PlummMeanGreen

Not talking about the Florida State U of today, but am talking about doing the things that allowed the Seminoles to get where they are today which included having major college football facilities, alums who give to their alma mater (instead of just giving free opinions) and buying season tickets non-stop. Until our NT community does all 3 we will be talking about "what could be" 25 years from today. Well, I take that back, some of you will be talking about "what could be" 25 years from today because most from my era and beyond will be close to 80 years in age to deceased. Yet, stebo, I was talking about using the early- to-mid 1970's Florida State model back in the day when they were a major college independent and couldn't get the attention of schools from either of 2 conferences they were constantly rejected, ie, the SEC and the ACC. I think all eras of NT surely understand by now the rejection factor we have had to deal with with our own athletic program. In closing on this subject (from my standpoint) I am only saying that NORTH TEXAS do exactly like the former major independent FSU did (in the 1970's) and raise our program above all who feel they can impeed our present momentum and ultimate long range success by black-balling us at every turn in conference re-alignment OR by not having the gonads to put us on their schedules on a regular basis; and doing this (apparently) because they are still living in their own long gone past days of glory that had more schools like UT and TAMU on their schedule menus. I think those days are gone forever for all of that group of ex Southwest Conference schools I am talking about here.

Good Gawd! We need to "build it" just so we can remove ourselves forever from this kind of unadulterated "no-respect" bullshit, folks. Florida State is still the model I feel NT should emulate because they eventually came to a point in their program as to where such goofy-arsed things like the media is dishing out to us with this Tulsa insult stopped forever starting back in the mid 1970's. . And FSU did this when Bobby Bowden raised the Seminoles out of their Indian grave-yard and above those who used to never schedule them. We have to extend our football program way beyond the Tulsa's, the SMU's, the UH's, the Rices, the UTEP's and the Tulanes. We need to build this thing to where those schools will only be able to reminisce back to the days when they could compete with the University of North Texas. Money and attendance is holding us back for now. Who is it that will tackle those 2 problems now and solve them once and for all?

Uh...............HUH?!?!?

................................................................................................ It was when Fry was at NT and I have heard Rick V say that about USM concerning NT and I'd bet if I heard that from him I'd bet others of you did too. Let me work on 2 more inane posts so I can make the deadline! Hey! Do I at least get some points for the NT celebs poll today? OK then , I'll work harder on more polls! Over and out! PS: Green Grenade II, when our good buddy SUMG hits 50 I'll bet we can start expecting some stranger than hell posts from him too, ya' think?

I am duly impressed with that Phyllis George story, O fellow Section E'er. I once heard one of those WBAP 820 AM Rest of the Story" vignettes about fellow NT Ex Phyliss G. by the one and only----Paul Harvey-----------Good Day! BTW, meanjoe, per your request on all your posts lately, just today I renewed (and doubled with gentle persuasion from SUMG) my Mean Green Club membership and bought the same 4 season tickets in.......LOWER SECTION E-E-E-E-E-E-E !

Sadly but true but there was a time when USM wanted to be like North Texas and some of you were around when this was the case. Seems I've even heard our AD say something to that effect because he was at USM around that era. "Build it" soon campus fathers, so our young gun alums won't be saying the same thing when they, too, are 25 years older than they are today..

For the UT game last year, one must also consider that we had an entire coaching staff and football team who were still in a genuine stage of shock over the sudden and tragic loss of Andrew Smith just days earlier. Not saying that that was the reason for the big loss, but we are talking about a bunch of young men many of whom had most likely in their young lives not had anyone as close to them as Andrew was pass away. Listening to Coach Dickey talk on the subject of the loss of Andrew Smith on the latest MG football highlight DVD; anyway, that funeral down in Bay City must have been a very, very emotional one for both coaches and players. Few of us really knew Andrew and maybe had only met him a couple of times, but I cannot ever forget how members of this message board were more than just a tad in shock over his tragic loss.

Recently heard on one of the TV magazine shows that Norah Jones is going to be national spokes-person for Victoria Secrets. In fact, I also heard VS officials have asked her to even model their new line of sheer black-lace negligee . Sorry, guys, just kidddin', I just wanted to paint that mental picture of "sexy Norah" for yall to think about the rest of the day! GMG! Go Norah!

I'm glad you said that, SUMG, and not me. I guess Noble's last acting job was on the series "Walker: Texas Ranger" of which much of that was filmed over here in Cowtown near Billy Bob's Texas, the White Elephant Saloon, etc, etc, etc,

There is only space for 10 individual poll items or I could have added many more NT celebs--sorry 'bout that.

If I missed putting your favorite NT celebrity on this list, please tell us who your choice would be.

The main reason I say our schedule is out of sync, stebo, is that for a school that is trying to build its fan base and increase its attendance averages, Tuesday night games and "Saturday after Thanksgiving" games sorta' makes it difficult. Maybe there wasn't anything we could have done to prevent that. We are all estatic that ESPN will televise a national game from Denton with our Troy U game, but we would be kidding ourselves if we thought most of our "2 or more hours away from campus" alums and fans who drive up for most Saturday Game Days will be at that Tuesday night game. I hope NT has some pretty creative marketing for that Tuesday night game in Denton because..............we'll need it. (We just don't won't to have televised crowd shots such as we saw at the Fort Worth Bowl at TCU's Amon Carter Stadium).

It has been suggested to me that because NT keeps accomodating other SBC schools OOC schedules as to allow them to play higher profile schools (such as how we accomodated ASU vs Army) that this is a big reason this years' NT football schedule has turned out to be the most out of sync NT football schedule I can ever remember. I have no idea if NT playing the Good Samaritan role of accomodating our league mates schedules is the reason or not. Who knows, maybe one of the SBC'er has done the same for us in the past. PLAY THAT FUNKY SCHEDULE.......For example, Tuesday night games in Denton have the potential to be a freakin' turnstiles disaster AND a "Saturday after Thanksgiving" football game scheduled in Denton, Texas, America?!?!? Come on now, some of us who have been around the Mean Green scene a few decades can tell you just what might happen on that Saturday after Thanksgiving and it ain't pretty, folks. Heck, our students are still at home eating left-over turkey and dressing! Stebo, there are even coaches who will tell you that the way a schedule is concocted can be a distinct advantage or disadvantage. How about playing a schedule where a Sun Belt team has 3 tough SBC schools on the road? Is that a good schedule or a bad schedule? Anyone also remember when we had to go to the 'Boro 2 years in a row? Maybe not the conspiracy theory at work here, but certainly an unusual way for a league to schedule its league member's football schedules. (Look at ULM, even they have to come back to Denton for a 2'nd year in a row which I'm sure doesn't exactly thrill their coach who dissed the great Super Jamario Thomas for signing with NT and to an extent harped about how lucky our football team had been in the SBC saying: "they are not that good?" For others, I proudly played Texas HS football (as some of you did), I lettered all 3 years, was tri-captain my senior year and even made all-district safety that year (not so bad for a slow white kid, eh:); but none of my very mild success playing Texas HS football is not my point in all this, but what I am saying is that I know a little about gridiron competition and the desire to win football games. What I am also saying is that this is not a "never played the game" novice talking about football here. Yeah, like some of you, I also used to wake up on those Saturday mornings after those Friday Night Lights had been turned off many hours before and woke up with all those bruises, dislocated fingers put back in place, strained knee ligaments, cuts, nics and the things you get playing a football game all the way from Pop Warner football to the NFL.............. ...........So I repeat: No where has this NT alum posted that we lay down or "dog it" at LSU and "not" try to win this game. I am just suggesting that we not lay it all down emotionally in Baton Rouge; I am saying we play a whole bunch of our football players as to get them some experience since we are a young Mean Green football team this Fall. I say play a bunch of them as to also keep the team fresh while we still try to win that football game in Baton Rouge and even do all that no matter how much LSU spends in their athletic budget. ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN......anyone else notice that many of the non BCS schools who have had the wins against Big Boy U such as La Tech did in different seasons recently when they beat OSU and Michigan State but still went on the rest of those seasons and maybe won 3 or 4 more games the rest of the year AND not even winning their own conference? How about Troy U last year? We all saw (and were proud of them) for their most impressive ESPN televised win over Missouri but then they lose twice in the Sun Belt? We all want to beat Big Boy U but not at the expense of leaving all the emotions of such a win on the field and then being flat as a pancake against an SBC school do we? Not at the expense the week after the LSU game of playing MT in a game that has more long term ramifiations whose results could possibly mean NT having a 2'nd nationally televised game this Fall "live" from the NEW ORELANS BOWL? So it seems wins over the Big Boy U's of the NCAA world seems to have not been the panacea for La Tech or Troy U's conference match-ups later in the season they had such wins. OH BOY, MORE OLD-TIMER TALK (yuk): Those of us who were around when the Mean Green beat Tennessee will never forget the feeling it gave all of us in the entire NT community with front page coverage of this win even in a Dallas newspaper, but I still don't recall NT getting any significant MG Club donations because of that win and our athletic facilities did not change one iota after that big win over the Vols of Tennessee. In fact, our football facilities stayed the same for almost 25 years after that big win in Knoxville. You wanna' beat Texas and then not win the Sun Belt? Troy U beat Missouri and did not win the Sun Belt. This is an opinion board and everyone has those on every subject from shades of green to brandings to even the way the 2 letters "N T" should be placed on a baseball cap, but what I am saying concerning the subject of playing and beating a Big Boy U is that lets not make it more than it really is and I still defer back to our win over the University of Tennessee. That NT team did not go to a bowl game I should also point out. Should have but it didn't. PLEASE NOTE THIS: 2 weeks after our (then) biggest win in NT history and that because we had a bye the week after our win in Knoxville, we played Cal Poly- Pomona (WHO?) at Fouts Field before an "almost" sold out Fouts Field and gee-willakers, folks, we almost fooled around and got beat in that game from a school none of us had ever heard about before or since. Final score of the 1975 NT vs Cal Poly-Pomona (2 weeks after the UT Vols win): NT..................................27 Cal Poly-Pomona...........17 It was even closer than that rather close score indicates, too We should have clobbered Cal Poly-Pomona, folks.

Oh come on now, our stadium is not a joke, its just a stadium that was built in the early 1950's and one that has a track in it. It's location is now coveted by the Texas Department of Transportation for interstate frontage expansion forcing us to build a new football stadium at Eagle Point Campus. Those who have never been to Fouts yet are dissing it need to see the humongous and magnificent Daktronics scoreboard/replay center towering in the south endzone AND the beautiful new approx. $700,000.oo Omni-Grass being installed even now. Our new turf makes it debut on September 17'th when the Tulsa Golden Hurricane come to our campus. I've heard many in recent years say this about Fouts Field: "It's really not as bad as advertised" and its most of us on this board who have done most of the advertising they are talking about (including yours truly). Fouts Field is a sufficient stadium to have until our new state-of-the-art collegiate football stadium is completed in due time. BTW, could Fouts Field have looked any better than it did when it was 99.9% full for our Big 12/ Baylor win 2 years ago? I can't say that I've ever seen it look better than that night.

But the best news is that they won't elimate the space where the center court will be built. They probably want to make it a bit more special than the other 12 courts. When completed will all this put NORTH TEXAS as having one of the top 10 collegiate facilities for varsity tennis in the USA? Hasn't our tennis recruiting jumped a light year or 2 in quality since this has been announced? How about "Peterbilt Centre Court?" Some corporation may want that centre court recognition they would get with a nice donation to finish it out.

It is south of the 3 practice fields and not too far off Bonnie Brae.

One of the best post ever on this board!

I don't think anyone is saying we lay down and dog it, ipEagle, lets just focus on the 2'nd game of the season which only happens to be our SBC opener (on the road). The MUTS game has national ramifications for our program (not that the LSU game wouldn't), but the down the road ramifications for NT would be another nationally televised bowl game appearance at a time of year recruits really start getting serious about their future collegiate homes. It would be our 2'nd nationally televised game for the 2005 season if we get back to the Big Easy. This funky SBC schedule was put together by the SBC office in their (not so subtle) attempt to dethrone NT from being this December's New Orelans Bowl host. Let's hope it simply backfires in their face.

GAME TIME! I also love the way he has the "N T"!

Thanks for the link, Harry. If you younger alums could only sit down with Abner Haynes and hear him tell stories about when NT took a train down to play the University of Houston, you would really appreciate who Ronnie Shanklin used to fondly call, Father Time, all the things Abner and Leon King had to put up with as integrating trailblazers at the University of North Texas. I only wish the Texas Sports Hall of Fame officials could only sit down and listen to Abner Haynes tell his story and then (to quote Spike Lee) "do the right thing."

You who link please find Bobby Ray Sanders column today. He writes about the NT Trailblazers which are some of NT's African Amercan alums and the trails of integration they blazed back in the mid 1950's and 1960's. He writes about Abner Haynes, Leon King, Mean Joe Green and the significant part they all played in integrating NT.

I wonder if NT had spent another 5 years in the Big West (had it remained intact) where our program would be today?

Seems like a national politician asked the "were you better off" type of question years ago. You're in the zone and hittin' 3 pointers, stebo. Good post!

I second the motion on that, stebo. That is a good game plan for the LSU game. Give all our newbies (RS frosh and transfers) some experience in PS: Any takers that MUTS does the same for us?

You mean like for the now famous Denia ducks to waddle around and crap on?