The man who could become the next chairman of the University System of Maryland's Board of Regents likes to say that he was such a slow runner, a coach once threatened to time him with a sundial.
But Barry Gossett, 78, believes in the transformative power of sports — which is one of the reasons he says it is painful to witness the turmoil in the athletics program of the College Park campus that he likens to another troubled era at the school.
“It's almost equal to Lenny Bias,” Gossett says, referring to the Terps basketball star who died of a cocaine overdose in 1986, leading to the departure of high-profile officials and to a university overhaul of the academic standards for athletes.