FanPost

Not HATE WEEK, but information week: What's Maryland?

Hello.

It has come to my attention that Penn Staters - and the world - should be informed about what is this thing called Maryland football, as well as the concept of Maryland itself.

My qualifications for this task are as follows:

1) I know American history very well.

2) I was born and raised in Adams County, Pennsylvania, a bastion of those great Pennsylvania traits we call virtue, liberty, and independence. It also means I live very close to Maryland, and have been able to observe that state first hand.

Let us begin with geography.

Maryland is dominated by the Appalachian Mountains in its tiny western portion. Towns there include Cumberland and Hancock. In the middle we have the rolling hills of the Piedmont country which stretches between the mountains and the tidewater regions from Pennsylvania all the way to Georgia. Here you will find Hagerstown, Frederick, Taneytown and the liquor store in Thurmont I like because Maryland, unlike PA, sells beer, wine, and liquor all together and at cheaper prices, depending on how Maryland is taxing booze at the moment. Along the slow-moving rivers you'll find coastal towns like Havre de Grace and coastal cities like Baltimore. This piedmont/tidewater area is also home to the richest part of Maryland, the suburbs of DC where all the white people and Derrick Williams live at. There is also an old rural-ish part of Maryland here, where John Wilkes Booth's family was from. Finally, across the Chesapeake lies the Eastern Shore and the Atlantic Coast of Maryland. The Eastern Shore is where most of the slaves were and is home to the cheesy zoo at Salisbury, and the Atlantic Coast is where every central Pennsylvanian has vacationed at least once in Ocean City.

Economically, Maryland is like a tiny version of Virginia or something. They have tiny coal deposits, tiny agriculture which was bigger before Lincoln freed the slaves, much depleted tiny fishing and crabbing (because we polluted all of their streams via our bigger coal mining in PA! SUCK IT, MARYLAND! ACID MINE RUNOFF BABY!), and tiny taxes. Actually that last one is a joke. Marylanders in Adams County tend to move there because the taxes are "too high" in Maryland. Then they end up helping to raise our taxes in Adams County. Thanks a lot, pals.

Religiously, Maryland is filled with many creeds, although it was originally founded as a Catholic hideaway from those bastards in England. Then the Catholics took over the crown again, and Maryland was all like, "Well, should we go back?" Then the Hot Prots took over the crown again and Maryland was all like, "Yeah, no, nevermind."

Historically, Maryland has never really amounted to a hill of beans. They tried to take land from PA during Cresap's War, but we f***ed them up and Lancaster County remains Pennsylvanian to this day. LOL at Maryland. They had slaves for longer than their northerly neighbors because the land was good for slave economics, but then they screwed that up by overusing the soil so that slavery was already dying before the War of Southern Intransigence.

When the Southrons decided it was a genius idea to take on an industrialized budding superpower with more food and more awesome, Maryland kinda got caught in-between in that the wealthy plantation owners were still more powerful than the wealthy industrialists who would industrialized Bawlmer later on. So they wanted to join with the rebels, even though a probable majority of Marylanders outside of Bawlmer and the Eastern Shore wanted to stay in the Union without abolishing slavery. So what ended up happening was that Bawlmer had this huge riot in 61 or 62 and tried to secede, but Lincoln basically just laughed in their faces and quelled it. Union troops came in and shut that bullcrap down. That's basically Maryland's history in the Civil War: they were too tiny and sad to even secede. Also, Antietam happened.

After that, little happened in Maryland history that is of any interest to anyone. Edgar Allan Poe spent some of his time in Bawlmer, and some of his time in Philly, but only Bawlmer acted like he "belonged" to them, whereas Philly was just like, "Birthplace of America, man." Bobby Bare sang Streets of Baltimore. Earl Weaver won some World Series games. The Browns moved to Baltimore, and Baltimoreans, because they have no class, acted like they were big deals when they are literally just the Browns with uglier uniforms. The Wire was set in Baltimore because Baltimore is kinda sad. Nothing happened in the country because nothing happens in the country except for crops growing. The suburbs got richer. The city got poorer. Maryland won nothing ever in amateur sports. Their mascot is turtle. Turtles are hard to kill, but not really that hard, because they feature quite prominently in some culinary things. Turtles also do nothing. Just like Maryland athletics.

Well, sorta. Juan Dixon won a national title in basketball, but this is Gary Williams we're talking about, so it gets an unofficial record book vacation in my world. Also, Len Bias's cocaine habits ruined the Celtics hopes and dreams for the 1990s. Which kinda sucks, 'cause I dislike Michael Jordan.

I can't think of what Maryland's done in any other sports. Maybe lacrosse? Or was that Johns Hopkins that did all that cool stuff? I don't know. I know they've been decent in wrestling only since a PSU grad took over.

In football, Maryland somehow once competed for a national title in the 1950s, but all that got them was a status as the answer to a trivia question: against which Eastern team did Bud Wilkinson's Sooners compete for a national title during their 47 game winning streak? Most people would probably guess Penn State or Pitt, though.

The greatest Maryland football player ever is ..... ???

does anyone know???

Anyway, that's Maryland football. Stefon Diggs is cool, though.

Fun fact! I do know that Maryland was once coached by Ron Vanderlinden! But Vandy actually sorta sucked at Maryland. Sad face :(

He did, however, recruit a bunch of great players to the extent that fat fat fatty Ralph Friedgen's only really good seasons came with Vandy's recruits.

My favorite Maryland football moment was when Antonio Logan-El, a blue-chipper who turned out to be less than blue-chip, committed to Penn State and all of these Maryland fans booed lustily because they suck.

Have I mentioned that the only thing I genuinely love about the whole state of Maryland is that they have good booze stores?

Maryland football played Penn State like nearly 40 times over the years. They won once, but nobody remembers that. They also tied once in like '87 or '88 or something, but nobody in blue and white cared because we had just won two national titles in that decade while Maryland was busy, like, not doing that.

Oh! Boomer Esiason and Frank Reich went to Maryland. I like Frank Reich because I love Buffalo and Western New York, and BILLS BILLS BILLS! Boomer is great at pissing off Dan Marino. Screw Dan Marino!

That's really about it.

Maryland is now a member of the Big Ten conference for a few reasons, and only a few reasons. First, because the Big Ten is greedy. Second, because they couldn't just take Rutgers as 13 teams in a conference would be unlucky, you know? Third, because the Big Ten wanted eastern TV market money (see first reason), and the Big Ten couldn't take actual football-ish teams like the Giants and the Redskins, so they had to settle for two programs which, in their entire histories, have done less than Purdue.

Purdue.

Mmm Maryland liquor stores. I really like the state line liquor store on 15 just after you cross into Maryland from Gettysburg. They know who they're appealing to, yes, sir. Mmm booze.

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