Before anything else, before debating what the word toxic means or whether Maryland football coach DJ Durkin can change his ways, let us not forget just how spectacularly Durkin failed: 19-year-old Jordan McNair is dead, and his mother and father are left to grieve their son for eternity.
"I feel like I've been punched in the stomach, and somebody spit in my face," said Marty McNair, Jordan's father after Durkin was reinstated as Maryland coach on Tuesday.
The University System of Maryland Board of Regents and its hand-picked commission to investigate the football culture at Maryland have acknowledged that: The university bears responsibility for McNair's death from heatstroke on June 13 following a May 29 workout; that the athletic department was "dysfunctional"; and that a strength coach, Rick Court, berated, demeaned and humiliated players.