Student journalists were talking to UMD athletes. Then police showed up.

Two student journalists at the University of Maryland said staffers called campus police on them after they attempted to speak to members of the football team following the news of their coach stepping down.

Nolan Rogalski and Jude Wilkenfeld, both journalism students and editors for the Testudo Times, a student-run sports publication, said they had caught wind of a team meeting on campus shortly after the university announced that Michael Locksley, the team’s head coach, was leaving the job after eight years. The two student journalists headed to Jones-Hill House, the sports complex where the team was expected to gather starting around 11:30 a.m.

When the reporters arrived shortly before noon, players began to trickle out, said Rogalski, a junior. They attempted to ask the players for comment but no one from the team obliged, he said.

Around 12:15 p.m., they said, a woman whom Rogalski and Wilkenfeld suspected was an employee with Maryland Athletics emerged from the building, stood about 50 feet away and took photos of them.

“She never said a word to us,” said Wilkenfeld, a sophomore.
“She never asked us to leave. She never asked us who we were, what we were doing. It was a little strange.”

Rogalski said staff and athletes are the only ones able to access the complex at any given time, but the two were standing on a sidewalk outside the building, which is on campus.

Minutes later, an officer with the University of Maryland Police Department arrived by foot. The two said they began to walk away moments later, but when the officer started to follow them, they turned around to speak with him.

When they identified themselves as student reporters for the Testudo Times, Rogalski said, the officer began offering advice and told them “this isn’t necessarily the time to get everybody’s reaction.”

Multiple other officers arrived at the scene by vehicle, but the first officer who responded attempted to wave them away.

In a video captured by Rogalski, he told the officer, “As far as we were aware, we were standing in places we were allowed to stand.”

The officer responded, “I don’t disagree with you.”

The video cuts shortly after that response. The officer asked the pair for their student identification and then encouraged them to leave the area. Rogalski said they stuck around after the officer left. The interaction was about five minutes long.

“It felt like we were being intimidated for being there,” Rogalski said. “The goal seemed to be to get us to head away.”

Maryland Athletics and UMPD said in a joint emailed statement that police were contacted Wednesday regarding “two individuals who were standing outside of Jones Hill House.”

“Due to heightened concerns for staff and player safety around the football program in recent weeks, there has been increased security around athletics facilities. A UMPD officer approached the two individuals, learned they were with a campus media organization, recorded student IDs, and no report was taken,” the statement said. “UMPD and Maryland Athletics respect the First Amendment rights of all journalists reporting in public spaces.”

Police did not immediately respond to questions about increased security concerns. Neither Rogalski nor Wilkenfeld was aware of specific issues.

“It was just a very shocking moment,” said Wilkenfeld, adding that he respects the instinct to protect players but “treating student journalists in that way is not necessarily the most respectful way to go about things in terms of keeping a positive relationship with the student journalists on campus.”

The interaction comes on the heels of a heated confrontation between another University of Maryland student and Capital News Service reporter, Cat Murphy, and U.S. Rep. Andy Harris. The Republican congressman threatened to prosecute Murphy, a graduate journalism student, for recording him during a news conference following a debate in Cambridge after he demanded that she stop.

Harris wrongly said Maryland’s wiretap law gave him the right to singularly deny her the ability to record him. However, the law does not apply to public conversations, such as a post-debate news conference.

The congressman has refused to apologize to Murphy.

Rogalski said Wednesday’s police dispatch reflected a larger trend with the Maryland football program limiting access to journalists. In recent years, he said, the team has denied interviews with assistant coaches and coordinators, and it no longer allows media to attend practices.

“At the end of the day, we were trying to do our job,” Rogalski said. “We reacted in the way that they teach us to do as journalists. We went to try and get comment from what we knew was going on and then, once the players told us no, we let them be.”