its citizens. I hope by the next session, concerns regarding energy and public health are on the forefront of every citizen’s mind. By expand-ing our own knowledge, we can create a dialogue with representatives and protect our environment and health.
Alex Krefetz is a junior environmental science and policy major. He can be reached at [email protected].
GUEST COLUMN
Now more than ever, it seems as though it is impossible to escape the news. It’s kind of like an addiction in a self-satisfying sort of way: It makes me feel better knowing what is going on, regardless of whether the news is good.
On top of that, it is an impossible addiction to kick, given the almost omnipresent accessibility of it. While that presence o� ers many positives, it has become excessive, to the point that the news starts to lose meaning.
Access is literally at your finger-tips, as someone can simultaneously read The New York Times on his or her phone, get sports score updates on an iPad, Google the latest “Harlem Shake” or “Gangnam Style”-esque fad on a laptop, watch CNN on a TV and, to top it o� , have a copy of The Diamondback to the side. While it’s not likely anyone has mastered this level of multitasking as of yet, I’m sure it has been attempted. We have all the bases covered: national news, local news, television specials, sports news and pop culture — in one jumbled on-slaught of information.
Because of all these mediums, some news events receive an undue amount of coverage. Take last week’s “Snow-quester.” Weather is hard to predict, especially in this region, but the ex-cessive hype this event received led to unnecessary closings. Online, the threat seemed to be important; every-thing else was pushed to the wayside.
And that was not the first time. News outlets milk stories from the papal selection to the sequester to catch our attention. Maybe I’m looking in the wrong places, but I’ve noticed these practices have sacri-ficed the deep, investigative stories that tell us more about the world — in a nuanced way — than breaking news.
The 24-hour news cycle and in-creased accessibility have also created a disconnect with the world. Some-times people pay more attention to the information from technology than to the world. I’m just as guilty as the next person, as I check the news feeds on my phone pretty regularly. That can be problematic in social situations; in choosing to give the phone attention, you are forgoing real-life interaction.
Knowledge is power and ignorance is bliss. While slightly dichotomous, I think in this case, they go hand in hand. There comes a time when it all becomes overbearing, when all the di� erent sources crowd out the little stu� . At that point, you should take a step back and catch your bearings, or you’ll get swallowed up in it all.
D a n ny D vo ra k i s a f resh m a n government and politics and interna-tional business major. He can be reached at [email protected].
In the beginning, there was nothing. And then God created One Direction.
In the ’60s, four young men from Liverpool changed popular music forever; fi ve decades later, fi ve young lads from somewhere around there are close to perfecting it.
The di� erences between these two groups — The Beatles and One Direc-tion — are quite pronounced. Each Beatle is a musician, while One Direc-tion uses those headset microphones. The Beatles were some friends from an old skiffle group; each member of One Direction auditioned for the U.K.’s X Factor separately before a judge’s suggestion brought them together. One is the classic (argu-ably nostalgic) picture of how a band should be formed — organically. The other couldn’t be more modern, con-structed or artifi cial. But for all the locally grown spinach in the world, thank goodness we still have someone making chocolate bars.
Perhaps the widest chasm behind what we consider true artistic talent and manufactured pop music is cre-ative control: Who is writing the songs we like to hear? Sure, we can overlook how Justin Timberlake and Beyoncé probably aren’t up late at night scribbling over a piano, but few other popular stars are so free of
scrutiny. Whenever the pretty faces get popular, it begs the question: Who is really behind the music? Perhaps it’s authenticity we’re after. Maybe it’s envy that it wasn’t us chosen to sing someone else’s brilliant music.
The Beatles, after a few years es-sentially operating as American soul music tribute artists, developed into a songwriting force. Sure, they were usually a step behind someone (The Byrds, Bob Dylan, The Beach Boys, everyone on Motown), but most of us don’t care about innovation. Only the ears need be pleased. The mind can easily be fooled, just as long as we’re hearing true creativity and not a business plan.
We’re so conscious, so hyperaware of being marketed to, that some music doesn’t pass the test. It’s product and not art. Though it gets popular, who is really enjoying it? Thus lament the critics, blogs and anonymous Internet users everywhere. All too familiar: 1. “Such a throwaway single.” 2. “Just a club hit, only good for dancing.” 3. “I hate this song, I just sing along because it’s catchy.” 4. “Derivative. Uncreative.” 5. “He/She/They didn’t even write this!”
A c c o rd i n g to m e n to r S i m o n Cowell, the boys — Harry, Niall, Liam, Zayn and Louis — work on their own arrangements (which, if you still haven’t listened, are euphoric). But it doesn’t take a long look into their albums to see they’re rarely cred-ited as writers. But the fact remains:
Someone is writing these amazing songs, and they keep writing them for One Direction. You can say it’s a boy band, but I think they’ve long since transcended that label.
One Direction is the only group in the market that could perform these songs. They are at once the singers and the muses for the behind-the-scenes bards penning these classics. The Backstreet Boys had weird haircuts, strange pants, and goatees that now make them seem like an unfortunate casualty of the ’90s. Imagine them singing One Direction’s instant classic, “What Makes You Beau-tiful.” No, thanks.
One Direction’s music is part pop-punk, part pop-dance, part pop-R&B, part progressive-post-hardcore (maybe) and the most fun. But it’s always theirs. No one else provides the aesthetic inspiration for what 50-some years of popular music has been building toward. It’s Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers meets Michael Jackson meets Justin Tim-berlake. But the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. That’s synergy.
It took us a long time to get this far, to put everything in place, for every-thing to happen just the way it did. But they’ve arrived, a new breed of genius. The culmination of creativ-ity and marketing. Welcome to pop paradise. Pure perfection.
Jake DeVirgiliis is a senior government and politics major. He can be reached at [email protected].
There’s only One Direction, and it’s way up24/7 news
JAKE DeVIRGILIIS
OPINION EDITOR WANTED
Must be enrolled at the university. Ideal candidates have an understanding of university, state and national issues, a familiarity with journalistic writ-ing, strong managerial skills and the ability to meet deadlines. Opinion editors typically work 30 to 35 hours per week. The position is paid. For more
information on the position or how to apply, please contact opinion editors Maria Romas and Nadav Karasov at [email protected].
4 THE DIAMONDBACK | WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 2013
Opinion EDITORIAL BOARDYASMEEN ABUTALEBEditor in Chief
to compare and learn about which services are provided in each loca-tion and which are best for them.
Stigma, lack of knowledge about on-campus resources, and long waiting times all deter students from receiving the help they need. This campus is a place where students should be thriving and taking advan-tage of academic and extracurricular opportunities, but the inaccessibility of mental health resources is pre-venting students from reaching their potential. During a time when more students are seeking more help than ever, it is imperative for this univer-sity to prioritize the mental health and well-being of its students.
Please support the e� orts of the Help Center, Active Minds and the Student Government Association to get this university more help. Make sure to share your personal stories at http://ter.ps/23s.
M a d i s o n H i g g i n s i s t h e administrator of the Help Center peer counseling and crisis interven-tion hotline. She can be reached at [email protected]. Jen Robinson is the president of Active Minds at Maryland. She can be reached at [email protected].
Two mental health services advocates write part two of a three-day series on the state of services o� ered on the campus
ACROSS 1 Compete for 4 Brass component 8 Snake plate 13 Cuzco locale 14 Inventor’s spark 15 Croesus’ conquest 16 Deg. holder 17 Toast spreads 19 Soak up 21 Quagmire 22 AMEX rival 23 Interstate 25 Non-clerical 27 Fixed up 31 Casual top (hyph.) 35 Blue or green 36 Win every game 38 Copier need 39 Purple flower 41 Ant 43 Tempo 44 Sniffed at 46 Flies alone 48 Vote against 49 High regard 51 Posers 53 Erelong 55 B’way postings of yore 56 -- Wooley’s “The Purple People Eater” 59 PC key
61 Joke response (3 wds.) 65 Word lovers 68 Pakistani’s tongue 69 Secret romance 70 Gave temporarily 71 Numskull 72 Heroic tale 73 Chop -- 74 Tribute in verse
DOWN 1 “Make” or “break” 2 Pension accts. 3 Author -- Welty 4 Rhodesia, now 5 Potato st. 6 Foam-ball brand 7 Dromedary 8 -- vous plait 9 Newscaster’s partner 10 Warhol or Rooney 11 More than fibs 12 Soothe 13 Woods’ org. 18 Premed course 20 Thieves 24 Regards as 26 Hobby ender 27 Dry white wine 28 Lira replacer 29 Bank job 30 Promo tapes 32 Ludicrous
33 Pave over 34 Cards above deuces 37 Throws rocks 40 Attend to (2 wds.) 42 Full of gift shops
56 Smelting waste 57 Back from work 58 Id companions 60 Gourmet cheese 62 Walked heavily 63 Not working
64 Egyptian boy-king 66 Opposite of “post” 67 Hydrocarbon suffix
CROSSWORD HOROSCOPE STELLA WILDER
Born today, you know how to combine business and pleasure in a way that is
unique to you, and almost al-ways profitable and rewarding. But this is the key: That which is not profitable and rewarding is not for you, period. You’re not the kind to toil away at something that isn’t going to pay off in some way -- and the more remarkable the rewards, the better! You are eager to be noticed, but you’re not always willing to do the work that is required beforehand; too often, in fact, you are willing to take possibly dangerous shortcuts. You are comfortable talking openly and honestly about almost anything -- and there are times, in fact, when this may well result in some discomfort for others! You aren’t a squea-mish or stuffy individual, and you are able to move swiftly and easily among most types of people, even those who rub you the wrong way. Also born on this date are: Emile Hirsch, actor; Rachael Bel-la, actress; Will Clark, baseball player; Adam Clayton, musician; Dana Delany, actress; William H. Macy, actor; Neil Sedaka, singer, songwriter, musician; William J. Casey, former CIA director; L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology founder; Percival Lowell, astron-omer. To see what is in store for you tomorrow, find your birthday and read the corresponding paragraph. Let your birthday star be your daily guide. THURSDAY, MARCH 14 PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) -- Take care that you don’t tarnish the luster of a recent accomplishment by
Fill in the grid so that every row, column, and 3x3 grid contains the digits 1 through 9.
preVioUs day’s pUzzle solVed:
DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY:MediUM
overreaching and trying something else that should wait. ARIES (March 21-April 19) -- You’re likely to get news from a trusted source that has you making new plans -- and striving to push an agenda that some may think is unwise. TAURUS (April 20-May 20) -- You’re likely to need the help of a rival before the day is out -- and you know just how and when to ask for it. Don’t miss your chance. GEMINI (May 21-June 20) -- The skills you have developed of late are likely to come in handy today -- and in the days to come -- but you’re likely to need help. CANCER (June 21-July 22) -- You and only you can make peace be-tween two conflicting parties today. What you have to offer is more than a satisfactory compromise. LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) -- You’ll find yourself in charge of a series of anticipated developments that are sure to have a resounding impact. You can’t back away now! VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) -- Your natural suspicions will keep you from a direct encounter with a certain danger that lies before you today.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22) -- You may want to take a more roundabout route to your chosen destination at this time, in order to appreciate the scenery more than usual. SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) -- You may be able to do much more than is expected of you today -- and more than is assigned. SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) -- Teamwork is what is required today, though you may have trouble choosing just the right partner. It’s a question of personality. CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) -- You may have to put the quest for what you want on a back burner for the time being, as someone else’s needs trump your personal desires. AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) -- Don’t forget to demand the right price for your services today, or others are likely to think that they can get something for nothing. PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) -- You’ll come face to face today with certain realities that you cannot change, try as you might. By day’s end you’ll have a different plan.
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just a mirror for the sunMusic festival favorite Red Hot Chili Peppers started as underground punkers, but quickly became one of the biggest mainstream rock bands of the past three decades
LASTING IMPACT | RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS
There it lay in all of its pre-faded glory, comfortably nestled among pi les of g raph ic tees. T h is was what I’d sought out, not its Chuck Norris-themed counterparts. No, I sought an ideal, one far superior to the “cool story bro” lax pinnies middle schoolers so frequently don.
I was 15 and about to buy a Red Hot Chili Peppers T-shirt.
A little self-validation — that’s all I was after. The Chili Peppers were cool; the shirt was cool; ergo, I’d be cool. That iconic red asterisk was a one-way ticket to Awesometown — population: me.
I’m not sure if Anthony Kiedis and Co. shed a few tears when I picked the T-shirt off the Kohl’s novelty rack, but I’m fairly certain the irony of their merchandise’s proximity to Fergie’s clothing line and the Justin Bieber fragrance display wouldn’t have gone unnoticed.
Don’t ta ke that a necdote the wrong way — I was no faux fan. Su re, the ba nd’s brea k th roug h a lbu m, 1991’s Blood Su gar Se x Magik, dropped nearly three years before I was born. And by the time I coalesced into anything more sub-
stantial than an embryonic blob, its eponymous debut seemed about as far-removed as Lance Armstrong’s last Tour de France victory.
But for mysel f a nd cou ntless ot hers who spaw ned a f ter t he band’s meteoric rise, the Red Hot Chili Peppers contin-ued to offer something indefinably — there’s just no other word for it — cool, neatly gift-wrapped in a n u n d e n i a b ly catchy musical package.
W h e t h e r i t laid in the link t he ba nd pro-v i d e d t o t h e vestigial realm o f o l d - s c h o o l r o c k ‘ n ’ r o l l o r that it left it nursing blackened eyes in the wake of its brash mix of punk and funk, I’m uncer-tain. In any case, the Red Hot Chili Peppers delivered unique tunes with its signature rock-star panache, churning out hits like it was their job (which it was).
Admittedly, by the time I donned the T-shirt, it would’ve been slight-
ly out of place in the underground scene where its creators cut their teeth. About 15 years after they penned the l ikes of “Sir Psycho
Sexy,” the bandmates had since traded in their unapologetically hardcore sound — and drug habits — for a more melodic approach, craft-
ing such mainstream hits as “Dani California” and “Snow (Hey Oh).”
Fast-for wa rd f rom there a nd here we are: Kohl’s, second only to a Wal-Mart Supercenter in subur-ban appeal. Incidentally, both carry
RHCP merchandise.It’s a duality the band has trouble escaping. Put on
the T-shirt and you’re just punk enough to
rub shoulders with t h e k i d s p o r t-
ing a Black Flag leather jacket. Yet simultane-o u s l y, y o u’r e s t i l l n o t t o o e d g y t o e a t lu nch at Ol ive
Garden or maybe l i s t e n t o s o m e
Cou nt i ng Crows on the sly.Perhaps this is what
led to the Chili Peppers’ superstardom in the first
place. I’ve never really been able to identify with the revolu-tion the band’s punk predecessors preached. I lived 10 minutes away from the aforementioned Kohl’s and Wal-Mart Supercenter, and I boasted a feeble two detentions
in high school. In short, rebellion wasn’t really my style.
That’s where the Chili Peppers — and that T-shirt — came in. The band was punk, at least initially — there’s no disputing that. But its adulterated message focused more on the classic rockstar lifestyle than any notion of organized revolt. Its songs predictably cataloged a mix of bad life decisions, and its en-viably sordid Californian locale that somehow never grew stale. Its message and sound were ac-cessible, an ideal only misguided teenagers like myself could hope to understand. At least that’s what we thought.
Somewhat improbably, the Chili Peppers have risen to become one of the most popular bands of the last 25 years. It appears almost to have tran-scended mere flesh and blood, be-coming simply an idea in the process. An idea that ultimately led me, and its merchandise, to Kohl’s.
A n d w it h t h e R e d Ho t C h i l i Peppers headlining much of this su m mer’s festiva l ci rcu it, who knows? Maybe it’s time to dig my T-shirt — and the ideal it once rep-resented — out of my dresser drawer.
photos courtesy of fanpop.com, german.fanshare.com, toribodin.blogspot.com and theplace2.ru
IRAN IS NOT THE BIGGEST FAN OF ARGOIran has denounced Oscar best picture-winner Argo as an ad for the CIA (and “a very weak film from an artistic perspective” — take that, Affleck!) and is preparing to sue Hollywood for besmirching Iran’s previously pristine reputation. Officials are also denying rumors that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is just mad because he had Lincoln on his Oscar ballot. Currently unknown: if Mississippi will sue over its portrayal in Django Unchained.
ALL THECRAP YOU
CARE ABOUT
EVEN THE DIAMONDBACK | XXXDAY, SEPTEMBER XX, 20122 THE DIAMONDBACK | FRIDAY, AUGUST 31, 2012WEDNESDAY, March 13, 2013 | SPORTS | THE DIAMONDBACK 7
By Aaron KasinitzStaff writer
It’d be difficult to blame Terrapins men’s lacrosse coach John Tillman for relying on his starting midfield a bit too much.
The third-year coach has watched the group — comprised of preseason All-Americans Mike Chanenchuk and John Haus and fifth-year senior Jake Bernhardt — tally a total of 39 points through five games this season. He also leans on the unit’s 11 combined years of college experience to ensure that his game plan is executed smoothly.
But as the season has progressed, Tillman has become more comfortable when forced to turn to his bench. And in Sunday’s 13-7 victory over Stony Brook, his faith in the second-line midfield paid off.
Reserve midfielder Joe LoCascio tied for the team high with two goals in the No. 1 Terps’ fifth-straight victory and freshman Bradlee Lord added a team-high two assists. There didn’t seem to be a dip in production when the reserve midfielders took over, and LoCascio even notched the game’s first score on
a feed from Lord.“It’s awesome to be on the second
line, to give [the starters] a break and provide some energy off the bench,” LoCascio said. “The coaches are doing a good job bringing us along in the film room and on the field.”
Junior Brendan Saylor joins under-classmen Lord and LoCascio to form a talented second-line midfield for the nation’s top-ranked team. But the unit is also rife with inexperience.
So Tillman doesn’t ask much of his young reserves. He tells them to stay within themselves, to make simple de-cisions rather than search for a spec-tacular play. And Sunday, the group seemed to do just that.
“We’ve been really adamant about telling those guys that you don’t have to be perfect,” Tillman said. “But when you get in the game, you just have to have a good idea of what we’re doing and make smart choices.”
Those intelligent decisions seem to be translating into results. Lord and LoCascio are tied for seventh on the team with six points apiece this year, and Saylor is right behind them with five.
They didn’t progress without some help from the team’s starters, though. LoCascio said his more ex-perienced teammates are constantly there to answer questions and provide encouragement.
“The older kids, the first-line guys, they do a great job mentoring us and helping us out,” LoCascio said. “They keep us confident and comfortable.”
In turn, the Terps’ second-line mid-field is providing a solid option should the starters struggle. Not only have the younger Terps produced on game day, but they also consistently provide heightened competition in practice.
“I feel like these guys are really making strides,” Haus said. “It’s a little easier for us to be confident in them because we do see them making plays in practice every day.”
It’s a good thing Haus has faith because the Terps will likely have to rely on their reserves more and more as the season progresses. The team has avoided injury through five games this season, but it can’t be sure it’ll stay completely healthy the rest of the way.
And with three games against top-11
opponents remaining on the sched-ule, the Terps’ starters are likely to play more fourth-quarter minutes than they have during the early part of the season, which was defined by blowout victories.
There’s no telling exactly when the Terps will need to lean more heavily on their bench, but Tillman said that time will inevitably come.
“As the year goes on, depth becomes more of an issue,” Tillman said. “You need to be confident that [the second midfield] can make plays and can keep the offense rolling. If you can’t do that, it will hurt you down the stretch.”
The Terps’ young second line has only played five games together, so it’s
tough to tell how good it’ll be when the NCAA tournament rolls around. But the unit seems to be improving. After all, Lord and LoCascio were at the forefront of Sunday’s victory.
Tillman might always feel a little anxious when one of his starting midfielders jogs off the field. Slowly, though, the second-line midfield is earning his trust.
“I feel like we’ve made some prog-ress there,” Tillman said. “Showing some confidence in those guys and giving them the opportunities is what allows them to grow.”
Tillman growing more comfortablewith using Terps’ young reservesSecond-line midfield contributes two goals in win over Stony Brook
Coach John Tillman has relied heavily on his starting midfield, but he has recently started to gain more faith in hissecond line. His reserve midfielders accounted for four points against the Seawolves. file photo/the diamondback
MEN’S LACROSSE
senior Josh Asper, who is a two-time All-American and ACC champion. “I thought that it was completely ridiculous. Wrestling has been a part of the Olympics since the Olympics were made. But then I read up and understand that it was ac-tually a real thing.”
McCoy had a similar reaction, only the announcement hit a little closer to home for him.
The fifth-year coach is among the world’s elite athletes who can call themselves Olympians. McCoy made two Olympic ap-pearances at 286 pounds, taking fifth place at the 2000 Games in Sydney and seventh place at the 2004 Games in Athens.
“It was a disappointing an-nouncement,” McCoy said. “There was shock. There was
awe. But then right after that it was about ‘what are we going to do about it? They made their recommendation, and we can’t change that. Now, we have to move forward.’”
And McCoy is in a position to make some noise on a na-tional and global scale about the removal of the sport that has become his life.
He has a hand in virtually every level of wrestling across the country. Not only does McCoy coach the Terps, but he also runs summer camps in College Park teaching wres-tlers aging from 5 to 18 years old. And in September, McCoy was voted to the USA Wrestling Board of Directors, where he serves as the board’s only active Division I head coach.
“I am going to do everything I can with all of my resources to make sure that wrestling stays in the Olympics,” McCoy
said. “I will influence. I will educate. And we’re trying to get in touch with as many people, international federa-tions and media members and really sing the praises of why wrestling is important.”
As a staple in U.S. wrestling — he’s been competing for U.S. national teams since 1990 — McCoy understands better than anyone the immense posi-
tive influence Olympic wres-tling has on the sport’s youth programs and its popularity.
“Everything is trickle-down from the Olympics in our sport,” he said. “All of the funding to USA Wrestling is based off of Olympic medals. And if there are no medals to be won, then that funding will be decreased. That minimizes the opportunity for these guys to have exposure at the
highest level. Whether or not you want to be an Olympic champion growing up, the Olympic cham-pions are the ones who set the bar for your teammate, your coach or your mentor.”
All hope is not lost, though. The Olympic Committee could reverse its decision in May, when it will consider a 26th sport to add for the 2020 Games. The wres-tling community must introduce its sport as a contender for that 26th spot, and a final decision will be made in September.
Until then, it’s all about pub-licity. A petition to save wrestling as an Olympic sport on change.org has more than 60,000 sig-natures and a “Keep Wrestling in the Olympics” Facebook page created by USA Wrestling has almost 100,000 “likes.”
But the possibility still exists that young wrestlers around the world will no longer have an ul-timate prize to call their own.
“I don’t think it will be elimi-nated, and I certainly hope it doesn’t,” Asper said. “But there’s still a chance that it could be. And that would be absolutely terrible.”
The wrestling community has McCoy on its side, though.
And if the International Olympic Committee thinks the two-time Olympian will simply step back and watch his sport die, then they must not know much about wrestling.
Because wrestlers will scratch, claw, battle and fight until the clock shows triple zeros.
“It’s bigger than wrestling in the United States. It’s bigger than an NCAA championship. It’s bigger than a state champi-onship,” McCoy said. “Because wrestling at the Olympic stage has opened the door for all those other things.”
Wrestler Josh Asper “didn’t believe it” when he heard the International Olympic Committeerecommended wrestling be cut for the 2020 Olympic Games. christian jenkins/the diamondback
OLYMPICSFrom PAGE 8
to play well on the road and come from behind,” Szefc said. “It’s still a young group, and we’re still trying to figure stuff out. But I’m pretty en-couraged that we have some thick skin and have [played well] in some different situations.”
Last night’s situation was certainly different. The Terps were forced to handle a four-hour rain delay that eventually led to the cancellation of the first game of the scheduled doubleheader.
The squad also received a well below-average start from freshman Jake Drossner, who allowed two runs on two hits and issued two walks in only one inning of work.
But much like this weekend, the bullpen came to the rescue. Six dif-ferent pitchers worked the final eight innings of Tuesday’s game, surrender-ing only one run on eight hits to keep the Terps within striking distance.
“It took us a little while to get going and break through,” Szefc said. “But our bullpen held the fort and gave us
some time to do it. One run from six different guys is exactly what you’re hoping for from a bullpen.”
Comebacks are rarely easy, though. It takes discipline and energy to respond from an early deficit.
“Our dugout energy was really key today,” said second baseman Kyle Convissar, who batted 2-for-3 with an RBI. “Especially when you sit in the locker room for almost four hours and nothing’s going on and you come out here and the outfield is soaked, dugout energy is crucial. And that definitely helped us win today.”
While comebacks are often more stressful than simply taking care of business, the Terps will take wins however they can get them.
But if this young squad can stay mentally tough despite falling behind early in games, there may not be much that will faze them this season.
“Usually teams that get kicked in the face in the first couple innings tend to fall off and let the other team win,” Hagel said. “We are not like that. We have confidence that we’re going to come back.”
Second baseman Kyle Convissar batted 2-for-3 with an RBI in the Terps’ 9-3, come-from-behind win over Maristyesterday. After the game, he cited energy as the key reason for the team’s comeback. charlie deboyace/the diamondback
By Paul Pierre-LouisStaff writer
Entering its doubleheader against Hampton yesterday, Terrapins softball coach Laura Watten expected to face a developed pitching staff that could prove tough for her batters to expose on the night. After all, Kendra Knight, the Terps’ former star pitcher, works for the Pirates as their graduate as-sistant coach.
However, outfielder Nikki Maier squashed any indications of a defensive struggle in the first inning, ripping an outside pitch over the right field fence for a three-run home run.
The Terps continued to pour it on throughout the night, scoring runs in every inning except one and sweep-ing the Pirates with two mercy rule victories, 14-6 and 13-5.
Maier led the offensive charge throughout the night, collecting five hits and four RBIs. But she wasn’t the only player accounting for the output. Infielder Lindsey Schmeiser also had five hits — including two triples — and infielder Mandy Gardner hit a home run and totaled three RBIs on four hits.
“Instead of the outcome, we were thinking about the process,” Maier said. “I think that really helped us.”
The Terps followed that process well tonight, spraying line drives to all parts of the field and poking grounders through holes in the Pirates’ defense. When runners got on base, the Terps added more power on their swings, sending shots past the outfielders and over the fence.
The Pirates had few moments in
both games where they looked poised to take the lead, though the Terps did give them opportunities in the opening game. After catcher Shannon Bustillos booted a routine pop-up in foul terri-tory, pitcher Maddie Martin walked the batter with the next pitch. The runner eventually scored on an error by second baseman Juli Strange, and a throwing error from Gardner helped the Pirates send another runner home soon after.
The errors were part of a four-run fourth inning that closed the gap to 8-5, but that was as close as the Terps would let them get the rest of the game.
The second game of the night was more of the same. The team continued its offensive onslaught, scoring two or more runs in every inning after the first.
Watten was pleased with the adjust-ments the Terps have been able to make
offensively throughout the season, es-pecially the success they have had in games’ critical situations.
“That was something that we really have been stressing the past few weeks,” Watten said. “So it was nice to see it all come together.”
The team will be playing on the road this weekend when it travels to Clearwater, Fla., for the University of South Florida Invitational. Though they have to leave home again, the Terps are excited they’re beginning to see every-thing come together at the plate.
“Hopefully we can build on this,” Watten said. “This is how we played in the fall; we were relaxed and scored a lot of runs and put a lot of things together.”
Bats erupt as Terps score 27 runs indoubleheader sweep of Hampton
Coach Laura Watten expected to see a solid Hampton pitching staff coached by former Terps ace Kendra Knight.Instead, she saw her team ride its bats to two blowout wins over Hampton, 14-6 and 13-5. charlie deboyace/the diamondback
Page 8 WEDNESDAY, March 13, 2013
Sports TWO WEEKS, TWO HONORSWomen’s lacrosse attacker Alex Aust won her second straight
ACC weekly award. For more, visit diamondbackonline.com.ON THEBLOG
STATLINE
Terps right � elder Jordan Hagel’s line in a 9-3 win over Marist yesterday
2RBIs
5At bats
3Hits
2Runs
BASEBALL
Terps rally late in winover MaristTeam comes back torout Red Foxes, 9-3By Daniel PopperSta� writer
Coach John Szefc has said all season that good teams find a way to come from behind.
So judging by his Terrapins baseball team’s mastery of the comeback, Szefc’s squad is doing pretty well for itself.
After dropping the weekend series to Virginia, four of the Terps’ 10 wins were come-from-behind victories. And they added another one in a 9-3 rout of Marist last night.
Trailing 3-2 in the bottom of the seventh inning, right fielder Jordan Hagel stepped to the plate with the bases loaded. The senior hit a chopper down the left-fi eld line that bounced o� third baseman Matt Belitz’s glove and trick-led into foul territory. Designated hitter Greg Olenski and left fi elder Matt Bosse scored, giving the Terps a 4-3 lead.
“I struggled this weekend in big situations so I just wanted to give us a chance to score some runs,” Hagel said. “I didn’t hit the ball that great, but I found a spot where a guy wasn’t and it worked out well.”
The Terps never looked back. They scored five more in the seventh and cruised to the six-run victory over the Red Foxes, notching their fi fth come-back win of the season in the process.
“We’ve talked about it from Day One — as far as good teams need to be able
See FOXES, Page 7
WRESTLING
Not without a � ghtMcCoy, USA Wrestling working to reverse IOC’s recommendation to cut sport from 2020 Olympics
By Daniel PopperSta� writer
Each sport has its pinnacle, a moun-taintop every young athlete aspires to reach.
Football players dream of holding the Lombardi Trophy, basketball players envision winning the NBA Finals and baseball players strive to hoist the World Series trophy.
Wrestlers don’t have those same apexes, though. There’s no professional league considered to be the zenith of the sport. Instead, all of their hard work, commitment, grit and deter-mination is geared toward representing their country at the Olympic Games.
But on Feb. 12, that dream was ripped away. The 15-member International Olympic Committee executive board recommended the sport — which made its first appearance at the Olympic Games in 708 B.C. — be dropped for the 2020 Games.
In the blink of an eye, the crowning achievement in the sport of wrestling ceased to exist. For coach Kerry McCoy and members of the Terrapins wrestling team, that idea was tough to swallow.
“I didn’t believe it,” said fi fth-year
“I am going to do everything I can with all of my resources to make sure that
wrestling stays in the Olympics.”– Coach Kerry McCoy
photo by charlie deboyace, illustration by ben fraternale/the diamondback
See OLYMPICS, Page 7
THE DIAMONDBACK2013 ACC TOURNAMENT GUIDE
A new home
photo illustration by chris allen/the diamondback
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
2 THE DIAMONDBACK | ACC TOURNAMENT GUIDE | WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 2013
By Connor LetourneauSenior sta� writer
Dez Wells needed a nap. Less than two weeks after getting kicked out of a program he was poised to lead, the college sophomore stood in Memphis International Airport feeling emotion-ally drained and physically spent.
The objective had seemed so simple: shake hands, tour campuses and fi nd a new home within fi ve days. But just 72
sleepless hours and two unsuccessful visits later, Wells was desperate for a date with his pillow.
After all, he had no real intention of moving to the next stop on his itinerary. He had only scheduled a trip to College Park because he saw an opportunity to catch up with a childhood friend and a former coach. And at this point, sleep outranked fun on the priority scale.
But there was one snag in his plan to catch some much-needed shut-eye.
His mother, Pamela, had already left her Raleigh, N.C., home to tag along on the Terrapins visit. She couldn’t a� ord to waste a few hundred dollars on a plane ticket.
“There’s no way she can turn around now,” Wells’ longtime friend and mentor Kendrick Williams told the former Xavier standout on the phone that late summer morning. “She’s on her way to Maryland, and you want to get her to turn around? No way.”
Much has changed since that weary phone call. At the time, sexual assault allegations had forced the 20-year-old onto the road. He admittedly knew little about the Terps and hardly con-sidered them a viable option.
But now, six months removed from a fi ve-day whirlwind recruiting tour, Wells is growing comfortable as an emotional leader of coach Mark Tur-geon’s rising program.
It’s clear when he gathers starters for
a brief pep talk before tip-o� . It’s clear in the way he barks in players’ ears when practices hit a rut, encouraging them to ratchet up the intensity. And it’s clear whenever he embraces teammates moments after willing the Terps to victory.
After slowly moving past what he calls the “roughest time in my life,” Wells has embraced his new home.
“Everything that happens is in God’s
A team to call his own
Forward Dez Wells is playing in his � rst year with the Terps following his expulsion from Xavier in August. The sophomore has emerged as a leader for coach Mark Turgeon’s squad, averaging 12.2 points and 3.1 assists per game so far this season. photos by charlie deboyace/the diamondback
After ‘roughest time’ of life, Dez Wells emerges as emotional leader of young Terps team
CONTINUED ON PAGE 3
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hands. That’s something I’m a strong believer in,” said Wells, whose Terps will face Wake Forest in the first round of the ACC tournament tomor-row night. “I’m happy to be at Maryland. … I wouldn’t rather be anywhere else.”
GROWING PAINS
Wells wasn’t always the chis-eled 6-foot-5, 215-pound swing-man capable of muscling his way into the lane at will. He was once a slow, chubby fourth-grader with little basketball promise. Classmates belittled his hoops ambitions and teammates picked him apart in practice.
But Wells began to show his natural athleticism at the start of middle school. He quickly grew 3 inches, shed the baby fat and started dominating peers on the hardwood.
Williams, who coached Wells in AAU and high school, first noticed his pupil’s transforma-tion during a national tourna-ment in Tennessee. The 12-year-old saw a defender ready to block his shot, so Wells sneaked across the baseline and elevated for an up-and-under layup.
“He was up in the air for so long that I was like, ‘Oh my God,’” Williams said. “That was the first time I was like, ‘OK, he’s definitely going to be special.’ I knew it.”
So did Wells. An ego had ac-companied the new physique, and the middle-schooler sud-denly wasn’t too keen on taking direction. He regularly argued with Williams in practice, dogged sprints and criticized plays.
One day, Williams grew tired of watching Wells jog through line drills. He gave a team captain $2 to get a Gatorade from the vending machine, and asked the other captain to put a chair at midcourt. Williams called over to Wells, told him to take his shoes off, and handed him the sports drink.
He’d sit in that chair and sip
Gatorade the rest of practice, the coach explained. His teammates would handle Wells’ punishment.
The 13-year-old began to cry while his peers started a series of sprints that lasted more than an hour. He was forced to sit still and watch as teammates vomited into trash cans and struggled to stand from exhaustion.
Shortly after ending the grueling workout, Williams pulled Wells aside. He told the player that he doesn’t just hurt himself when he chooses to slack off or talk back — he hurts the entire team.
“Those kids that are running hard, they’re fighting for you,” he said. “Are you fighting for them?”
The message resonated. Over the next five years that they worked together, Williams never had another run-in with Wells.
“From that point, it kind of set something in my mind that a team is bigger than me,” Wells said. “You know what I’m saying? I’m a part of something that’s a lot bigger than myself.”
HIGHS AND LOWS
Wells wanted to build a
legacy. As a 16-year-old incom-ing junior at Raleigh’s Word of God Christian Academy, the emotional forward had spent the past two years sharing the hardwood with future top NBA draft pick John Wall and future N.C. State standout C.J. Leslie.
He c h e r i s h e d t h e d a i ly battles he waged against Wall and Leslie, but was eager for a change of pace. Wells craved a shot at leading a program, at being the player a team leaned on during crunch time.
So when Xavier offered him a scholarship the summer after his sophomore year, Wells didn’t take long to make his move. Sure, Wells had already garnered interest from bigger conference teams — N.C. State, Virginia and Wake Forest, among others — but the Mus-keteers presented a unique situ-ation he couldn’t ignore.
T h e y w a n t e d t o m a k e Wells the centerpiece of their program. Xavier’s coaching staff envisioned the tough swing-man leading the Musketeers — a program that has made four Sweet 16 appearances in the past five years — to their first-
ever Final Four.Xavier would recruit players
with the aim of complementing Wells’ skill set, coaches told him. And after a year studying under a host of veterans, he’d effectively be handed the keys to the offense.
“He wanted to leave his name there. That was his goal,” Wil-liams said. “He always talked about being remembered.”
Everything went according to plan those first few months on the Cincinnati campus. Wells locked down a starting job on a senior-laden squad, made lasting bonds and reveled in a 7-0 start.
But all positive momentum temporarily screeched to a halt during the waning moments of a Dec. 10, 2011 blowout win over rival Cincinnati. A bench-clear-ing brawl erupted, and game film caught Wells pushing Cin-cinnati guard Ge’Lawn Guyn.
Wells, who would ultimately earn a four-game suspension for his role in the nationally tele-vised fight, shed some tears in the Cintas Center locker room that afternoon. Williams said the freshman initially struggled to understand how he could’ve acted so out of character. He’s no school-yard punk, he rea-soned. He’s a basketball player.
“Man, I can’t believe I did that,” an emotional Wells told Williams soon after the brawl. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Eventually, life got back to normal at Xavier. The four suspended players returned to the team; Wells wowed crowds with monstrous dunks, and the Musketeers reached yet another Sweet 16.
With Xavier’s four other starters leaving in the offseason, Wells seemed poised to take the next step toward building a lasting legacy. The Atlantic 10 All-Rookie Team member was the Musketeers’ top returning scorer at 9.8 points per game, a load that only figured to grow once he stepped in as the team’s go-to player.
“I was happy there,” Wells said in November. “I didn’t want to be anywhere else.”
His picture-perfect situation at Xavier unraveled rapidly. A game of “truth or dare” at a party culminated with a fellow student accusing Wells of sexual assault. He appeared before the school’s Conduct Board — a committee composed of faculty, students and administrators — and was soon expelled.
A few days later, an Ohio grand jury declined to bring criminal charges against Wells, and the county prosecutor openly questioned Xavier’s de-cision. But it was too late. The
university’s decision was final.The ultra-athletic basketball
star would need to find a new home. And time was running out. With the fall semester ap-proaching, he only had a week to enroll in classes.
“I know it was really tough on him,” said Nigel King, a childhood friend and Terps football wide receiver. “I was feeling for him.”
SETTLING IN
Williams took a few moments to process the words on the other end of the line. They didn’t make sense. Could it be true? Wells, the same person who’d called him from Memphis 12 hours earlier hoping to bail on his trip to College Park, was set on becoming a Terp.
“Slow down,” Williams said, struggling to get a word in edge-wise as the suddenly chatty Wells detailed his fateful visit. “Relax.”
He couldn’t. Standing in King’s off-campus apartment, Wells had too much to explain. He talked about how the campus was love at first sight. He ex-pressed how impressed he’d been with the Terps’ state-of-the-art training facilities. He
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 2013 | ACC TOURNAMENT GUIDE | THE DIAMONDBACK 3
Continued from page 2
Forward Dez Wells quickly formed a strong relationship with coach Mark Turgeon (above) after he was expelled from Xavier (right). Had henot been expelled, he would have been the Musketeers’ top returning scorer. charlie deboyace/the diamondback (above), photo courtesy of u.s. presswire (right)
CONTINUED ON PAGE 4
described how welcoming each player seemed through-out the tour.
But more than anything, he gushed over the plainspoken Turgeon. After listening to a basketball-centric recruiting pitch during his last stop in Memphis, Wells appreciated the second-year coach’s genuine interest in him off the court.
During an hour-long talk earlier that day, Turgeon had spent about 10 minutes dis-cussing hoops. The other 50 focused on getting to know Wells as a person.
“College coaches nowadays take it as a business,” Wells said. “They tend to not really sit down and talk to the players as much as they should, and coach Turgeon does those things.”
At that time in his life, Wells said, that’s exactly what he needed. He’d been so busy navigating the legal process and searching for a new school that he hadn’t had a chance to really open up about his feelings.
Xavier’s expulsion may have been final, but his wounds were lasting. He still reflected on the allegations constantly and often longed to see his old Xavier pals. Moving on was proving difficult.
Turgeon, King and his new teammates helped speed up that healing process. From the moment he arrived on the campus, Wells said, they tried to make him feel comfortable.
When players stepped out to grab a bite to eat, they made sure to stop by Wells’ apartment and invite him along. When Wells was feeling too exhausted to attend class, King encour-aged him to take care of his responsibilities.
And when Wells seemed overwhelmed with outside ex-pectations days after the NCAA approved the Terps’ appeal on waiver to allow him to play this season, Turgeon did his best to simplify things. He told him to just focus on playing basketball and being a student. He’d take care of all the other stuff.
“They didn’t have to accept me the way they did,” Wells said of his new support system. “I really appreciate those guys for doing that. They have no idea the impact they’ve had on my life.”
They’ve done more than simply accept Wells. At times, the Terps have challenged him in ways he’d never before experienced.
When Wells first arrived in College Park, he was accus-tomed to Xavier’s scrappy style of play. He trash-talked in prac-tices and took every opportunity to muscle up his defender.
The approach didn’t mesh with the even-keeled environ-ment Turgeon hoped to foster. So a couple days into fall practices, Turgeon delivered a strident message: If Wells hoped to fit in, he’d need to change his behavior.
“There’s nothing wrong with being intense,” he told his new star pupil. “You just have to
learn to use your emotions to your advantage.”
Something clicked that Sep-tember afternoon. Though he remains the same fiery player he’s been since joining Wil-liams’ AAU team as a chubby fourth-grader, Wells has started dialing back his emotions. He’s still prone to the occasional foul complaint, but he rarely, if ever, allows his emotions to interfere with a game’s bottom line.
“If I had kept the same course,” Wells said, “I probably would have at least five techni-cals by now.”
It’s all part of growing com-fortable in his new surround-ings. Since being cleared to play just two days before the Nov. 9 season opener against then-No. 3 Kentucky, Wells has proven critical for the up-and-down Terps. He’s averaging a team-high 12.2 points per game on 52.1 percent shooting, and
ranks second on the Terps with 3.1 assists per game.
But that’s merely the begin-ning. Wells didn’t fully ac-climate to the Terps’ system, Turgeon said, until “about five or six weeks ago.” He’s just now starting to show his full poten-tial as a leader and teammate. And in a season plagued with chronic inconsistency, that’s one cause for optimism.
“I’m just glad we have him,” Turgeon said. “He’s fun to coach, and he’s just got a huge upside. He’s a heck of a player. So I look forward to playing him over the next couple years.”
As for Wells? He’s just thank-ful his mom had already booked that flight to College Park in September.
“Maryland gave him the chance he needed,” King said. “Trust me, he really needed this.”
4 THE DIAMONDBACK | ACC TOURNAMENT GUIDE | WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 2013
Forward Dez Wells will attempt to lead the Terps in their game against Wake Forest in the first round of the ACC tournament tomorrow night in Greensboro, N.C. charlie deboyace/the diamondback
