Terps men assistant Conry named coach at Michigan

Big Ten program hires rising star who oversaw top-10 defenses at UM

Kevin Conry is leaving the Maryland men’s lacrosse team for Michigan after all.

After days of speculation, the Terps’ associate head coach and defensive coordinator was named the second head coach in the Wolverines’ brief Division I history. Conry replaces John Paul, who was fired May 2 after six seasons at Michigan.

Conry interviewed for the opening at UMBClast year, but former Maryland and Loyola Maryland offensive coordinator Ryan Moran was hired to succeed Don Zimmerman.

Conry’s star rose after he helped the top-seeded Terps end a 42-year drought with an NCAA final victory over No. 3 Ohio State on May 29. In five years on head coach John Tillman’s staff, Conry was the architect of a defense that ranked in the top 10 in the country four times.

Anchored by senior defensive standouts Tim Muller and Isaiah Davis-Allen, Maryland held Ohio State and Denver’s high-scoring offenses to a combined 14 goals over the season’s final weekend.

Tillman, who has watched former assistants Kevin Warne, Moran and now Conry become head coaches at Georgetown, UMBC and Michigan, respectively, said he supported Conry’s decision.

“As a head coach, I feel like it’s part of my job to help our assistant go where they want to go, and we’ve been very blessed to have some awesome assistants,” he said. “Kevin has done a great job for us, and one of his dreams was to be a head coach, and part of my job was to help him get there, to the best of my ability. We feel pretty blessed, and I think it shows what people think of the University of Maryland when you have a guy go to Michigan, a guy go to Georgetown, a guy go to UMBC.”

Conry, a former Johns Hopkins defenseman who graduated in 2004, began his coaching career that year at Siena. He moved to Penn State for the 2007 season before joining Fairfield’s staff as defensive coordinator from 2008 to 2011 and associate head coach for the last two years.

Conry should be familiar with Michigan, a Big Ten Conference foe of Maryland’s that has faced the Terps annually the past three seasons. The Wolverines set single-season program records this past spring for wins (eight), road victories (five), points (237) and assists (89) and defeated No. 10 Penn, 13-12, on March 11 to secure its first win over a ranked opponent.

But after an 8-1 start, Michigan lost its five remaining conference games. The team’s average margin of defeat against league opponents was 7.8 goals.

The university is committed to supporting the program, which began play at the NCAA level in 2012. The Wolverines are scheduled to move into the new Athletics South Competition and Performance Complex in 2018, with a dedicated, 2,000-seat lacrosse facility including locker rooms.

Conry earned $103,000 in 2016, according to a salary database for all state employees. According to a similar database for University of Michigan employees, Paul made $114,000 in 2017.