The kids are all right

Well, goodness gracious. I guess Pinocchio's a real boy now.

Pinocchio being Wallace D. Loh, presumed president of the University of Maryland, who yesterday finally grew a spine, or a pair, or perhaps both. Twenty-four hours after Maryland's regents decided no one should be held responsible because its underachieving, deficit-operating football program sent a son back to his parents in a body bag, Loh finally did his job. He finally acted in the best interests of his university.

He fired football coach DJ Durkin, on whose watch Jordan McNair died of heatstroke, on whose watch the university's own investigation found the football program had been a toxic place rife with abuses.

Yet they unaccountably decided not to hold the head coach accountable for any of that. Or anyone else at the university accountable.

And Wallace Loh?

As university president he could have, and should have, fired Durkin on the spot. But he didn't, because the regents apparently threatened to fire him if he did. It was as stark an example of just where priorities lie in corporate college athletics today: The needs, and the business, of big-time college football and basketball supersede everything else.

And so: Sure, we'll keep our football coach, even though he's 10-15 in two seasons and hasn't appreciably put our sinkhole of a program in the black. We'll declare the university responsible for Jordan McNair's death without holding anyone actually responsible. But you, on the other hand, Mr. President ...

YOU are expendable.

What a sad commentary that is on the values of the University of Maryland. Or lack of same.

Know what isn't a sad commentary?

That some of Jordan McNair's teammates, and the leaders of the student body, stood up and said, "Oh, HELL, no."

Talk about the young teaching the old something about priorities.

And so, faced with an imminent player revolt -- and with the dubious prospect of Durkin going into parents' living rooms and selling their children on playing football for him -- the presumed president of the university finally stood up on his hind legs. He gets no points for doing this, because, like the regents' initial addle-pated decision, this was about money, too. You can't have your cash cow football program without players, after all. And what parent in their right mind would send their football-playing child to Maryland, after what happened Tuesday?

No, if what the regents did was about money and expediency, so, too, is what Loh did yesterday. His university was getting killed in the media from every angle -- Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post was especially brutal here -- but, ultimately, it was the players and the students who showed Loh the true path. It was the players and the students who taught the university president what the university over which he presided was supposed to be.

How much better for Maryland, how much less damaging, if they hadn't had to do that? How much better for his school if Loh had met the regents' reported threat by saying, "Fine, fire me, but this guy's gone. I was hired to do what's best for the university. So I'm going to do what's best for the university, and I really don't care about anything else. So have at it, boys."

In so many words, the players and student leaders said just that.

They're the heroes here. No one else.