MARK TURGEON:
FATHER OF THREE,
FATHER TO MANY MORE
BY MICHELLE BLANCHARD ARDILLO



W
hen Mark Turgeon leaves
work after a long day, he
heads home to his wife and
their three kids, leaving behind his
extensive “work family.” This includes
15 young basketball players, seven
coaches, eight managers and two
graduate assistants. As the University
of Maryland Men’s Basketball Coach
since 2011, this 53-year-old has just
fi nished “a really hard year” — a year
that he says was professionally maybe
the most diffi cult thus far. In spite of a
disappointing overall record of 19-13
for the season, Turgeon said, “I’m
so darn competitive. I want to win
the next game. I want to get the next
player. Even after losing the Michigan
game, I have a fi re burning inside me
right now.”
Competitive is not the fi rst word that
Turgeon’s wife, Ann, uses to describe
her husband of nearly 25 years. She
says that even with all his successes,
“He has never changed. He is still the
same honest, transparent man. He has
passed his goodness on to his kids.”
Since moving to Kensington, Maryland
in 2011, the Turgeon’s family life has
changed. Now coaching in the Big
Ten, Turgeon says he is busier than
ever. But also, living in the D.C. area
is very diff erent from living in College
Station, Texas as the head coach for
Texas A&M, where he could go home
for lunch. In addition, his own children
— Will, a high school senior; Ella, an
eighth-grader; and Leo, a sixth-grader
— are much more active in their own
lives with school, sports, theatre and
other activities. So it is more diffi cult
for them to travel with him. During the
fi ve months of the basketball season,
especially during the fall semester,
Turgeon is actually around home more
often with only ten road games and
fewer speaking engagements. During
off season, he is busy recruiting next
year’s players. With superb high school
basketball in this area, he is lucky to
have a rich pool to choose from. But
being in the Big Ten means he also
travels to the Midwest quite a bit.

Turgeon stresses to his team the
importance of a college degree, saying
knowledgeably, “Only a handful of
my players will retire from playing
professional basketball.” He doesn’t
att end their college graduations,
because he “expects them to graduate.”
He proudly quotes the statistic that
he has “28 or 29 graduates in a row”
(including a few he inherited when
joining the program), and no one
wants to be the one to break the chain.

As a result, the assistant coaches are
all assigned a few players to monitor
and mentor, checking in on class
att endance and grades. There are
learning specialists to help struggling
students, and tutors go on the road
with the team. The kids may want
sports more, but most value education
and want to do well.

As their coach, Turgeon serves as a
role model for these men both on and
off the court in the way he lives his
own life. He and his staff not only
serve as basketball coaches, but also
as life coaches — bringing in people
to speak to the players on topics like
etiquett e and table manners, making
good decisions, how to buy a suit and
how to treat women. Turgeon said that
it is all about learning disappointment
versus triumph and being a good
person. When they are down about
losing a game, he tells them, “Wait
until you have kids, losing a game is
nothing compared to raising kids.”
The distinction between academics
and sports is clear, however. When
recruiting and meeting with a family,
he tells them they can ask him
anything: about basketball, about
playing time … anything at all. But,
after they sign, he tells them they
can ask him about anything except
basketball. He tries to read these
potential players, to see if they will
work hard, and if they can work for
him. Yet he admits that he isn’t always
right. “You can’t change someone,
you can only make them bett er.”
Sometimes, he has to give the “tough
talk,” like when they work hard on the
court, but not anywhere else.

His coaching instincts come from his
mentor Larry Brown, his coach at
washingtonFAMILY.com June 2018
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