Back in athletics
Dull’s professional fortunes turned around in 1995 when he became athletic director at the University of Nebraska Kearney, a Division II school. In 1998 he took the same position at Moravian College, a Division III school in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He returned to Division I sports when he became athletic director at Cal State Northridge in May 1999.
Dull worked at Northridge until 2007, when he moved back east to take the athletic director’s job at Belmont Abbey College, a Division III school near Charlotte, North Carolina. He held the job through the summer of 2008.
Dull never returned to College Park to attend a Maryland basketball game after he resigned as athletic director. But he did see the team play in the NCAA Elite Eight at Stanford University in 2001. Then-Maryland Athletic Director Debbie Yow gave Dull tickets to the game. He said he enjoyed seeing old friends, such as broadcaster Johnny Holliday and former Sports Information Director Jack Zane. “You reach a point where you hold resentment and you hurt yourself,” he explained. “I’m a stronger person now because of it. I look at the horizon, and say ‘It can’t get any worse than that.’ ”
Dull tried to return to Maryland as an athletics administrator in 2008 when he interviewed for the position of executive director of the M Club. Nelligan, the long-time women’s gymnastics coach, served on the search committee. “Everybody loved his presentation,” says Nelligan. “And I thought he would have been a very strong candidate to unite that part of the department. But I also felt that he would always have to answer questions about Lenny. His legacy will always be tied to that.”
Dull was not selected. After giving his presentation, Dull stopped by Nelligan’s office and the two old friends talked for about an hour. Dull wanted to know how Nelligan was doing personally and asked for updates on mutual friends. A short time later, Dull sent a letter to Nelligan, thanking him for a tour of Comcast Center and making sure his buddy was OK with the fact that he didn’t get the job. “He’s had to live with this Bias thing for a long time,” Nelligan says. “He does deserve to live with some closure.”
In late 2009, during a phone conversation I had with Dull, he asked when I would write his book, saying that his story has never been told. In 2010, when I decided to write my book about the legacy of Bias–the first person I called was Dull.
When he said he would cooperate I felt invigorated about the project. He had not talked at length about how the death of Bias had impacted him. I trusted his perspective and wisdom and felt he would talk with intelligent, measured introspection about how the Bias death affected his life, and provide insight into how the athletic department dealt with the tragedy. “It’s about time the real story was told,” he told me.
But after we had several discussions on how to proceed, Dull surprised me with an email in May 2010, saying he would not participate, that he needed to continue to put “this saga behind [me].” I was disappointed, but I understood his decision. I knew from brief discussions I had with Dull during the late 1980s and into the 1990s how difficult the transition was for him after Bias died. Dull and I did have a lengthy, but incomplete discussion about the Bias death in 2003 for my first book about Maryland athletics, Tales from the Maryland Terrapins, and those comments are used in the book and in this story.
In August 2010, Dull accepted a position as a project manager in the athletic department at Hood College in Frederick, Maryland, about 45 minutes from College Park. He helped raise funds for new athletic facilities at the school. The man who hired him, Hood athletic director Gib Romaine, was the defensive coordinator for Ross at Maryland and was later a fundraiser there.
In April 2011, Dull attended a reunion of former Maryland athletic department employees, some of whom had worked with him in the 1980s, at a Ledo Restaurant in College Park. It marked the first time I had seen Dull in about a quarter of a century. Typically, he mingled mostly in the background, quietly chatting with friends. And typically, he offered comfort when I asked him if he was okay with me moving forward with the book. He encouraged me to complete the project. We talked little else about it, preferring to focus instead on positive memories we both shared from our days at Maryland.
Costello also attended that reunion. This week he recalled fond memories of Dull. “I’m a very type “A’ person, but Dick was always very calm,” he said. As an example, Costello told of how the two approached a conflict differently during a track team practice when Costello was head coach. “We had signs all over the track saying it was closed during our practice,” said Costello. “A guy was jogging in lane 1 and I told him the track was closed. He kept going. I’m getting a little pissed. I said, listen buddy, it’s your last lap. Dick walked up to me and said, ‘calm down, it looks like he’s not going to be running much longer.” Soon after the runner left the track.
Dull enjoyed photography, often traveling long distances to attend Formula 1 auto races, documenting the trip with his camera. For a time Dull traveled alone annually to Reykjavik, Iceland. He told me once that the city was his favorite place to visit.
Costello recalled he never once saw Dull wear a pair of jeans. “Even when we went fishing, he’d wear Izod shirts,” he said, with a laugh. Dull worked as a proctor when he lived with other athletes in Ritchie Coliseum. And Costello recalled the time Dull turned him in to coach Kehoe for violating a team rule. “He wasn’t rowdy at all,” said Costello. “And he coached the way he lived. Very technical and smooth.”
The job at Hood College was Dull’s last. Shortly before his wife Sally passed away in 2016, Dull moved back to Charlotte to live near his stepson, Erik, and his family.
