TheTastyGreek

Who the hell are these people to think they can tell me about US college decades ago vs. now? Someone alert me when we find an Australian teenager: The only expert authority I care to hear from on the topic.

How would you rank your awareness and understanding of contemporary Texas university students and their financial/administrative academic challenges vs. (just hypothetically speaking) a random vacationing teenager from the southern hemisphere? Asking for an acquaintance.

When you factor in the exchange rate... A year at the University of Melbourne studying pre-med to be a doctor is cheaper than a year at a DCCCD school pursuing an associate's degree in anything if you're living at home for both. I picked Melbourne because the 5 seconds I spent googling this said it was the best public school in the country. I have no idea if it's abnormally cheap or expensive. It doesn't much matter to me... I got out of school right before tuition deregulation, and I got out debt-free. But I don't understand why it's impossible to acknowledge that the people who started this year have a much rougher and untenable financial forecast than even the people who started school 10 years ago, and that even those students 10 years ago had it a lot harder financially than myself or anyone else that went to UNT pre-2003. It's not a moral failing, it's math.

Building on this... DCCCD public estimate for the annual cost to a student that lives in the district and chooses to live at home with their parents is $10,565. That goes up by about 15% if you live out of district with your parents. Best case (in-district), that comes out to about 1,460 hours of work at minimum wage, assuming every cent of your earnings goes to education costs (and not social security or other taxes of any kind). That's just over 28 hours per week. So, the same level of work, self-discipline, and financial restraint could carry you far enough to earn a 4 year university degree from UNT back in the 80s, but caps out at a community college 2 year degree today. Even without stopping to consider your professional job prospects without a 4 year degree these days, that's already a pretty significant change in circumstances.

Still, I'm outraged.

https://meangreensports.com/news/2016/2/9/North_Texas_Adds_Transfer_Ryan_Woolridge_For_2016_17.aspx Hooray for the transfer system! What a wise, savvy young man! https://www.dentonrc.com/sports/breaking-news-ryan-woolridge-to-transfer-from-unt/article_b11cba1f-d99f-5f95-a353-c9e66331fa1e.html F--- YOU!!! You're dead to us! You were never any good anyway, and you'll suck wherever you go assuming you don't get hurt walking through the door!

Pessimist.

Hey, if we're quoting Matthew... I'm not sure what parts and pieces Coach Scott offended himself through, but I hope there are enough left over to function on the sideline. If not, then... Step aside Zombie Landry, we're reanimating Coach Origen?

Congrats to Vito.

This is why the savvy coach travels with four of them.

So help me, I will turn this forum right around if you all don't transfer doing this sort of crap.

I wound up working with a Denver grad of that era a few years later, and he was legit uncomfortable how much I knew about Rohnert, Udofia, the Hallam Brothers, and that basketball cheerleader with the full prosthetic. Shame on him for not keeping up with his own basketball team. Good call on the OMV trial. It says a lot about their recruiting standards that they'd bring him on board so soon after AJ Slaughter faced compelling charges that he'd killed Nicole Brown Slaughter. Shame, WKU.

Maybe! I just remember he had a sleeveless airbrushed shirt, and I may be mixing him in with the Mendez Valdez arts-and-crafts family fashion show in 09.

Best joke of the tournament was actually @Quoner, who immediately identified and frequently pointed out that OMVs dad (a super nice guy) was a Hispanic Randy "The Ram" Robinson. It was very topical at the time. And I'm still angry I didn't make the ID first.

Meanwhile, @All About UNT single-finger types Andy Rooney editorials about the superiority of rotary phones.

The only radio program I listen to is Prairie Home Companion. I enjoy it because I get to appreciate all the smug condescension, without running the risk of seeing Garrison Keillor's penis like a live audience would. Otherwise, I only use the Victrola to hear horse races and updates from the front from President Coolidge.

If your generation had Snapchat, we'd all be speaking German right now.

USCya later!

I'm the hero this forum both needs AND deserves.

x24=? Solve for XXXTentacion.

Almost 24 gross.

I don't want to put anything in @NorthTexasWeLove's mouth without proper consent, but I do have some thoughts to share that might be relevant. I think that a lot of people get frustrated because, like it or not, our Sun Belt affiliation during most of RV's tenure clearly branded us as the bottom of D-1 sports. Now, we were actually pretty fortunate... Between the crazy run of conference wins and bowl games under Dickey and a string of 20+ win seasons and not one but TWO NCAA tournament appearances under Johnny Jones, I'd say we could credibly claim to be quite a power-bottom. And that's nothing to be ashamed of! But... I think a lot of the guys here felt ashamed of potentially being happy in that role. We had a lot of fun for a long time, but some people just couldn't accept our identity. They'd get to work and talk to their officemates, or just hang around with the other guys at the gym, and they want everyone to look at their school sports affiliation and think: "top", not bottom level athletics. And when they were confused or unhappy about our identity, they needed a scapegoat. I think that's why RV gets so much negativity, even now that he's been gone a long time. Because at first, we were happy with what he brought to the situation. He solved some of the easy issues, he even pitched in at concessions or custodial roles! Grinding it out in whatever way he could to improve our program... And who doesn't appreciate a grinder match with an energetic, enthusiastic, and game guy like that? But, eventually, I think we all realized RV wasn't versatile. His limitations became clear. We hit wall after wall in growing our program, and those walls closed in so tight that it seemed we were stuck in a tiny closet we'd never escape. And I think that a lot of our fans have internalized self-loathing and identity issues that they can't quite accept, so they lash out and place all the blame with him. It doesn't help that, in Wren Baker, we've found a guy who seems perfectly suited to reach around those walls that stymied RV for many years. Higher profile OOC opponents, no money games, ludicrously expensive coaches... Baker is pulling off reach arounds that RV never could have dreamed of, and I think we're all really enjoying the results. I will say that if RV hadn't been here to help get the department cleaned up and in position, we wouldn't be enjoying the vigorous forward thrust that Baker has overseen to push us even further towards the promised land. None of this works without being a part of CUSA (or, as it was known back in the 90s, "the Metro Conference"). Us redefining ourselves as Metro was a critical first step in acceptance, and, hopefully, true growth. I'll always appreciate that about RV's time here, even if there's not much else positive we can agree on.

Good advice. You definitely don't want the Mrs. pegging you as a dirty Sanchez if she goes perusing the browser history. But Ben's right, Quoner. Just like I used to suggest to my old tromboner friend, Rusty, I'll tell you the same thing: If you can't keep your mind out of the gutter, send it to a Cleveland steamer to get it cleaned up.

I thought about joking around, saying that I'm too busy these days with my Whirlyball career and touring interest in Civil War reenactment... But, honestly, I stopped coming when I stopped enjoying anything about it. And since then, I haven't really felt like I miss it. I'm glad we're seeing success, I hope others are enjoying their respective sport of choice as much as I did my 5 or 6 year deep-dive with this basketball team... But I don't care to get back into it. Quoner and a few others can attest- I was organizing a campaign and ready to buy a group of season tickets mid-season, the day we fired Benford. But... We didn't, and that was really the last straw for me. My wife is agitating to buy tickets again for one sport or another because she misses the organized get-together schedule with our friends. But, I've been to one game of the Littrell era and zero games of the McCasland era, and I don't regret it. I really don't miss it much. If we make it to the CUSA championship final in Frisco... That's great. But, I'll be at AT&T Stadium, watching Errol Spence and Mikey Garcia. If we make the NCAA tournament... That's great. But, I'll be in Florida. I hope this thing keeps chugging along, and it's as fun a ride for everyone following as it was for me once upon a time. And maybe in a year, or five years, or whenever, I'll miss it and want to come back to watch games again. Right now, though, I think I'm out for a while.

Bumper! And, I voted 'left and haven't come back since'. As my sidekick/hanger-on in our exceptional, exceptionally niche podcast, I assume you're included.