Diamond Stone's decision to choose Maryland over Wisconsin, Connecticut and Oklahoma State was influenced by a "bevy" of factors, not the least of which was a before-and-after presentation showing the transformation of former Terps center Alex Len from a skinny Ukrainian teenager to a player taken No. 5 in the 2013 NBA draft.
While Robert Stone said Wednesday that he and his wife, Cynthia, were impressed with the diversity of the student body in College Park as well as the proximity of the campus to thriving African-American communities, the presentation played a big role for their son, ranked the No. 2 high school center in the country.
"All these schools have great trainers, great training facilities," Robert Stone said in a telephone interview. "Maryland showed what they did to get Alex where he was and what he became. It was visual to him, it wasn't a coach or a strength and conditioning coach telling him. They showed us actual workouts with Alex. I think that stuck with him and the intensity of the workouts. To me, that was a big point."
Diamond Stone, who announced on Twitter last month that he had given a verbal committment to Turgeon and the Terps, officially signed a financial aid agreement with the school on Wednesday. Stone is the most celebrated high school big man to come to Maryland since Tom McMillen.
Robert Stone made a point to say that Maryland was never a "longshot" in the recruiting process. The elder Stone, who was a basketball All-American at Division II Wisconsin-Whitewater in the mid-1970s, said there wasn't much to differentiate the Terps or the three other schools his son listed as finalists.
"We did our research and we saw the personnel that would be around him," he said. "[The schools] were all in our eyes equally balanced for Diamond to go in and have a prosperous college career.
"Diamond is a very social kid. I think he had made friends on every campus he went to. He has friends at Wisconsin. He still talks to guys at Oklahoma State and Connecticut. It was a factor, but it was a common factor. I think wherever he would have gone, he would have been comfortable."
Robert Stone said that the first thing that sunk in with his wife when the family visited the campus in October was the number of minorities they saw.
"The school was really diverse," he said. "The campus wasn't in an urban area, it was kind of enclosed, there weren't a whole lot of busy streets going through the middle of it. It's kind of big but it's not that big."
One of the biggest impressions was also made by Natasha Criss, who heads up the academic support for the men's basketball team.
"She played a big part," he said. "I think she's batting .1000, I think she's graduated everyone who's come through there. She seemed like a very strong, hands-on person. That was a factor. Education means something to us. Everyone wants to say basketball. We're trying to grow a human being here."
Robert Stone said he liked the region in general and the proximity to Washington.
"Eight miles to the most powerful city in the world," he said. "That's a very progressive area. I was looking at it as opportunities, if he was lucky enough to make the pros and got some money, I just felt there was more opportunity out there. With the blacks on the East Coast, it's a different sophistication than it is here in Wisconsin.
"I wanted him to see a more progressive African-American community. If he's going to have all this money, he's going to have to be a progressive person."
The elder Stone is aware that his son is being mentioned as a possible lottery pick in the 2016 NBA draft, as high as No. 4 overall according to DraftExpress.com. He said that the discussion of being a "one and done" has not even been talked about as a family.
"We have never sat down and had a serious discussion about one and done," Robert Stone said. "We have never talked about the pros and cons. That is not what we're about. We're about Diamond being successful, being successful as a person. All these projections don't mean anything. I have a saying that I use, 'Men make plans and God just laughs.' That's my philosophy."
Robert Stone said that the experiences he and his wife, a former volleyball player at Arkansas-Pine Bluff, had in college also played a role in their son leaving the state of Wisconsin.
"We both left home and we felt that benefited us tremendously," he said.