COLLEGE PARK — In an age when athletes dye their hair to change their luck or enhance their image, Maryland guard Richaud Pack went blonde this week to support his team.
Not the Terps, who left for Columbus, Ohio, Wednesday in advance of the program's first NCAA tournament appearance in five years. Fourth-seeded Maryland (27-6) will play No. 13 seed Valparaiso (28-5) at Nationwide Arena on Friday.
Pack, a fifth-year guard who transferred after graduating last spring from North Carolina A&T, dyed his brown hair to support Team Pack, as his mother, Kaija, calls her large family.
On the eve of Maryland's Senior Day victory Feb. 28 over Michigan — during which Pack was among 11 players and team managers honored — his aunt, Paulette McClendon, 69, died suddenly in Florida.
After talking with his mother, younger brother and two older sisters, Pack decided to brighten his hair on Monday.
"It was something me and my mom thought of, me and my siblings just went blonde, she [McClendon] had blonde hair her whole life," Pack said Wednesday after practice. "We did it to honor her. … She lived a full life, but at the same time she was pretty healthy, we thought. It [her death] was a surprise."
McClendon was supposed to be in College Park for Senior Day, along with Pack's mother, 95-year-old grandfather, several siblings and some nieces and nephews.
"There were going to be five generation of Packs there," Richaud Pack said.
Pack said that McClendon, who had moved from the family's roots in Michigan to Florida to take care of her elderly father, acted as the matriarch of the family.
"We were close, we probably talked once or twice a month," Pack said. "It was my mom's only aunt, so my mom was really, really close with her. [McClendon] was the lady that kept us all together. That's what my mom tries to do."
His teammates are aware of why Pack dyed his hair and appreciate the gesture.
"I think that's very special and that's very heartfelt," said senior guard Dez Wells, who switched his jersey number from 32 to 44 this season to honor a former high school teammate and friend who died in an automobile accident.
"I think that just shows the kind of person he is with his family, that's the same way he is with us and everybody else. We care for each other that much. We'll do whatever we need for each other. That's what families are all about."
Though Pack seamlessly transitioned from valuable bench player to starter after Wells fracture his right wrist in late November, the past six weeks have been tumultuous for him.
On the court, Pack struggled with his confidence and mechanics, especially during a six-game stretch in which the 6-foot-3 guard missed 22 of 27 shots, including 12 of 15 3-pointers.
In that period, the Terps were blown out three times on the road, and Pack went scoreless in wins against Penn State and Northwestern.
It was about that time that Pack learned his mother had become seriously ill. She was in and out of the hospital in Atlanta, where the family has lived for a year, over several weeks until doctors finally discovered an intestinal blockage.
A regular at Maryland games home and away — she rarely missed any the first three months, often taking predawn return flights to Atlanta, where she works two fulltime jobs — Kaija Pack's absence affected her son's game and studies.
"Honestly, it was pretty much impossible for me to focus the way I wanted to," said Pack, who is in the graduate business school pursuing a master's degree in marketing. "I played horribly during that stretch."
Pack said when he heard what happened to his mother, he wasn't sure what the prognosis would be.
"The original reaction with the possibility of everything really got to me," Pack said. "That's my motivation [to play for his mother]. I've been able to see her lately, so that helped. I know she's still sick. When I didn't know and I had to be here and she's in a hospital bed, it's different when she was in front of me."
Kaija [pronounced [KY-ja] Pack, who attended last week's Big Ten Conference tournament in Chicago, said she is on medication while awaiting surgery next month.
Some of Pack's teammates were not aware of what he was going through. Pack is good at not showing his emotions, on and off the court. It even extended to Mark Turgeon's house, where the team watched Sunday's NCAA tournament selection show.
Pack tried hard to hide his displeasure at the eighth-ranked Terps being seeded fourth — and placed in the Midwest bracket with the possibility of a Sweet 16 matchup against top-ranked Kentucky — by saying he was "excited" to be in the tournament.
It turned out that was not the only reaction.
"I was shocked," Pack acknolwedged Wednesday.
Pack said on Sunday that the Terps "have played with a chip on our shoulder" since being picked to finish 10th in the Big Ten, so their approach to the NCAA tournament will be the same against Valparaiso.
"I think we've done that all year. We believe in our team, the same way we were picked to finish 10th, we finished second [in the Big Ten] and top 10 in the country," Pack said. "We were picked as a fourth seed, we'll just continue to earn respect by the way we play."
In many ways, Pack is a reflection of the Terps.
A college basketball vagabond who spent his first two seasons playing for his father's favorite player, former Detroit Pistons star Isiah Thomas, at Florida International and then transferring to North Carolina A&T after Thomas was fired, Pack was as big an early-season surprise as Maryland itself.
Pack averaged nearly nine points and six rebounds off the bench his first three games while freshman point guard Melo Trimble struggled to gain solid footing. After Wells was hurt, Pack averaged 16.5 points and four rebounds in one four-game stretch in December, as Trimble emerged a star.
Briefly moved back to the bench in a road win at Purdue in mid-January, where he scored 11 points and hit a couple of key shots late in the game, Pack returned to the starting lineup after one game mostly because of his ability to move the ball on offense and guard the ball on defense.
It became the main reason Turgeon has kept Pack in the starting lineup. His new-found role as a defensive stopper even surprised his mother, who played and coached the game back in Detroit.
"The thing about Richaud, he never played defense before — ever," his mother said Saturday in Chicago.
This is Pack's second experience in the NCAA tournament, the first when he will get to play. After transferring from Florida International, Pack was ineligible when North Carolina A&T made the tournament three years ago and lost to Louisville after winning its opening round game over Liberty. Pack averaged 17 points a game for the Aggies last season.
"This is a lifelong dream, finally being able to play on the stage I wanted to," Pack said.
With one of the brightest heads, and heaviest hearts, of anyone in the tournament.
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