TheTastyGreek

Every year, on every forum other than UALR and Arkansas State, people who don't attend complain about the Hot Springs location. Any fan from any school who complains because they can't drive there and back the same night so they can occasionally go watch games if their team happens to be good is not who we ought to be tailoring this event towards. People who really give a crap and can make it, make it. People who would find some damn excuse not to go anyway, don't go. I haven't heard many complaints from people who bother to make the trip, no matter what school they represent. If WKU fans (or USA fans, or anyone else) want to complain because they can't get a web stream because their team was on the secondary court... Too bad. Show up and you don't need to depend on the internet. If you only want to go when it's within a 60 minute drive, or if you only want to go when it's the semis or the finals (and only if those games are on a weekend)... Keep goddamn whining. I, for one, don't care what anyone who puts out terms and conditions like that has to say about venue. In a perfect world, every game would be played on a court set up in my back yard so I could watch from my porch or out the window if the weather was bad. And they'd play them all in the daytime, so as to avoid running up my electric bill. Blah, blah, blah, whine, whine, whine. Hot Springs still isn't tapped out for our group as a vacation destination city. Two years, never missed a day, but I still haven't been to the casino, or the horse track, or the lake, or gone hiking, or actually gone bathing on bathhouse row, or done a lot of the prominent stuff they advertise as tourist activities. I know there's a theme park there, but we've never even looked into going to that. I've meant to do most of those things, but I keep skipping those activities because I'm generally going to WATCH BASKETBALL. Two years, no chain restaurants. Two years, still have a lot of tourist bases to cover. There's no shortage of options for anyone who isn't using the city as an excuse not to go. Quite the opposite. If Memphis or New Orleans or any of those other cities people like to bring up as alternate sites gave a damn about bringing us in, they'd make a competitive bid for the tournament. Hot Springs offers the best terms and the greatest flexibility around varying formats. Three years, three notably different tournament structures, but the people at the Summit Arena and the city of Hot Springs keep bending over backwards to do what the conference needs and wants. Hot Springs treats this tournament like a major event, even if the fans of our member schools don't. Not a knock on any fan base in particular, because the bitching and moaning on Hilltopper Haven right now pops up everywhere (other than Denver fans, because there aren't even enough of them to maintain a messageboard). I sure as hell never had any desire to take a vacation in Arkansas (or Mobile, or Lafayette) but I went because I wanted to watch the tournament. And damned if I didn't have a really good time, two years in a row, with all the stuff there was to see and do in Hot Springs. Anyway... Start planning now. Make the weekend day trip for an early round game, put in for vacation to get the whole 4 days off and see it all... Do whatever you can and will and want to do. I hope this year we can make another huge jump in North Texas attendance like we did last year, and I hope that by the time the 2012 tournament rolls around, we can bring the biggest traveling fan contingent of all the non-Arkansas schools. If you go, I think you'll enjoy it. I don't know anyone that's gone, either for a game or the whole thing, that didn't love it and either go back again or plan on going this year.

8 jobs. 6 won in his first year, the other 2 won by his second year. NAIA, D-2, D-1AA, WAC, Big 12, SEC... Every level, every school. Winning records, quickly if not immediately.

C'mon... Like a head coach could seriously jump up from Youngstown State and compete immediately at the D-1A level. Never happen. Maybe... MAYBE if you could give me an example of that ever having worked before, I'd consider it.

Terry Bowden was born the same year Leavitt was. If Bowden is ancient and too old to be a workaholic, what does that say about Leavitt? I would LOVE to have Leavitt here. I don't understand what you're trying to accomplish, because whatever you're trying to do, I think it's alienating people on the concept of hiring the guy you seem to be pushing so aggressively.

Welcome to the forum. Stop being such a dick. Or go away. Times like this make me understand why Hilltopper Haven runs the way that it does.

Always delightful, but I really wasn't trying to joke around or come off aggressively. If Charlie has a guy he's thinking of highly enough that he prefers him to the exclusion of all the listed possibilities, I'm honestly and politely curious to know who it is.

I don't mean this in an argumentative way, but really? None of the name guys OR a coordinator/assistant from another program OR potentially retaining the interim guy? Who would you want to see us bring in? Is there someone else you've got in mind?

Or at least not wasting the effort here? Rick Villarreal: Email and Phone. Let HIM know. If you spent 30 seconds searching the forum, you'd know that Leavitt is a pretty popular candidate. But telling us we ought to hire him like we're a bunch of idiots who don't even realize we ought to want him makes me so annoyed, I swear I could just grab you by the throat and slam you into a locker or something.

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Singleton verbaled to Central Arkansas two days ago.

Wrong. Say never. Scream it from the rooftops. Etch it in the foundation of the new stadium. PUT IT IN THE SCHOOL CHARTER. The next time anyone at North Texas hires a coach that lacks any coaching experience beyond the high school level, that person should be FIRED IMMEDIATELY. No exceptions. Say never. Say it. I dare you. I double dog dare you. I don't know how many times this school has to learn that lesson. Maybe someday it works out for someone else, somewhere else. Good for them. We're done pouring salt in our eye.

I am very close to seconding this. VERY CLOSE.

Jeff Bower coached QBs at SMU during the Pony Express era. 1982-86. 25 years ago was the last time he worked in this state, and he spent 5 years working on one of the dirtiest programs in NCAA history. So... Throw "former SMU assistant coach" on the list of Dickey similarities.

I think that if we called him this time, he'd probably hang up on us. If this was still 2007, we might have a shot.

It's definitely a huge 1 hire stretch. Can we? Will we?

I sure as hell hope not. I wouldn't have believed it was possible that in a season that we're finally opening a new stadium, a year after finally firing Todd Dodge... I would stop going to football games. But hiring Bower would do it to me. I just don't think I have it in me to deal with that.

I said this in chat, and I'll say it again: I would rather see us rehire Todd Dodge than bring Jeff Bower in here. I am not joking.

Timmy Mac wrote it. He's our former beat writer and he's an alum and he stays pretty on top of what's going on at North Texas.

Agreed. This is bad news for Dodge, good news for North Texas. And, personally- If bad professional news always came with over $1 million in gross compensation... I think I could bear the pain.

Thoughts on Bower, posted elsewhere a few weeks back. Sorry for the repost, but not everyone could see it. ---------- Hiring Bower is the ultimate punt job RV could pull on a coaching search. He's everything people hated about Dickey and potentially worse, as he wouldn't have any connection to the area and wouldn't have any of the assistants that really helped him during his most successful years. Take away wins over 1-AA programs (as many people wanted to do when discussing Coach Bower the 1st), and his celebrated "14 year run of winning seasons" in 18 full seasons at USM includes 8 years with 6 or fewer D-1A victories. Only once in his final 8 years coaching USM did he manage to finish a year with fewer than 3 conference losses. When we fired Dickey, people here knew damn well why we did it. But it didn't make a lot of sense to people outside the program. USM had their reasons for firing a guy who hadn't had a losing season in 14 years. And we've already lived through what led them to fire Bower once before here. Now... Take him out of the school and the town where he was a former hero QB and longtime assistant before taking over as head coach. Take away the assistants who started leaving during his greatest success, weren't there to help him during his decade long decline and won't be joining him at North Texas. Drop him into a conference that's tougher to recruit to, a state where he's never had any coaching experience, and a side of the country he hasn't worked in for over two decades. And remove him from the coaching game entirely for 3 years. Does that sound like a recipe for success here to anyone? Is that the best bet for this program?

It's not a bad record, but you look at how things ended there and the way things went in the last, oh... Decade or so, and it's obvious he's not going to work here.

You can't hardly tell at first, not till they get to the point of slobbering and staggering around. When you see a Coach in that fix, you know for sure. But you want to watch for others that ain't that far along. Now, you take a bobcat or a fox. You know they'll run if you give 'em the chance. But when one don't run, or maybe makes fight at you, why, you shoot him and shoot him quick. After he's bitten you, it's too late.