Maryland’s President Warned of ‘Dormant Volcanoes.’ Now, One Looks Ready to Blow.

Linda Davidson, The Washington Post via Getty Images

The University of Maryland at College Park’s president said last year that a college campus is just one scandal away from chaos. Then, his statement made waves. Now, it seems almost prescient.

“As president, I sit over a number of dormant volcanoes,” Wallace D. Loh said at the time, according to local news reports. “One of them is an athletic scandal. It blows up, it blows up the university, its reputation. It blows up the president.”

A volcano is erupting in Maryland, and it may soon embroil Loh’s presidency.

Allegations of verbal abuse and intimidation by the football program’s staff surfaced in an ESPN report on Friday, mere weeks before the season opener. The news outlet reported that the June death of a 19-year-old student, Jordan McNair, an offensive lineman, followed extreme exhaustion that he suffered during a team workout two weeks earlier. ESPN reported on Friday that McNair, whose body temperature reached 106 degrees, could not stand upright as he ran 110-yard sprints.

Loh said in a message to the campus on Saturday that he was “profoundly disturbed” after reading the news coverage. Maryland’s athletics director placed the head football coach, DJ Durkin, and other staff members on administrative leave, Loh wrote.

Loh has already called for two external reviews – one of McNair’s death and one of the football program’s coaching practices.

Still, the scandal is the latest reminder of the complex dynamic between university leaders and their vast athletics arms. Athletics departments hold significant power over university leadership, attracting eyeballs and in some cases revenue, in addition to support from trustees and alumni.

Loh’s perhaps fatalistic outlook about the ramifications of athletics scandal, expressed last year, is more and more common among university presidents, experts say. Like Loh, the presidents realize that it may not be a matter of if they’ll face scandal, but when.

“They don’t know what it is, and it’s going to be a huge challenge for their leadership,” said Simon Barker, managing partner at Blue Moon Consulting Group, a firm that specializes in higher-education crisis management. “It’s completely possible to recover, but it does take … some courage to make decisions that will cause a lot of challenges.”

Problems on the ‘Front Porch’

Maryland did not make Loh available for comment on Monday and said more information may be forthcoming on Tuesday. The Washington Post reported on Sunday that video footage of the practice preceding McNair’s death may exist.

Managing athletics crises, as opposed to scandals in research or other areas of the university, can be especially difficult due to the gap in experience between the typical college president and athletics personnel, Barker said.

But that doesn’t take any responsibility off top administrators, particularly as universities with teams that generate revenue call athletics their “front porch,” said B. David Ridpath, an associate professor of sports administration at Ohio University. Loh used that phrase as recently as April, when he announced the search that would result in the appointment of Damon Evans as athletics director.

Ridpath said Loh’s acknowledgment last year of his sense of powerlessness is “exactly right,” citing the disparity in earnings between coaches and presidents.

“That’s the sad part,” he said. “I think most presidents have to hold on for dear life. Many, many presidents have not been able to bounce back.”

The scandal is just the latest athletics hurdle for Loh.

Alumni protested his administration’s decision to leave the Atlantic Coast Conference for the Big Ten Conference in 2013.

And allegations about a romantic relationship with a subordinate surfaced during Evans’s tenure at Maryland, which hired him after a drunken-driving arrest cost him his job at the University of Georgia in 2010.

Some alumni over the weekend called for Loh’s resignation. Jonathan Allen, the student-body president, called the university’s response “absolutely disgraceful.”

“Another sad example,” he wrote on Twitter, “of the administration’s failure to prioritize the safety and well-being of our students.”

Lindsay Ellis is a staff reporter. Follow her on Twitter @lindsayaellis, or email her at lindsay.ellis@chronicle.com.