Evening star., 1938-09-04

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| crinkly hair, as we'll as his stellar per-
| formances, making him stand out on the
| athletic field To hundreds Of friends and
| acquaintance he is still known as Curly"
for he still has the characteristic hair, al
| though 1t Is now sprinkled with gray.
| Many think his middle initial stands for
! Curly"
Strange as it seems, Dr. Byrd won ma jor
| athletic letters from four different colleges
in two years After obtaining his M from
Maryland he studied law at Georgetown
| University and played quarterback on one
OF the. Souths best teams Later. while
taking post graduate courses in philosophy,
ethics. economics and history at George
Washington and Western Maryland he Won
| letters in football from the former and
| track from the latter. The eligibility rules
| regarding transfers were quite different in
| those days
Having reached his zenith in college
| athletics, Curly turned to professional
| baseball and became pitcher for the San
| Francisco Seals. Later he played with the
o'h- u,
| sports promoter, however was instrumental
in his quitting professional baseball Re-
mindlng Curly" one day that he had
college education, Mr. Rickard advised
him: Get out Of baseball before You wake
up some morning to find you're 40 and
| have to start all over again"
| Although he was making $500 month
| on the diamond-blg money for those days
| Curly quit and returned east to become
$60-a-month coach at Western High
School and a part-time sports writer for
| The Star in 1910.
The university received the man who
was destined to become its president back
on the campus in 1912 as instructor in
English and history and football coach.
| Almost at once the Byrd-coached teams
began winning on the gridiron. rising from
the cellar to the championship Of the
State. TWO years later he became director
OF athletics at the college and in 1921 he
and DR.. S. " Sanford. who later became
| president of the University of Georgia,
| founded the Southern Conference, one of
| the leading athletic groups of the country.
His interests far transcribed the athletic
| held and the class room however, and
he rose in fashion probably unparalleled
on the campus OF an American university.
! Only few men in American history
among them President Woodrow Wilson,
have risen from the coachs bench to the
presidents chair at university. BY 1919
| DR.. Byrd had the title assistant to the
president" and was generally recognized
as the power behind the throne" at
College Park In 1881 he was made vice
president. He was the first American
educator to have those titles.
But it was at the State House in An
napolis that DR.. Byrds genius achieved
| full bloom. There. session after session,
he won battles that gave the university
sensational growth. Although the son
| of a member OF the House of Delegates
and distant relative of Senator Byrd of
Virginia Curly has never held legisla-
tive ONCE himself
One Of his most important legis-
lative struggles was won with the
aid of Senator Tydings, who, like DR.. Byrd.
is a graduate OF the university. In 1920
Mr.. Tydings was Speaker of the House of
Delegates. At DR.. Byrds request he spon-
sored bill authorizing the merger of the
Maryland State College, as the College Park
institution was then called, with the Uni
versity of Maryland, then located in Balti-
more. Most delegates thought the bill did
not have chance. Great was their sur
prise when, due largely to the skillful be-
hind-the-scenes work of Curly, the measure
became law.
| Won Round With Richie.
Four years later Dr. Byrd and his friend,
Gov Richie. found themselves on opposite
sides in bitter legislative battle. A fight
| had been started to decentralize the uni
versity With DR.. Byrd acting as legislative
field marshal the move was defeated al
though he had to persuade the legislators
to override the Governors veto to win
1t was the only time in Maryland history
that Democratic Governor was beaten
by his own legislature. The Governor and
DR.. Byrd remained personal friends, but
after that Mr.. Ritchie was never on the
side opposite "Curly."
| Another stormy chapter in the Byrd
career was written in 1888 when the influ-
ential Sun papers of Baltimore attacked
him. making much of the fact that he was
drawing $11 500 q year from the university
as director Of athletics, football coach and
vice president-the same salary paid judges
Of the State Court of Appeals. The papers
said that DR.. Byrd, however, gave only
part-time to the university job, and
derived other income as a realtor, banker
and sports writer.
The newspaper campaign led to q legis-
lative investigation which reported that Dr.
Byrd was Invaluable" to the university,
and, even during that depression year, it
would be hard to replace the services he
was rendering for 1850. His banking,
(see BYRD, Page H-3)