Maryland's Byrd Stadium has been – in multiple senses of the word – a massive contradiction.
It is the biggest, most imposing structure on the University of Maryland's College Park campus. It is a place where 50,000 Terrapin students, fans and alumni (give or take 10,000 visiting Ohio State partisans) gather on football Saturdays to drink, cheer and chant. It is a hub for civic pride.
It has also been, until Friday morning, named for an ardent racist.
Curley Byrd was, to be sure, a man of his time. Over his nearly 50 years at the university, including almost two decades as president between 1936 and 1954, he helped transform the school from a nondescript agricultural college to the academic and athletic giant it is now.