The third of 13 children, Sisler grew up on a 20-acre farm in Friendsville, Md. During WWII he joined the Navy and posted to Attu in the Aleutian Islands for 18 months, then transferred to Okinawa until the end of the war. He enrolled at Maryland on the GI Bill and studied plant pathology and plant physiology. In 1966, he was an NIH postdoctoral fellow at the Organisch Chemisch Institute in Utrecht, The Netherlands. Later, Sisler was appointed botany department chairman and retired in 1989 after more than 40 years of service to the university. He authored numerous publications on metabolic inhibitions and co-edited the book Plant Virology. He served as visiting lecturer to the Greek Atomic Energy Commission, the School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University and the Environmental Protection Agency; chairman and vice chairman of the Cordon Research conferences; as associated editor of Phytopathology, and as a member of the Chemical Control Committee. He was preceded in death by his wife of 62 years, Patricia H. Sisler, and is survived by their children, Barbara Sisler Shuster, Roger Delane Sisler and Nancy Sisler Bowers; four grandchildren; and one great-grandchild. Victor “Vic” Turyn ’49, a retired Federal Bureau of Investigation official who had been an outstanding quarterback at Maryland in the 1940s, died Aug. 11 of heart failure at his Ellicott City home, according to The Baltimore Sun. He was 91. Turyn was raised in Holden, W.Va., where his father worked as a coal miner and his mother ran a boardinghouse for miners. After graduating from high school, he enlisted in the Navy and served 19 months in the South Pacific during World War II. Recruited to play for the Navy football team despite no background in the sport, he was asked at the first practice by the coach, the legendary Paul William “Bear” Bryant, what position he played and he answered, “Quarterback.” After the war, he followed Bryant to his head coaching job at Maryland. “We
VIC TURYN '49, SHOWN RUNNING FOR 15 YARDS AGAINST MIAMI IN A 1948 GAME, WENT ON TO PLAY IN THAT YEAR'S GATOR BOWL AGAINST GEORGIA, WHICH ENDED IN A 20-20 TIE.
were discharged in Norfolk, Va., enrolled at Maryland the next day, and six days after that, opened the season with a 60-6 victory over Guilford College,” Turyn told The Evening Sun in a 1971 interview. He later played under Maryland coaches Clark Shaughnessy and Jim Tatum. After graduating from College Park, he began a 23-year career with the FBI. He spoke Russian and was an expert in espionage, working on such high-visibility cases as the $1.4 million Brinks robbery in Boston and the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg spy case. After leaving the FBI, he was assistant to the president of the S.L. Hammerman Organization, and then worked as head of security and vice president of operations for the Baltimore branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, from which he retired in the 1980s. He is survived by his wife, the former Eileen Dorothy Simpson, whom he met at Maryland and married in 1946, as well as three daughters, Kathleen Stempkovski of Elkridge, Laureen Peck of Randallstown and Noreen Turyn of Lynchburg, Va.; a son, Thomas Turyn of Ormond-by-the-Sea, Fla.; three grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.
on the mats that Neil made a name for himself. From 1939–41, McNeil was undefeated in 41 matches and he won the light-heavyweight title (175 pounds) at the 1941 Southern Conference championships. McNeil was welcomed into the Maryland Sports Hall of Fame in 2005. After graduating from Maryland, he entered the Army and later joined the Marines, where he was an officer for 27 years, until his retirement in 1969. His obituary in the Greensboro News & Record reports McNeil was the first American serviceman to set foot in Yokohama Harbor at the end of World War II, taking surrender papers to Japanese officials there. McNeil also served in the Korean War and Vietnam War, earning numerous citations. He is survived by two sons and a granddaughter; he was preceded in death by his wife, Virginia, and a middle son. PAUL MCNEIL '41 WAS INDUCTED INTO THE MARYLAND SPORTS HALL OF FAME IN 2005. IN 41 WRESTLING MATCHES AS A TERP, HE WENT UNDEFEATED.
Paul McNeil ’42, a former Terp football player and wrestler who never lost a match while at Maryland, died at Hospice of the Piedmont in High Point, N.C., on July 4. He was 93. McNeil attended the University of Maryland on a football scholarship, but it was
Photos from top: courtesy of 1949 Terrapin; courtesy of 1940 Terrapin
FALL 2013 TERP 41