Maryland head coach Mark Turgeon and his assistants Dustin Clark, Bino Ranson and Cliff Warren understand the importance of getting the best hoops prospects to come to College Park.

Together, they work tirelessly on the recruiting trail year in and year out and currently have the Terps in prime position to land four and five-star prospects from all over the country in hopes of maintaining Maryland’s status as one of the most relevant college basketball programs in the nation.

But the idea of creating a college hoops powerhouse in College Park came well before any of the current staff coached at Maryland.

When Lefty Driesell came from Davidson to coach the Terps in 1969, he raised some eyebrows in his introductory press conference by telling reporters that he wanted to make Maryland the “UCLA of the East.”

At the time, John Wooden’s Bruins were college basketball’s most dominant team and had their pick of the crop when it came to recruiting. Driesell sought the same success for Maryland--a program that prior to his arrival had only one NCAA Tournament appearance (1958).

“Coach Driesell, the one thing about him, he wasn’t afraid to step up and say he’s going to win a national championship,” Driesell’s longtime assistant coach Joe Harrington said. “And he wasn’t afraid to say that we’re going to go out and recruit the best players in the country.”

While Driesell never quite brought the Terps to the heights that those historic UCLA teams reached, he did lead Maryland to eight NCAA Tournament appearances, an NIT championship, two ACC regular season championships, and one ACC Tournament championship in his 17 years of coaching in College Park. Driesell also brought Maryland to five Sweet Sixteens and two Elite Eights, and accomplished all of it while recruiting the nation’s best student athletes, alongside juggernauts like UCLA.

But Driesell didn’t do it alone. Part of being a successful head coach is being able to identify and hire assistants who can help the program reach its goals. One of the first assistant coaches Driesell hired after coming to College Park was Harrington, a Maryland basketball alum (1965-67) who would go on to be instrumental to the Terps recruiting efforts and success on the hardwood.

Two years prior to being added to Driesell’s staff, Harrington played his final season for Maryland and he roomed his entire college career with teammate Jay McMillen. Harrington developed a close relationship with McMillen and his family, including his younger brother Tom, who would eventually be recruited to Maryland by Harrington and become a Terps all-time great, an Olympian and an 11-year NBA player.

Harrington wasn’t hired to coach at Maryland solely for his relationship with the McMillens, but it certainly helped him have an early impact on the Driesell era.

“Jay McMillen and I were roommates at Maryland. We played together and Gary Williams was also on that team,” Harrington said. “At the time, Tom McMillen was probably like 12 years old. He used to sit on the bench when we played at Cole Field House. So when coach [Driesell] took the job in 1969, he was well aware of Tom McMillen. And I don’t think he realized how close I was to the family because I actually lived with them one summer. Tom McMillen and Jay and I worked out together. Even though [Tom] was just a little kid, we would play one-on-one together in the backyard.

“So when coach Driesell came to Maryland I was able to be hired as an assistant but I was really half recruiting director and half basketball coach. I think it was just about me being in the right place at the right time and knowing someone and it all worked out. Tom came to Maryland and I had a little bit to do with it. It certainly it wasn’t just me, but I had a little bit to do with it.”

Nearly a decade later, Harrington found himself recruiting another high-profile hoops star to the Terps. Driesell had his sights set on New York native Albert King--a talented 6-foot-6 wing from Brooklyn--and he knew Harrington was the man for the job.

Harrington has seen the landscape of recruiting change over the years, but he said one thing has remained constant: Being able to relate to people and build relationships with them is still the essence of recruitment. Harrington’s personable approach proved to be effective when it came to recruiting King, who as a Terp was named the ACC Player of the Year after the 1979-1980 season. King would become a top-10 NBA draft pick and played in the league for nine seasons.

“I think each recruit is different,” Harrington said. “You’ve got to find out what the people in their life--the moms, the dads--are looking for in a school and you have to bring that to the forefront. I recruited Albert King to come to Maryland and Albert was a pretty quiet guy. It was hard to pin him down and meet with him. It was different back then and you could meet with the players on a regular basis, but no one could really get close to Albert King because he lived in Brooklyn and he was always at a friend’s house and he was hard to catch up with. He was very elusive.

“So I made up this notebook. It was a looseleaf notebook and there wasn’t a lot of writing in it. It was more pictures with headlines. It was pretty thick and it went over all of the reasons why Albert King should go to Maryland. I had clips from The Washington Post and The Washington Star and I mentioned all of the national TV stations and the radio networks at Maryland and he could see that in visual form. When it came to the academics, when it came to the basketball, when it came to where he would play--it was kind of like ‘This is Albert King’s life at Maryland before it happens.’ And later on someone told me that Albert would take that notebook about Maryland and look through that notebook a lot of nights. Now, I don’t know if that’s why he chose Maryland but that came back to me years later. You never know what’s going to work and what’s not going to work, but that worked for Albert King. It took a while to put together but it was well worth it.”

Driesell’s tenure at Maryland brought with it some of the greatest players ever to play in College Park. And while Harrington and other assistants such as George Raveling helped with their recruiting prowess, it was Driesell’s vision and work ethic that started it all.

“Coach Driesell wouldn’t ask anything of his assistants that he wouldn’t do,” Harrington said. “So he said we’re going to work five and a half days a week, including a half day on Saturday that turned into a full day. But he was there with us. He said we’re going to recruit all the time and all over the country and he went along with us.

“And he had a saying that he would always put on our desks. I’ll always remember it: The harder we work, the luckier we get. And that was his motto. He wasn’t to be outworked and he really believed in recruiting the best student athletes in the country. He started out with Tom McMillen and then he followed it up the next year with John Lucas and then the next year it was Len Elmore. The best players that were out there were coming to Maryland and it was because of Coach Driesell.”