Curley Byrd - Administrative Career

Administrative Career

Byrd was appointed to the post of assistant university president in 1918. He became a proponent of unification of the Maryland Agricultural College and the Baltimore professional schools into a single public University of Maryland, and he was instrumental in what became the Consolidation Act of 1920. Byrd named the student newspaper The Diamondback in 1921, and in 1933, he was the lead advocate for the adoption of the diamondback terrapin as the university's official nickname and mascot.

In 1932, Byrd was promoted to vice president of the university. In July 1935, he was named the acting president of the university, and was officially appointed to the presidency in February 1936. During his tenure, the budget, facilities, faculty, and enrollment increased significantly. The school budget was increased and the campus expanded largely due to Byrd's deft political maneuvering in Annapolis and Washington. The school also saw a large growth in enrollment, due in part to returning veterans making use of the G.I. Bill after World War II. From 1945 to 1948, the university budget increased from $4.8 million to $9.8 million. Between 1935 and 1954, student enrollment grew from 3,400 to 16,000. Over that same time period, the value of the campus rose from $5 million to $65 million. Byrd, however stood fast on faculty salaries. He reportedly said, "Ph.D.s are a dime a dozen." For years, Byrd refused to release the university's financial records to state legislators, and how exactly he secured funding for many of his projects was largely a mystery. According to booster Jack Heise, Byrd financed a new basketball arena through the out-of-state tuition, paid by the federal government, for Maryland high school graduates who attended the university on the G.I. Bill. The General Accounting Office calculated that the extra fees totaled more than $2 million, but determined that they were within the bounds of legality.

"The thing to do with a man of such talents is not to cuss him for doing his job so well; it is much wiser, so long as hanging him is unlawful, to give him a bigger and better one."

— H.L. Mencken on Byrd, The Baltimore Sun

Byrd was a staunch supporter of a "separate but equal" state university system. The Princess Anne campus provided agricultural education and Morgan State College provided liberal arts education for the state's black students, while the University of Maryland remained open only to white students. In 1951, Governor Theodore McKeldin criticized the University of Maryland as an example of wasteful state spending, and was especially critical of expansions to the Princess Anne campus, which was geographically disconnected from the state's black population and not attracting many students to study agriculture. Contractors had begun projects at the college before approval from the public works board, which was described as a usual practice under Byrd. Byrd acceded to McKeldin and secured approval from the board for both the Princess Anne expansions as well as a sizable increase to the university budget.

In 1945, Byrd hired 32-year old Paul "Bear" Bryant to his first head coaching post. Bryant led the Terrapins to a 6–2–1 record, but the two personalities clashed. The tensions came to a head when Byrd reinstated a player Bryant had suspended for violating team rules. Bryant resigned as head coach an hour later, which caused an uproar among students until he interceded to restore order.

Two years later, Byrd hired Jim Tatum as football coach. The year prior at Oklahoma, Tatum fielded a winning team, but the athletic department ran up a huge deficit and some players were paid in violation of conference rules, which resulted in university president George Cross firing athletic director Jap Haskell. The media blamed Tatum for his termination. Tatum told Cross to refute Tatum's role in the matter, and threatened to reveal the Oklahoma team had been paid $6,000 after the 1947 Gator Bowl. Cross asked Byrd to persuade Tatum not to go public, and according to author Gary King in An Autumn Remembered, Byrd replied, "Persuade, hell! I'll tell him to keep his damn mouth shut!" Tatum remained as coach at Maryland from 1947 to 1955, and amassed a 73–15–4 record.

In 1948, the National Collegiate Athletic Association passed a set of regulations called the Purity Code, later renamed the Sanity Code, which permitted student-athletes free tuition and meals, but required that part-time jobs be legitimate and their pay commensurate with the work. Schools found to be in violation could be expelled from the NCAA. In 1950, seven schools, called the "Sinful Seven"—Virginia, Maryland, VMI, Virginia Tech, The Citadel, Boston College, and Villanova—admitted they were in violation of the code. Time magazine asserted violators were far more widespread than those seven that had confessed. Maryland was the only Sinful Seven school that was also a major football power with eighty scholarship players, and Byrd led them in their stand against the Sanity Code. University of Virginia president Colgate Darden called the code hypocritical, and The Citadel's leadership refused to "lie to stay in the association" and requested termination of its NCAA membership. At the convention to decide Virginia's fate, Byrd said, "Does Ohio State want to vote for expulsion of Virginia, when Ohio State has facilities to take care of four or five as many athletes as Virginia?" The ensuing vote fell 25 short of the needed two-thirds majority to expel the Sinful Seven.

In 1951, the football team's 10–0 season culminated in a 28–13 victory over first-ranked Tennessee in the 1952 Sugar Bowl. Maryland's participation, however, was in violation of a Southern Conference resolution passed mid-season that banned participation in postseason bowl games. Byrd had Maryland accept the bowl invitation, despite Tatum's objections. The coach thought the threatened sanctions, which prevented Maryland from playing any Southern Conference games the following season, would severely disadvantage his team. In 1952, Maryland and Clemson, which had also violated the bowl game ban, were sanctioned, and the incident hastened the break-up of the Southern Conference and formation of the Atlantic Coast Conference, of which both schools were founding members.

"Dictator, president, athletic director, football coach, comptroller, chief lobbyist and glamour boy supreme ... Curley is the most-hated and most-beloved man in Maryland."

— Bob Considine, Curley Byrd Catches the Worm, 1941

Opponents in The Baltimore Sun alleged that Byrd emphasized athletics over academics and belittled him as the only college football coach to rise to the position of university president. Among the campus expansions, Byrd was responsible for the construction of Byrd Stadium in 1950 and Cole Field House in 1955, which at the time was the largest basketball arena in the Southern Conference. Critics alleged that both facilities were constructed at the expense of campus libraries. Byrd also built the University of Maryland Golf Course in 1959. Byrd resigned from the post in 1953 and his tenure ended effectively on December 31.