Tales From The Tailgate: Paul Douglas

Maryland football, battle helmets, and buried treasure.

Paul Douglas isn’t your average Maryland fan, as during his time as a Maryland fan he has cultivated an identity as a true die-hard fan, willing to do whatever it takes to support his team and see them play.

Like a lot of Terps fans, he grew up in the shadow of the school, and as a DeMatha Catholic graduate he always wanted to attend the University of Maryland. A lot of his love and admiration came through the athletic department, and specifically, the football team. 

“I followed Maryland when I was a local kid. I guess I casually followed Maryland growing up through grade school in high school. And then I always knew I wanted to go to Maryland.” 

Up until his junior year of college, Douglas didn’t have much to cheer about as the team hadn’t reached a bowl game since 1990. When Maryland made a coaching change going into the 2001 season, Douglas and his friends jumped at the opportunity to welcome new coach Ralph Friedgen with open arms. 

“In 2001, when Ralph Friedgen first started here, we got crazy one day and thought, ‘Okay, well, why don't we, you know, slap on some army helmets from Sunny’s Surplus and some ponchos, and we'll call ourselves Friedgen’s Legions.”

Friedgen’s Legions was born out of wanting to show support for Friedgen, a fellow Maryland grad who played for the school from 1966-68, and was an assistant coach under Bobby Ross from 1982-86. 

The group would try to go to every game, home and away, and sit as close to the field as possible donning their signature helmets and gaudy capes. The costumes proved effective as in 2001 the Terps went on a run, ultimately capturing the 2001 ACC championship. 

After graduating in 2002, Douglas and his friends kept up the tradition of travelling to road games, and one of the most memorable ones was a 2003 showdown against the NC State Wolfpack. 

After leaving at the crack of dawn and driving through North Carolina, including a pit stop at Duke University for some friendly trash talking and photos, the group arrived in Raleigh and set up their tailgate. What makes tailgating so special for the group is the fact that they see a lot of familiar faces, and bond with fellow Terp fans even though they don’t really know each other. 

“You end up seeing all of these people that you see at Maryland games. You might not know them necessarily, but it's like, ‘Oh, that's the guy from you know, a couple spaces down or, Oh, that's somebody else's friend’”, he explained. “You see all these people on a road trip and they're now your best friend. Anybody wearing red on a road trip is your best friend.”

The game held a special reverence for the Wolfpack as it was the senior day for legendary quarterback, Phillip Rivers. The game was a tight, back-and-forth affair with neither team able to gain much separation from the other. 

Then, after an NC State fumble, Maryland pounced and was able to kick a game-winning field goal. 

“It is absolute pandemonium,” Douglas said. “I mean, like, there were people throwing cups and stuff out of the stands on the field. And there were fights and everything. We’d go and meet up with a bunch of the player's parents, some of which we had known a little bit from tailgates and stuff. Eventually, we got a couple of North Carolina State troopers to escort them out of there.”

Throughout the years, Douglas has stayed with the team through thick and thin, no matter how much it has pained him at times. After one such downswing, Douglas and his buddies decided to symbolically exorcise the team’s demons the only way they knew how as tailgaters.

“Back over in that grassy area in Lot 1, we actually buried a cooler one year, because we were losing,” Douglas said. “We decided to make a time capsule out of it. So, we put a bunch of empty bottles ... God knows what else is in there.” 

To this day, Douglas isn’t entirely sure where they buried the cooler, and at the time they weren’t sure if it would ever be dug up. Now, with all of the construction going on around campus, he wonders if the famed missing cooler will reappear. 

“We don't know where it is still out there,” he continued. “It's still out there. I imagine those guys digging the Metro tunnels will be in for quite a surprise one day. If anybody's got a spare ground-penetrating radar or something, we'll go around and try and find it.”

Until it's found, Douglas will focus on the present, and right now he loves the camaraderie of Maryland football and sees it as one big family, which is one reason why he’s excited about the direction head coach Michael Locksley is taking the team. Locksley describes his program as not a team, but a family.  

“It sounds to me that Mike is one of us,” Douglas said. “A couple of years ago, one of the original guys from the Legions group, we lost him. I take the family thing to heart because in a lot of ways, that's what this meant for us. You know, it's kind of the family you choose, not the family that you're born with.”

After being forced away from the university because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Douglas and his fellow tailgaters are ecstatic to be able to return. The time away has given him a newfound love and reverence for what he’s been able to do over these past 20 years. 

“I think in a lot of ways you want to make sure you don't take this stuff for granted. This can be taken away from you. So, you know, enjoy the stuff while you can, you know, try not to try not to take it for granted.”