April 16, 2004
By Jessica Bernheim
Maryland Media Relations
Scott Marr knew something was different when the television cameras started showing up at practice.
It was 1987, and his team had had this game circled on their calendars all season, but now, less than a week before No. 4 Johns Hopkins took on No. 1 Maryland, the Blue Jay freshman realized how special this rivalry really was.
"It was pretty intense," Marr said. "More of a big deal is made of that game than any other on the schedule."
Maryland won the game 11-7 to break a string of 15 consecutive losses to the Blue Jays, but Johns Hopkins got its revenge in the NCAA semifinals, knocking off the top-ranked Terps 13-8 en route to its third national championship in four years.
Welcome to the best rivalry in college lacrosse. This marks the 100th meeting between Johns Hopkins and Maryland, the two most storied lacrosse programs in the country. The teams have faced each other 11 times in the NCAA tournament, including three times in the national championship game and four times in the semifinals. The Terps defeated the Blue Jays 10-9 in double overtime in 1973 for the national title a year before Johns Hopkins beat Maryland 17-12 for the crown.
The last time the two teams met in the semifinals was 1995. Marr had graduated from Johns Hopkins five years earlier and had been hired as an assistant coach at Maryland the previous fall. To make matters worse, his younger brother, Dave, was a star for the Blue Jays.
Hopkins had already defeated the Terps 16-15 in the regular season. Now the two teams met again with their seasons on the line, and when Maryland won, it was bittersweet for Marr.
"I won a national championship [as a player], and I wanted my brother to win one too," he said. "To be a part of the team that took away his dream was extremely tough."
Marr coached at Maryland until 2000, when he became the head coach at the University of Albany. He recruited many of the Terps' seniors, including Chris Passavia, Lee Zink and J.R. Bordley, and he says he wants to see them do well, but, "I'm a Blue Jay first....My roots are at Hopkins."
Current Maryland assistant coach Dave Slafkosky also played at Johns Hopkins, and he was part of the 1974 team that defeated the Terps for the national title, but he took a much different route to College Park than did Marr.
Slafkosky, who is in his 21st season as a Terrapin assistant, coached at Army for six years before coming to Maryland. While at West Point, he experienced a similar rivalry with Navy.
When he came to Maryland in 1983, Slafkosky was nine years removed from college and had a much easier time coaching for his alma mater's enemy. Slafkosky still has a photograph of the 1974 championship team - taken at Maryland's Byrd Stadium in 1999 to commemorate the 25th anniversary - hanging in his office, but, "I think I've worked here long enough most people think I'm a Terp," he said. "I don't bring it up that I went to Hopkins too often."
Former Terrapin head coach Dick Edell, one of Slafkosky's closest friends, coached with him for 25 years at Army and Maryland. "Dave bleeds red and white," Edell said. "There's no baby blue in his system."
