Debbie, please don't waste my money to fire Ralph!

With all the uncertainty surrounding Terps football coach Ralph Friedgen heading into today's Boston College finale, I want our Athletic Director Debbie Yow to know that I am one booster strongly in favor of not firing the coach. It has been estimated that the total cost to replace Coach Friedgen now would run close to $10 million and it simply isn't worth it.

The main problem right now is not Ralph Friedgen. The main problem for the University of Maryland is its weak fan base and an overall lack of financial support from alumni and boosters. To be an elite college football (or basketball) program, a school must have enough loyal fans and boosters willing to contribute generously to help the school keep up in the ever-escalating resource "arms race". The funds are needed to build or improve facilities and to buy the best equipment in order to attract and keep recruits. The sad truth is that the University of Maryland never has and never will be competitive in this.

I'm realistic--Maryland is and will always be a second-tier FBS football program. It is simply not realistic or cost-effective for us to try to be an elite FBS program like Florida, Texas, or Virginia Tech as just a few examples. I am grateful for the BCS and five other bowl appearances that Ralph has led us to over the past nine years. Can we do better? Certainly. Could we do worse? Certainly. Overall, I believe that Coach Friedgen's results have been about what we should expect. Personally, I would've preferred to spread the winning around a little more versus 31 wins in his first three seasons, but I'm okay in the end.

The bottom line is that, regardless of who coaches at Maryland, our program cannot, and will not ever, win consistently against the best programs in college football. Coach Friedgen deserves much of the blame for this season's woeful results, but inexperience, injuries and just bad luck were equally responsible for the horrible season. Ralph is otherwise a very good coach who has a good track record of winning and developing young men. Paying $4 million to buy him out after this season just to give Franklin or anyone else an earlier shot is really a huge waste of money. I'm one Terp fan willing to give Coach Friedgen another season because the only question that should be asked is: "Will an expensive coaching change really make a difference?"

Anyone miss Dave Neal yet?

The Terrapin men's basketball team failed its first early season test this week. In losing to two middle-of-their-conference teams, Cincinnati and Wisconsin, the Terps were beaten decisively. While they played adequate defensive, their inability to score created numerous transition opportunities for Cincinnati. Against Wisconsin, they were forced to play Badger ball and again shot the ball poorly. And in both games, they couldn't do the most basic of basketball tasks--make free throws. While it's way too early to worry to sound any alarms and there is still plenty of time to improve, a few questions stood out in my mind.

While the two freshmen bigs, Williams and Padget, clearly improve our interior post play, who will make-up for oft-maligned and now-departed Dave Neal's scoring? While we lacked front-court depth last season, Neal gave opponents a unique match-up problem in his ability to consistently shoot the mid and long-range jumper. Heading into the season, most of us thought surely that, with more practice and another year of development, the rest of the team would easily make up for Neal's scoring with improved team play and pure shooting.

From this week's Maui results, it's clear that the Terps' offense struggled to score against their first significant opposition this season. Sean Mosley's shot has clearly improved, and he is in my opinion, the most improved player. And he hasn't lost any of that hussle! Eric Hayes remains a steady and reliable shooter but opponents know to keep a body on him so he needs to be more aggressive on the dribble or be a better catch and shoot player. Landon Milbourne still has his good mid range jumper and can be aggressive on both ends of the floor, but I don't see that he is better this season.

Other players however have been a clear disappointment so far. Vasquez's productivity has declined markedly as defenses have figured out his game. His shooting is so far off the mark I wonder if he's actually been working on his shots. How can he play in the NBA if he consistently shoots below 30%? You can give any Division I player 20+ shots a game and they will be 20 point per game player. And Adrian Bowie and Cliff Tucker have thus far not shown that they can play consistently or put the ball in the basket.

Of course, Dino Gregory's return sometime next month hopefully should shake things up by taking some of the pressure off of our two frosh players. It will also free up Landon to play more "3". Maybe Dino's return will help get the Terps' mojo back in time for ACC competition in January.

Norfolk Versus Baltimore Cruise Sailings

For next year, Norfolk Virginia will be losing cruise sailings while Baltimore will be adding ships and sailings. The business rationale for this action was very obvious to me however, after a recent post and long thread on CruiseCritic, it became apparent that many people in the tidewater area simply don't understand or can't accept this trend.

In advocating for Norfolk over Baltimore, the following facts were thrown out to support the case for Norfolk:

1. Geographically closer to ocean so ships don't have to waste time and fuel traversing the length of the Chesapeake Bay
2. New or renovated cruise terminal and facility
3. Better and lower-cost dock workers
4. Proximity to great beaches and other tourist attractions

Even if one were to acknowledge these as minor tactical advantages, the argument that Norfolk is a better cruise port and market than Baltimore completely misses or ignores Baltimore’s massive demographic, economic and tourism strategic advantages.

First, this is a business decision that is based on demographics, the laws of supply and demand, overall economic conditions, and business profitability. A cruise line bases a cruise ship in most non-Florida cruise ports for one reason--to expand their market beyond its flying customers to attract customers primarily from that local metropolitan area. In other words, they put their ships within a short drive to their customers. Unlike the major cruise ports, these regional or local ports draw the majority of their customers locally, probably within a couple hours drive. The cruise lines have already put many cruise ships close to major U.S. cities such as like Seattle, San Diego, Galveston/Houston, Boston, New York and Washington D.C./Baltimore. Is Norfolk (like Charleston) in this class?

The demographics case for Washington D.C./Baltimore over Norfolk is both compelling and overwhelming. Based on median household income, the Washington DC/Baltimore metropolitan area is the nation's second most affluent with 7,608,070 people with a median household income of $57,291. Per capita income is fourth at $28,856. The Norfolk/Virginia Beach metropolitan area on the other hand is ranked 84th with 1,569,541 people and a median household income of $42,448. Per capita income is ranked 107th with $20,328. So not only does the Washington DC/Baltimore area have almost 5 times the number of people that Norfolk has, but those same people have almost 42% more money to spend. And these statistics are based on a 2000 Census that doesn't even reflect the reality of a likely wider gap today.

Add to this that Philadelphia and many large suburban Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland communities that are all within less than a 90 minute drive of Baltimore's cruise terminal. Except for Richmond, Norfolk doesn't have any other major city within a 2 hour drive to draw customers from. That’s a few million more customers to add to the advantage there.

Now let’s look at their respective tourist attractions and tourism businesses. The Washington D.C./ Baltimore area offers a rich assortment of historical, cultural, entertainment, dining and other tourist options. With over 20 million visitors annually, Washington DC is one of the most visited cities in America. Baltimore is in the top 30 with over 12 million visitors each year--comparable to Fort Lauderdale or Nashville and more than the entire tidewater region. The Norfolk area offers tourist attractions with mostly limited, regional appeal such as Busch Gardens, Williamsburg and Virginia Beach.

So in the end, if you want to put a cruise ship near customers who have the discretionary funds to partake in it on a regular basis, where would you put it? RCI Grandeur (and Enchantment next year), Carnival Price and Celebrity Mercury all sail out of Baltimore because they are conveniently accessible to one of the top five most affluent customer bases in America. If anything, more and more ships will call Baltimore home--not fewer. In fact, I'd bet RCI would consider putting a Voyager-class ship in Baltimore if only it could clear the low-spanning Bay Bridge.

The bottom line is that the Washington DC/Baltimore area is far ahead of the Norfolk region from a basic demographics, overall buying power or tourism perspective. Norfolk cheerleaders have been trying to compare their mid-sized city with an average economy and some regional tourist attractions, to a Top-5 major U.S. metropolitan area with some of the nation’s most affluent customers and attractions with substantial international and national drawing power.

Checklist Tourism

What is your travelling style? I like to research the history and culture of a destination. I like to experience the culture and immerse myself in where I am going. I even try to learn some of the local language in order to fit in better.

There are many people however who seem to go places mostly to say they've been there. I call it "checklist tourism". The objective is solely to check it off a long list of places they say they've always wanted to see. The important verb is "see"--not really visit, not experience, not learn something about, not immerse yourself in, and not understand anything--but rather to "see". Are so many people really that shallow and clueless? They get on a one or two hour city bus tour and actually believe they've seen everything there is to see!

A coworker friend and her family once drove the nearly 16 hours round-trip from San Francisco to Crater Lake, OR and back, and only spent approximately 45 minutes actually at the rim! When pressed as to how a "quick peek" was worth all that driving, she furled her eyebrows at me and said something like "we went and saw it, so what else was there for us to do?". The same family does this type of "drive by" sightseeing all the time. They've certainly "seen" much more of the world than me, but I think they miss so so much.

My dad is the same way. It took almost 48 hours of round-trip travel time to get to and from Hong Kong, but he elected to spend much of the trip in the condo watching the same Chinese TV shows he already watches back home in the US! One city tour was apparently enough touring for the week for him.

This past summer, we spent a couple weeks in Europe with my parents, and whenever I asked them what they'd like to do in a particular port, they'd say, "well, we'll just get off the ship and walk 100 meters to so and so and that's good enough so we can say we've been there". If I dragged them along on one of my extended tours (e.g. in Firenze or Pompeii/Sorrento/Amalfi), they fizzled very fast and looked bored for much of the tour. I was very disappointed, for example, when our day out of Napoli allowed us only about 20-30 minutes in Positano, but it was perfect for my parents!

Next month, my parents are sailing on RCI Independence of the Seas on her trans-Atlantic reposition cruise out of London. I asked my dad how much time he was spending in London pre-cruise, and he responded "We've been there (for a day or two) before and saw everything, so we don't want to waste time there." Another wasted opportunity to experience a wonderful and unique place on our planet...