Gee was a wiz from the start at soccer
With Trimble gone, sophomore-led team will pass around ball, spotlight Former Oakland Mills star, U.S. Olympic selection headlines seven inductees
COLLEGE PARK — On the same night junior guard Melo Trimble played what turned out to be his final game at Maryland, three of his freshman teammates stood in a quiet locker room at the Amway Center in Orlando, Fla., after a Round of 64 loss to Xavier in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.
While Trimble talked at a corner stall about the 11-point loss and whether he would return for his senior year, the freshmen had a pretty good idea that the team’s leading scorer for each of his three seasons would be opting out to embark on his professional career.
Each of them — point guard Anthony Cowan Jr., wing Kevin Huerter and forward Justin Jackson — also had the notion that they would become the leaders on the 2017-18 team, and would be asked to go from the supporting cast to featured roles.
On Friday night, when the Terps open the season against Stony Brook at the Nassau Coliseum on Long Island, the focus is not going to be on one player, as it often was during Trimble’s final season and throughout his storied college career.
The spotlight, like the ball, will be shared more consistently.
Not only do the three sophomores expect Maryland to be different from the team a year ago, when a program-best 20-2 start evaporated with seven defeats in the last 11 games, but they expect the Terps to be better Radio: 105.7 FM |
Darryl Gee, 55, bought his first bicycle last month. There was just one hitch.
“They had to show mehowto pump the tires,” he said.
Perhaps that seems odd for one who is to be enshrined in the Maryland State Athletic Hall of Fame tonight. But, as a Glenelg celebrates its 3-0 win over Kent Island in Wednesday’s Class 2A state youth in Columbia, Gee had little time for semifinal field hockey game at Broadneck High School. The Gladiators advanced many boyhood activities. Soccer was his life. to Saturday’s state championship game against Hereford. COVERAGE, PG 4 By his senior year at Oakland Mills, Gee had been named an All-American, picked for the 1980 U.S. Olympic team and named national co-winner of the Hertz Number One High School Athlete Award — which he shared with basketball’s Michael Jordan. Soon after, he signed a pro contract with the New York Cosmos as the first High school athletes around the area made their college commitments on Wednesday as part of National Signing Day. To see a list of local signers and a photo gallery, go to baltimoresun.com/sports. For signing highlights, see PG 4. Darryl Gee was named to the 1980 U.S. Olympic soccer team and was the first American-born black player in the North American Soccer League. American-born black player in the North American Soccer League.
“My life was a whirlwind from the beginning,” Gee said. “I was always going 100 miles an hour. Growing up, I missed a lot of stuff. Now that I’m semi-retired, I’ve decided to do all of the things that I didn’t do, as a kid — and I feel a sense of inner peace.”
He rides the bike more than 5 miles a day, near the beach at his home in Tampa, Fla. He plays tennis and goes to the theater. And he spends time with his elderly parents, who’ll attend his induction at Martin’s West at 6 p.m. ($85 tickets are available at the door.)
One of seven honorees, Gee said his selection for the 58th ceremony coincided with his retirement this year as head of the Darryl Gee Soccer Academy, which he founded in 1982 in Montgomery County.