When the University of Maryland officially joined the Big Ten Conference on July 1, 2014, director of athletics Kevin Anderson and President Wallace Loh proclaimed that Maryland would flourish in the Big Ten and compete to win championships.

 

Eleven months and seven Big Ten championships later – tied for the most championships among the 14 conference institutions – it is clear Anderson and Loh’s visions for Maryland’s first academic year in the Big Ten have come to fruition.

 

​“The Big Ten is a conference that begins next to the Atlantic Ocean, touches Canada and extends to the Colorado border. Maryland’s DNA matches up beautifully with the DNA of the rest of our universities.”- Jim DelanyBig Ten Commissioner

The Terrapins claimed their place in the Big Ten Conference under a mild morning sun when Anderson and Big Ten commissioner, Jim Delany, shared the stage at the Under Armour Brand House in Baltimore, Md., to officially announce the conference’s newest member.

 

Donning red t-shirts with Maryland and Big Ten logos symbolically placed in cohesion on the front, Anderson and Delany shared their aspirations for the limitless potential of Maryland in the conference as a nationwide brand.

 

“The Big Ten is a conference that begins next to the Atlantic Ocean, touches Canada and extends to the Colorado border,” said Delany at the ceremony. “Maryland’s DNA matches up beautifully with the DNA of the rest of our universities.”

 

To say Maryland’s DNA was a match in the conference was an understatement, as the University saw an immediate spike across all aspects of the athletics department, resulting in a record-breaking year for Maryland.

 

Grossing nearly 15 million dollars in ticket revenue in its 10 ticketed sports, Maryland saw an increase in average attendance in all 13 sports with spectator admittance as fans streamed into College Park to witness some of the best athletic events in the nation.

 

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Included among the highlights of the 2015 attendance numbers was a 25 percent increase in football season ticket numbers and three sellouts for men’s basketball, in addition to single-event attendance records for volleyball, wrestling and gymnastics.

 

On the development front, the Terrapin Club Scholarship Fund added more than 900 brand new donors and saw an increase in annual gifts from better than 1,100 donors. The 2014-15 year also included 30 new major gift commitments of $50,000 or more, including four new commitments of at least $1 million. (Numbers will updated at the end of the fiscal year in July.)

 

Academically, 159 student-athletes were honored on the Academic All-Big Ten Teams, in addition to Varun Ram and Malina Howard claiming Maryland’s inaugural Big Ten Medal of Honor. Howard and women’s lacrosse’s Zoe Stukenberg also earned the Elite 89 Award for posting the highest GPA’s among all student-athletes competing in their respective NCAA Final Fours.

 

Under the leadership of Anderson, Maryland also introduced the “Maryland Way Guarantee,” which became the first institution to provide lifetime scholarships to former student-athletes across all sports.

 

From a branding perspective, Maryland received unprecedented national attention in conjunction with its debut on the Big Ten Network. The Terps were featured on television in a school record 117 national broadcasts, in addition to the multitude of live streams and original content provided by the Big Ten Network.

 

Maryland student-athletes had another highly successful year in the classroom, posting its second consecutive record GSR score with an 86 percent graduation rate. A total of 108 student-athletes received their degrees this year.

 

Maryland was arguably most impressive athletically, cementing its place in the Big Ten from the outset when the field hockey team captured the Big Ten regular season championship – the first championship awarded of the 2014-15 academic year.

 

In total, Maryland claimed seven Big Ten championships in addition to the women’s lacrosse team winning the national title for the second consecutive season.

 

The Terrapins dominated some of the conference’s most prestigious individual awards, with nine student-athletes claiming conference player of the year honors in their respective positions and three coaches being named coach of the year.

 

Three Maryland student-athletes were named the best at their positions on the national level, including Taylor Cummings, who claimed the Tewaaraton Award for the second straight year as the nation’s most outstanding women’s lacrosse player. Football’s Brad Craddock won the Lou Groza Award for the nation’s best kicker, while Kyle Bernlohr earned the Kelly Award for the nation’s best goalie.

 

Field hockey’s early success paved the way for the men’s soccer team, which overcame a 3-5-2 start to rattle off 11 consecutive victories and claim both the Big Ten regular season and tournament crowns. Mael Corboz’ scintillating free kick with less than five minutes to play sealed the conference “double” for the Terps.

 

Randy Edsall’s football team returned to postseason play with a trip to the Foster Farms Bowl after posting a 5-1 road record and defeating Big Ten perennial powers Penn State, Michigan and Iowa.

 

After being selected to finish 10th in preseason polls, the men’s basketball team overcame all odds to win a school record 26 regular season games finish second in the Big Ten conference standings. The Terps advanced to the third round of the NCAA Tournament, as head coach Mark Turgeon was named the Big Ten Coach of the Year.

 

Despite losing All-American Alyssa Thomas, Brenda Frese’s women’s basketball team also achieved the “double” by claiming both regular season and tournament titles. Carrying an unblemished 21-0 record against conference opponents, the Terps returned to the NCAA Final Four as Frese was named Big Ten Coach of the Year.

 

Baseball head coach John Szefc picked up where he left off after the team’s magical run in 2014, as the Terps shocked the baseball landscape by knocking off top seed UCLA to win the Los Angeles regional. Maryland returned to the NCAA Super Regional Round for the second straight season, led by sophomore pitcher Mike Shawaryn, who set a single-season record with 13 wins to earn All-America honors.

 

And finally, it was the men’s and women’s lacrosse teams that served as the torchbearers for the Big Ten’s newest sport, with each program winning the inaugural Big Ten regular season championships. Both the men and the women represented the Big Ten at their respective NCAA Final Fours, as the women captured the first national title in lacrosse in the history of the Big Ten.