With the Terps on top, it's a great time to be a Maryland fan

"M-A-R-Y-L-A-N-D. Maryland will win."

I have been singing those last two lines of the University of Maryland fight song since I was about 10 years old. Growing up in Maryland, with a family full of graduates from UMd.-College Park, it was hard not to root for the Terrapins. And I have countless memories from those years when it seemed like my family had season tickets to every Maryland sport imaginable.

I remember seeing Joe Smith play in Cole Field House. For that matter I remember seeing Walt Williams play in Cole Field House just as the Maryland basketball program began to reemerge from the heavy dark cloud of the Len Bias tragedy.

I remember Byrd Stadium — where the now mighty Maryland football team plays — before they added the upper deck and the new press tower. And before the lacrosse Final Four became a constant presence.

There was the time I hopped the fence onto the Maryland baseball field to snag a keepsake ball I saw sitting in the dugout. And the time I watched the Penn State mascot chase the Terrapin right out of the stadium as Joe Pa's team routed Maryland in football.

But that was a long time ago.

Now, Maryland stands atop the college sports heap. Following on the heels of the football team's unexpected run through the Atlantic Coast Conference to the Orange Bowl, the basketball team played its way back to the Final Four for the second year in a row.

But the football team lost that Orange Bowl game to Florida. Lost by a lot. It was depressing. Don't think for one second that Terp fans didn't see the NCAA basketball championship as a way to erase the memory of what happened in Miami on New Year's Day.

Now, Maryland fans are a pessimistic bunch. I've had many discussion recently in which I've compared the average Maryland fan to the average Red Sox fan. While that's probably not completely accurate or fair to the suffering of Sox fans, Terp fans still expect their team to break hearts in the most excruciating way possible.

And they almost did it again several times in this tournament.

Michael Wilbon, the Washington Post columnist who now appears with Tony Kornheiser on ESPN's Pardon the Interruption, said that we would look back and laugh at parts of the Kentucky game.

He was right. In the afterglow of the national championship it seems silly that any Maryland fan was ever worried about teams like the Wildcats, a tough Connecticut squad or even Kansas.

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At the time though, small things like blowing a 20-point lead against the Jayhawks seemed like big steps down the usual road to Terp disappointment.

And don't get me started on Billy Packer. He had it in for Maryland from the beginning. Wisconsin lost to the Terps by 30 points — 30 POINTS — and he praised the Badgers' team defense, saying nothing about Maryland's depth or overwhelming talent.

My guess is that he was just trying to be balanced and avoid the Duke Syndrome — in which broadcasters continue to praise a team even when they can't hit water from a boat. Even so, I'm still not sure Billy and I watched the same game, or the same tournament for that matter.

Gary Williams, who played the point for Maryland long before he ever sweated through a suit on its sidelines, is probably the best coach in the country right now. He is latest in a long-line of coaches to make Roy Williams cry in March and he convinced two of the most talented players in the nation — Lonnie Baxter and Juan Dixon — to stay for all four years of college.

Oh and by the way, for those of you keeping score at home, the afternoon before the Terps won the national championship, the Orioles leveled the Yankees, 10-3, to begin the post-Cal Ripkien era.

So for the Terps and for the first place — that's right, I said FIRST PLACE — O's, I offer another line from the Maryland fight song: wave high the Black and Gold, for there is nothing quite so glorious as to see our teams victorious.

Savor this moment Maryland fans. There's nothing quite like being at the top of the heap.