Terp's Cool Facade Belies Tough Interior

Chris Turner wore black basketball shorts, brown flip-flops and a white T-shirt from In-N-Out, a burger joint that is to his native Southern California what Five Guys is to Washington.

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He smiled easily beneath his curly blond locks as he fielded a torrent of questions about how he saved the day for Maryland last week, his futile attempts to use "the strategery" to beat his father at video games, and his undeniable likeness to the main character in the movie "Napoleon Dynamite."

"Yeah, I look like him," Turner said, shaking his head. "I think it's fair. But is it that I look like him, or that he looks like me? Ahhh."

But under the wisecracks, the mop-top and the "California cool," Turner showed last week he is foremost a competitor. After Jordan Steffy left the game with a concussion, Turner turned off the laugh track long enough to orchestrate a 34-24 upset of then-No. 10 Rutgers.

Now, with Steffy still questionable, the most burning question at Byrd Stadium today will be whether Turner will make his first collegiate start when the Terrapins host Georgia Tech.

"I've been trying to prepare like I've been preparing the last few weeks. I've got to be ready for anything," Turner said. "I don't know where it's going to take me, so I'm just going to ride with it, I'm going to roll with it. And whatever happens, happens."

Since his arrival in College Park, the version of Turner that coaches and teammates had grown to know was this: chill, laid back, quick to laugh, especially at himself.

"He's a Cali boy," teammate Darrius Heyward-Bey said.

"Mellow," teammate Danny Oquendo said.

"In his own world," teammate Keon Lattimore said.

Until last Saturday, this is what people thought they knew about Turner.

"I think it's part of my personality," he said. "I don't try to be laid-back. It's just that I don't get riled up. I can't explain it."