State delegate writes to Loh on behalf of swim teams

The men and women’s swimming and diving teams may have only four months to raise $11.5 million before their teams are eliminated, but team members just found a valuable supporter in Annapolis.

Del. Neil Parrott (R-Washington) sent a letter to university President Wallace Loh today on behalf of the teams, which could be cut June 1 along with six others due to budget woes in the athletics department.

Parrott, a university alumnus who was involved in swimming while a student, said he wrote the letter on behalf of several team members who contacted him out of concern. Parrott requested Loh reduce the amount the team needs to fundraise to $9.2 million.

“While I would prefer that the aquatic programs continue to be funded by the University without a fundraising effort, this proposal will at least provide an honest cost for the aquatic teams should they be self-sustaining,” he wrote.

Parrott also sent the letter to University System of Maryland Chancellor Brit Kirwan, Athletics Director Kevin Anderson and university Vice President for Student Affairs Linda Clement.

View the full letter below.

–Lauren Redding

Elsewhere in the university system: Barack Obama, grand pianos, broken penises, spontaneous combustion and Bill Murray

Every once in a while we like to check in on other state schools, just to see what they’re up to. Sometimes, for example, they’re spending half a million dollars on 32 Steinway pianos, and other times they’re doing research on the most common causes of penile fractures (it’s infidelity, and yes, there is an “audible crack.”)

This week in particular has seen some considerable action in the university system. On Saturday, the Obama family attended a Towson University basketball game — and rooted against Towson. The Baltimore Sun has a photo gallery from the evening that you should check out; our editors tell us “stealing wire service photos for blog posts” is against the rules, but here’s a hint at ONE of the better pictures:

CLICK. CLICK ON THE LINK.

Former Terps baller “always wanted to” riot, doesn’t blame Penn State students for doing it

"BURN ALL OF THE COUCHES"

Last night, Penn State University students reacted to the firing of (very) long-time football coach Joe Paterno by taking to the streets, bashing light poles and flipping a news van.

Former Terrapin women’s basketball player Marissa Coleman tweeted this morning that she’s, uh, kind of OK with that.

“The PSU students really shouldn’t be looked down upon for rioting,” said Coleman, who now plays for the WNBA’s Washington Mystics. “Let’s be serious, college students are always looking for an excuse to […] riot lol…I know I always wanted to, but never did in fear @umdwbb @BrendaFrese would find out haha.”

Don’t you say one mean word about Todd Heap during the Ravens game

Photo by Keith Allison via Creative Commons

No word yet on whether a hamstring injury will keep former Baltimore Ravens tight end Todd Heap out of the game when he comes back to town in an Arizona Cardinals jersey Sunday, but if he gets on that field, be nice to the guy.

Heap, who said he was “hoping to be ready” for the game, according to the Arizona Republic, took out a half-page ad in the Baltimore Sun today to thank the Ravens, the city and Baltimore fans for “the way this city embraced our family and took us in as your own.” 

The Terps football kickoff countdown clock people are not even trying anymore

This is starting to look like it is going to be a weekly piece — we told you last week how the clock in the South Campus Dining Hall counting down to kickoff against Temple was off by 12 hours. This week, it’s worse, and brings the number of weeks in which a clock was wrong to “all of the weeks”:

This picture of Stamp’s countdown clock was taken Wednesday at exactly 4 p.m., which means the countdown will hit zero at 3:19 a.m. on Saturday, 12 hours and 11 minutes early.

Terps football kickoff countdown clock does not count down to kickoff

Whoever is in charge of setting the football countdown clock in the South Campus Dining Hall apparently does not fulfill the one requirement for all clock-setters: They must know how to tell time.

Before the Miami game, we saw the clock was two hours off and decided it wasn’t worth nitpicking — but the gap has now grown to about 12 hours, which means, even if you ignore the days, seconds and minutes, that whoever set the thing did not realize it claimed a football game was going to happen some time just after midnight.

Taken at about 7:15 p.m. on Wednesday, while everyone else was out "having friends" and "not blogging."

You can also check out Campus Drive on Facebook and on Twitter at @theDBK.

Syracuse blogger: ‘Cuse and UMD should be rivals because of the Jews

Students celebrating another great sports rivalry by breaking the law after a Maryland-Duke basketball game last March. (Diamondback file photo)

Blogger Sean Keely from the popular Syracuse Orange blog Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magician had a chat with Jim Young on Young’s ACCSports.com podcast today about Syracuse joining the ACC. Like anyone who spends too much time thinking about sports, he came up with a great excuse for Syracuse and Maryland to start hating each other immediately. But Keely’s excuse was Jewish people.

A Maryland football flag uniform can be yours for mere thousands

Anybody want a $1,600 bowl for chip dip?

If you were concerned that we’d seen the last of the now-infamous Maryland flag-themed football uniforms the Terps wore Sept. 5 against Miami, fret not — Maryland Athletics is generously auctioning them off to benefit… Maryland Athletics.

The new Terps football pump-up video is online and awesome

Maryland Athletics has posted the video that played in the stadium before the Maryland home opener Monday night. Even if you thought the new uniforms looked like a pile of barf, there is enough pride in this video to make you want to snort some Old Bay and strap on the shoulderpads yourself.

It also appears this is the “promotion” Baltimore Raven (and former Terp) Torrey Smith was recording when the earthquake hit late last month:

Torrey, we have no idea where you were running, but we hope after the Earth finished doing that terrifying thing that you went out to comfort the poor lawn guy running in circles out in the field behind you.

You can also check out Campus Drive on Facebook and on Twitter at @theDBK.

The Internet hated the new Terps uniforms

Not pictured: Francis Scott Key

In case you missed the football game last night (or the fashion show three weeks ago), the Maryland football team now has more uniform combinations than they do starting players.

They changed into top-secret uniforms after warmups and came out for the game against Miami dressed up like Francis Scott Key if he were competing on “American Gladiators.” Some thought it was as awesome as Apollo Creed’s American flag shorts, some thought it was just gross.