Maryland Has Fired Coach DJ Durkin After Pressure From The State Governor And Others

The University of Maryland Board of Regents made the stunning decision to retain coach D.J. Durkin after an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Jordan McNair at a practice over the summer.

The board determined the culture of the program was not “toxic,” but that there were some problems, just not to the point of needing to fire Durkin. The backlash to the decision was immediate from just about every imaginable source. McNair’s father spoke at a press conference on Tuesday and told the media it felt like he’d been punched in the stomach and had someone spit in his face.

Some members of the football team walked out of a meeting on Wednesday, per reports, fans and students planned a protest event on campus, most every media outlet had a column about the unfathomable decision to retain Durkin, and even congressmen and the Maryland governor called upon the school to revisit their decision.

Ultimately, in the face of that backlash and pressure from the state legislature, the university did what they should have from the beginning and fired Durkin, as reported by Rick Maese of the Washington Post and ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg, among others.

University president Wallace Loh released a statement on Wednesday evening explaining the decision.

There were plenty of reasons to decide to move on from Durkin, but if nothing else, it’s stunning that the board couldn’t see this reaction coming. A young man was dead and enough reports had detailed the culture of the program where, even if they could describe it as “not toxic,” it certainly wasn’t worth keeping around. Now Durkin is gone and Maryland can try to move on, but few will forget that the board and athletic department wanted to move forward like nothing was really wrong, only to change course when they saw how the public felt.