47 years after its debut, the "Midnight Mile" is back in College Park.
The Maryland Men's Basketball team paid homage to the creator of Midnight Madness, former head coach Charles "Lefty" Driesell, by running the "Midnight Mile" 47 years after Coach Driesell had members of the 1971-'72 team run 1.5 miles for the first practice of the season.
Back then, the players ran around the track at then Byrd Stadium, with just the headlights of cars to illuminate the track.
In 2018, the Midnight Mile was a little different. The team ran around the track at Kehoe Track & Field Complex, the players were not timed, and they were joined by approximately 750 students.
Head coach Mark Turgeon didn't know what to expect from the event beforehand, but he's happy with how it turned out.
"It was a lot of fun," said Turgeon. "I didn't really know, this is the first time we've done this. I didn't know how it was going to turn out, but that was awesome. People had their stopwatches out and they were running hard trying to finish, that was really cool. I think this can grow. I think we had about 750 kids this year, I think maybe we can double it next year. It would be a lot of fun"
The players also enjoyed the event.
"This was a great event for everybody," said junior guard Anthony Cowan Jr. "I feel as if we accomplished a lot today. [The game against] Delaware going to be packed out, it's going to be a fun game."
The players do have a practice later in the afternoon, so they didn't run hard for the entire mile.
"My strategy was to sprint the first 100 meters, walk the rest," said sophomore guard Darryl Morsell. "We practice tomorrow at 1:00pm, I need all the energy I can have for that."
Mark Turgeon didn't run the mile, but he had a reason.
"Lefty didn't run," said Turgeon. "If Lefty would have ran, I would have ran. I tired to do almost everything except time our guys. He wore a cowboy hat and had a cigar, I didn't go that far tonight. But if he would have ran, I would have ran."
