FirefightnRick

league #1221, password is gmg. I have tried to reenter the league to delete my team and it says the password is incorrect. Anyone give me some insight to this I would appreciate it. Rick

What is the league ID and password? Rick

How? Rick

Hey Mean Green Fans. I was looking forward to the league but things are getting pretty hectic for me and there are 16 teams which are too many in my oppinion. So I'm out and I'll let you guys and gals go on and play. Sorry if I inconvenienced anyone. Rick

I remember the Lewis well. He was all the rave for the SWC and a&m until his senior year in 1990 when his drug problems surfaced and he ended up being pick very late in the draft. In fact our very own Eric Pegram was picked before he was. I'm surprised he has been able to stay out of jail this long. Sad. Rick

I suppose most of you know that Lance Armstrong is attempting to win an unprecedented 6th straight Tour de France this month and the 8th day of the Tour is tomorrow. The Tour de France is considered the greatest, most grueling physical test of human strength and endurance in the world and in France, it is their Super Bowl and MLB World Series all wrapped up in one. Other than a skier or two, road bike racers are God like there and the entire country follows the race during the three weeks of it's event. Sixth straight But to me and others it's means something also that I feel very strong about, something I hold dear to my heart. I take it very personal to hold onto and remember and respect the sacrifices so many has made in this country so that you and I can live a very good life and have the best of opportunities that exist on earth. I feel it is my personal responsibility to remind my children when it's time, of the sacrifices our forefathers and our veterans paid for us all and I tell any member of the greatest generation I meet thankyou whenever I can. What does this have to do with Mr. Armstrongs' accomplishments? Everything. Today we drove out west to meet up with friends of our family who drove down from Kansas to visit. They are all huge K State alumns as a matter of fact and follow the Wildcats every year. But their daughter told us tonight at dinner about her recent return from 10 days spent in........FRANCE and I was blown away at what she had to say. One of her summer fashion classes took a trip to Paris and said that every other frenchmen they would encounter on the street were rude as hell to them, even going to the point of actually telling them in their best english to "go home!". They got on the main subway one day and the conducter who they sat right behind made a loudspeaker announcement in french of course. No one in the group could make out what in hell he said but they all looked up and the rest of the passengers started laughing hilariously and looking at them. They said you could tell it wasn't something that was very tastefull because some nervously stopped laughing and looked away, as if they might have thought they spoke some french and were not laughing because they knew what was said. But she told us it was just unreal. You would hear people in a shop speaking english, and if you asked them something in english they all of a sudden didn't know english and would try to get out of having to wait on you. But she said the most amazing were the ones who would just blurt out, "Go Home". Now this is the third person I know of in the past several years that I have heard of the same crap happening. Maybe some of you know of someone or yourself having this happen as well? My captain and his wife traveled to Paris last summer and said they got some of the same stuff, but it appears to be even worse this year and I suspect the Iraq war and France' lack of help with fighting terrorism worldwide having a little to do with that? I am convinced the entire country of France will never give a rats --- about the U.S. and the sacrifices and blood it gave for them...twice, nor does it care that the U.S. again takes the lead on fighting terrorism now while France lays down and hopes it goes away . It burns my @ss to even think of the thousands of soldiers buried at Normandy whose memories are cast aside so easily by the country they died for. So since France will continue for generations to exist as an embarrassed nation whose country laid down when it counted and had to have the British and U.S. nations bail it out of two big ones, yet still remain bitter about it, and since it will continue to treat the U.S. as they do now with the recent problems, then it gives me pure pleasure to now think that an american, Lance Armstrong and his U.S. Postal boys taking the last remaining thing that France as a nation can cling to with any sense of pride, the Tour de France. Should Armstrong, an Amercian win a sixth straight Tour he becomes KING(of FRANCE) of the road so to speak, and Frenchmen for generations to come will have to look up and see who owns them in each and every way including their beloved little bike race. Rick

Done. FFR'sTalons is registered. Rick

Jim, Have you thought about writing childrens books? So many ideas and activities, why not put some of those extra brain waves to work for you? You should give it some thought my brother! Rick

Yeah baby, go Titans! CSF at one point in the season was 14-16 then ends up winning the CWS? Hard to believe. Rick

Cal State runs 16 Div 1 sports on an annual athletic budget of $6.5 Million. Texas on the other hand runs on a sickening overflowing tank of excess to the tune of over $60 Million. Here's to the little guys. I hope they saw off the horns. They just cut down Texas in the first game of a best of 3 College World Series, 6-4. That's a start. Go Titans! Cal State Fullerton Rick

What no "The Munsters", "Petty Coat Junction", "Happy Days", "The Andy Griffith Show", "Lavern and Shirley", "The Honey Mooners"...? Rick

Doesn't surprise me in the least. No one at the school probably wanted to deal with it and turned it over to an outside program, for a fee. Rick

I was interested in if the money rich BCS and other high budget programs might affect the ncaa tourney so I used a budget report out of a florida paper posted on the football board to go by. Of course I don't have the budgets for the non D-1A football programs like Xavier and St Jo's, but as expected some of the biggest money programs are in the sweet 16. 11 of the 16 are BCS. It is easy to see a correlation between money spent and the usual teams you see every year in the tourney. It may be considered to name the largest upset of the tourney so far by Alabama, with a basketball budget of $3.2Mil(would still be considered above average) knocking off Stanford with it's $17Mil budget, the highest by more than 8 times the average budget in the nation. And I thought Stanford was just an incredible program but it seems if you pay enough you will make your share of appearances in the NCAA tournament. As expected all of the usual teams that are in the tourny every year have some of the highest budgets in the nation. As I said before I don't have Xavier and St. Jo's but I would guess without looking that since both make usual visits in the tourney that they are at or above the average. At a guess the average looks to be around $1.8 to $2.0 million per program for the 117 D-1A programs. Budgets for programs in the sweet 16: Syracuse........$8.4Mil U.Conn...........$5.3Mil Duke..............$5.0Mil Texas.............$4.0Mil Vandy............$3.6Mil Bama.............$3.2Mil W. Forrest......$3.1Mil Ok St.............$3.0Mil Ill....................$3.0Mil Kansas............$2.6Mil Pitt.................$2.5Mil Georgai Tech..$1.9Mil UAB...............$1.4 Mil Xavier.............? St. Jo..............? And of course my favorite for obvious reasons: Nevada...$983K Other big money teams who either didn't make the tourney or the sweet 16: N. Carolina...$3.9Mil Oklahoma.....$4.1Mil Iowa.............$3.8Mil Mich St..........$4.4Mil Cincy.............$3.1Mil Memphis.......$3.7Mil Arizona.........$4.3Mil UCLA............$4.3Mil Florida..........$3.7Mil Kentucky.......$5.1Mil Miami............$3.4Mil By the way, North Texas spends $878K on basketball. That's not very much comparing to the group above. But it's more than ULM and Idaho who spends $318K and $167K respectfully. Rick

Mean Green/Wells Fargo Classic March 26-28th Rick

Next weeks tournament starts on Friday the 26th and runs through Sunday. There are two games saturday the 27th, one at 3 p.m. and one at 5:30. I haven't been out there yet but see an opportunity to go Saturday. Are there concessions out there first off? Would there be an opportunity to have a small barbecue event free for everyone until the food lasts? I can pre cook thursday/friday and have some briskettes and ribs ready for saturday afternoon if there is enough interests from the rest of the MGNation. If this is a yes, we need folks to volunteer some cash, some softdrinks, some barbecue sauce and bread, and plastic ware and anything else you guys can think of. My cell is 817-999-9335 or you can email me at firefightnRick@hotmail.com if anyone has some suggestions. I have wanted to do this since last year for our girls but just now have an opening in my schedule to do so. Hope all are safe for the break. Rick

Next weekend huh? Hmmmmm? Interesting. Rick

Coach "Basketball" Jones may become one of the all time greatest coaches at NT ever. I can't think of any we have had in recent years that could have inherited such a poor program and done so much with it in three years time. We knew from his past that JJ was capable of getting a team to perform under extreme situations. He has certainly done it here now with all the injuries and this year losing his starting point guard who was in his first recruiting class. He has done an amazing job. Trilli would have been lucky to have won 4 games this year with the team he would have had here this season. Regardless of where this team ends up in the end this year JJ has done a wonderful job with respect and class. I am very proud of him. Rick

Even if they can't do the Eagle Claw correctly all the time I love the cheerleaders. They have been a huge committed group of students that have represented us well over the years. I am with Cerabus on the fundraising thing. We need to push for them to get scholarships as well. It's way past time to right a wrong in that department. Rick

Anyone see tonights channel 8 HS extra? Showed the Highland Park swim team during their meet this weekend and low and behold their swim caps have the Texas flag in their school colors just like the NT battle flag? This makes two HS teams that I have seen do this, Plano being the other, and the Dallas Stars as well. Of course, NT was the first, dating back to 1982. I couldn't help but mention this and giggle about it after all I have been through over the past several years with a certain individual(who will remain anonymous) on campus who has done his best over the years to threaten and scare school officials into thinking that displaying a similar State of Texas flag in anything other than red, white and blue was somehow illegal, and force illimination of it's use? We finally got it cleared up after taking the matter to the legal office last year and the crying has seem to have stopped, for now? <_< Just another example of the still remaining existance of those on campus who will stoop to any level to squelch school spirit. Hopefully those folks will continue to move on and get out of the way of the growing spirit of the Mean Green. Rick

The letterman association started an alumni game last year before the Green & White game and it's open to anyone I believe. GMoney asked at the banquet if we could consider this as a warm up for that game. Afterall, it should be nicer weather by then and there should be a barbecue going on as well. We need to give this some consderation as it will stand to be an even bigger event prior to the Spring game. Rick

Amazing, I got to listen to the end on the way home. Just crazy. More than anything I'm happy for some kind of bright spot that is finally happening for JJ. He's had a tough time with the injuries. Finally something good at the perfect time with his team getting hot. And of course, I'm on duty Thurs, and the F5's 3rd B day is saturday. There's no way I can leave the wife in her 7th month by herself to clean up around the house that evening. I'll have to yell from here. Rick

Wright pulled down 39 points tonight. With that being the jist of their game, if anyone for us gets hot late we win. Hot? Hell how about luke warm? After that huge first half for Wright, it basically comes down to us within 5 points with 3 minutes to go and the ball. Jerome Rogers brings the ball down quickly for us, does his best street ball show between the legs with his man in his face, quickly and off balance stops at the three point line with over 20 seconds remaining on the shot clock and chunks up the ugliest brick of the night. If he or anyone else waits to take a good open shot right then and hits it, then it's a two point game, our momentum and eventually our game. We need a shooter. Rick

I'd say 2/3rds Green. Where were ya Emmitt? I looked for you. Rick

Hey, great to meet you guys, thanks for the food and drinks. We had a good time. Thanks for the pictures Gak. Great sunset shot by the way. If NT has anyone that could have gotten hot tonight we win. Fantastic crowd, the largest I have seen in years. I would say it was 2/3rds Green? This team may have a chance to do something in conference. They need someone to get hot from the outside. See ya'll at the banquet. Rick

I'm gonna try and come. I'm bringing the 2 year old as well so beware! Rick