Friedgen: Turn the Music Up

Walk around Maryland’s campus during the week, especially within a few hundred yards of the practice football field, and you will hear it. The music is so loud you think there’s an outdoor party or concert. Every once in a while I see a handful of students stop and look around, wondering where the fun is at. No party. Just another Maryland football practice, concluding to the sound of Ratt’s “Round and Round” and Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer.” Hey, when your quarterback is the son of the former drummer of the heavy metal band Ratt, it’s only fitting you spice the latter practice periods up with some sounds.

Coach Ralph Friedgen has done it to liven up the late stages of practice, when players have lagged in recent weeks.

“The music kind of helps,” Friedgen said. “Don’t ask me [why]. Maybe it signifies the end is near. James Franklin came up to me yesterday and said Chris Turner told him we were playing one of his dad’s songs. I didn’t know what song that was, but that was pretty funny. I wonder if that were by design.”

Friedgen said he used to do it during conditioning and that players always made their times when the music was on. He said the coaches probably don’t like it because it is difficult to coach when it is on. But if it gets players going, “turn it up,” Friedgen said.

And then Friedgen offered one of the best lines of the season: “We need a juke-box coordinator.”