Tyler Maryak

Yes, I'm glad I decided to go ahead and go. It was particularly encouraging to meet the staff that were there. Their attitude seemed totally different than the status quo attitudes of the staff I worked with during my time as a UNT employee. One individual, who is fairly new to the university said "I'm tired of hearing 'potential.' It's time for North Texas to be what it is meant to be (paraphrased)." It brought a tear to my eye...

Tried to find a good gif to go with this post. Did I find the right one?

North Texas is Mean Green Football Country

A +1 for you simply for being able to spell "quiet" correctly. That's a rare occurrence these days...

I have an impromptu meeting starting in twenty minutes. Sad day...

Welp, the opportunity to surpass expectations is there. #Optimism #LowBar http://meangreenblog.dentonrc.com/2016/07/dcft-highlights-what-texas-football-premier-magazine-has-to-say-about-unt.html/

The article linked largely just borrows excerpts from studies, so I can't know what the extended studies say without delving into them. However, the term "coach" in the article seems to have a fairly broad definition. The author compares coaches to "principle clerks" in An Inquiry into the Nature of Causes of the Wealth of Nations and argues that, like principle clerks, the similarity of training received, experience, and information available makes them interchangeable. I would argue that the functions of a coach, if broken down, would re-frame the situation, especially for us. For one, many will state that Mac did not recruit well. If that is true (and Littrell proves himself a superior recruiter), there will be asymmetry between the human resources he had and those that Coach Litty will have. Similarly, the supports around the team (in our situation particularly) will could be vastly improved. Better assistant coaches, better system, better equipment...all things that (theoretically) came with the new coach but is not the coach himself. Maybe they accounted for these factors in the studies that the author references, in which case the results may hold true. However, I think our new coach(es) brings more than just a different style of coaching and I think those are the things that set us up for a considerable turn-around where many teams are not. I don't buy the comparison of coaches to principle clerks and think that, in this case, the empirical evidence isn't relevant to our situation and therefore shouldn't stifle our optimism. I think we'll be an outlier of the data-set to at least a small degree.

I think there's either a typo or a play on words that I didn't catch, but I totally agree. I hope that, once the new AD is situated, we can bring in SSJ for this project and get a better project for less done by one of our own.

Hah! They're still using this picture on the URCM website? I remember doing this photo shoot like 7 years ago...

That's incredible! I really look forward to getting a new guy in the AD and getting this project finished. Like so many things UNT, it seems like all the pieces are right there, they just need to be put together.

Yes, I do think that I recall someone mentioning on here at some point that RV left. The suggestion was to check with "those involved." While RV was still here, I did make that effort. Yeah, after my wife's limited experiences with Hank, I'm not keen on working with him anyway. Certainly, once a new AD is in place, I will try to get in touch with them. Perhaps I shouldn't be the only one of us involved in the effort. It would appear that I lack the prowess to handle such an undertaking anyway. I would love to have other passionate UNT fans in on this project, especially those who may be better connected or have more experience than I.

Sure, makes sense. But the facts, as I see them, are: I asked RV what would happen with this project now that he's leaving and got a non-answer. The only other person involved is George Dunham, who has only directly responded to my phone calls, emails, or texts (about this project) one time. Not upset about it, he's a busy guy, it's just unlikely that he would respond to me if I brought it up again. It's likely that no progress will be made on this for several months more and it's entirely possible that nothing will come of it at all (barring UNT fan intervention). After all, we were supposed to unveil this plan at the Spring Scrimmage and we see how well we stuck to that timeline. So I'm not outing something that is happening so much as saying what might have been. Just since I first joined the circle (triangle?) four months ago, how many times have people brought up on here the need for such a project? Maybe this project would be better led by fans and alumni than the AD and maybe what I know now could provide some help/direction in making it happen. I can see what you mean, but I didn't decide this morning to blab about this to be a cool kid, I brought it to our fan base after several attempts to communicate with RV (and Mr. Dunham once as well), waiting several weeks, and seeing numerous posts about making a project like this happen. I didn't make a call on a whim. I considered the implications and deemed the possibility of making the project a reality greater than the importance of keeping it a secret from Mr. Greene for two more months instead of him maybe finding out now from a (sorry, Harry) largely non-credible source. That ended up being longer than intended.

It was a concern to the Athletic Department. I personally thought making sure we got enough money to make it happen was more important (and would require more advertising, which would increase the odds of Mr. Greene finding out). It would be cool to have a ribbon cutting or something at next year's Spring Game and that timeline may be more realistic at this point. Theoretically, if everything were in place to get started today, it would only take a couple months to create.

It would be nice if donations could be funneled through athletics so the donation can be tax deductible and cut out the processing fee associated with GoFundMe. At least, that was the reasoning. The original timeline was to unveil the idea at the Spring Scrimmage and start the public fundraising phase right then and there. That was the most disappointing busted timeline. But the hope was, at that point, that if we started fundraising that day, we would unveil the statue by Homecoming.

True...True...

I should clarify - while I initially played a large role in steering this project early on, when it was still fan-driven - this project was being spearheaded by the Athletic Department during the major phases of plan development. A lot of credit is due to them (and after my wife suffered under them for two years, it pains me to say that). Sadly, my only tie to the Athletic Department, and thus the pulse of this project's progress, has been severed. Also, lolz.

@GrandGreen, your post (and Harry's mention of it in the last podcast) prompted me to give a little update on this, for anyone who would be interested. Some of you may recall that some time ago, there was discussion of a fan-led effort to fund the construction of a Joe Greene statue near Apogee. At that time, I began reaching out to university staff and was put in contact with RV. RV, George Dunham and I met several times about the project which, evidently, had been in the works (at least as an idea on paper) for some time already. I learned a lot from these meetings about where exactly the red-tape is in trying to make a project like this happen. We met right before I left for a two week vacation out of country and on the day I returned I learned that he had announced that he was stepping down the day before. I tried to call for an update but couldn't get a hold of him, so i sent a text that he replied to a couple days later saying something along the lines of "UNT is in a better place now than it was when I got here and that makes me happy; I hope the future brings more good things for North Texas." However, he did not directly address what would come of the Joe Greene statue project. (A quick aside - working with RV was a largely pleasant experience. I've been brainwashed, I know. I was frustrated by some things that are epidemic in the Athletic Department including a forgotten meeting, communication miscues, and missed deadlines, but RV always did what he said he would do. Well...other than finish this project before he left. But who knows how much control he ended up having over his date of departure.) While we were working on this, it was a big concern to keep things under wrap so Mr. Greene did not learn of the project. As I no longer have any idea of what the plan will be moving forward (and if the project is picked up at all by a new staff, I doubt that I will be involved), I will return to freely sharing what little I know with y'all. If you are curious, this is where the project stood at the time of our last meeting: A sculptor (the guy who did the Shaq sculpture at LSU) had given us a quote and some mock-ups, estimating the cost to be somewhere between $80K-$120K, depending on a few remaining variables and fundraising results. Supposedly, Coca-Cola, the Steelers, and some large donors had already announced their intention to provide significant funding for the project. I personally never viewed any documentation to confirm this. The university has a campus artwork committee which, apparently, is usually in charge of selecting artists, choosing locations and stuff like that. They were upset that someone else was doing their job, I guess, and figuring out how to reconcile the situation was a big to-do. The artistic concept had a ~7' Joe Greene in bronze on a 12-24" pedestal and a 6' tall wall behind it that would wrap semi-circularly around the statue, approximately 10-12' long. This wall would be covered in pictures and engravings of historic UNT moments, including the likes of Abner Haynes and Leon King. We were preparing to move into the public fundraising period and had a few decisions left to make about how we would approach it and what precautions we might take to maximize the time it would take for Mr. Greene to learn about the project. I think that covers most of the key details that I thought y'all might be interested to know. If you're curious about anything else, feel free to message me. Again, who knows what will happen with this project now. Maybe a new AD will come in and knock this out of the park right away. It's low-hanging fruit, really. If, however, the plans have been lost by the time the new AD arrives or the position is filled from someone incompetent or uninterested in the project (potentially from within the department), maybe nothing will come of it. The most frustrating thing for me is recognizing that I probably won't know until A) it happens or B) it's two years from now and nothing has happened. So there you go! Do with that information what you will. Props if you made it to the end. EDIT: Also, we never came up with a really good name for this area. Georgie and RV liked "Greene Plaza" but I think that is bland as shiz and (like other areas of our campus like "the library mall") is about as inspired of a name as calling your golden retriever "Buddy". "Because his last name is Greene but we're also the Mean Green. Get it!?!" Yes, I get it.

Opponent's defense better beware of our "spread" offense.

A lot of new football players tweeting "Overcome adversity and deal with it! #MG2020" I dig it...but does anyone know what it's about?

Yeah, let's see... Littrell (OC from a pass-crazy team) + Graham Harrell (practically legendary QB) + Pearson OR Frank Wilson (RB coach from run-heavy team) + Schelfo (Jackson Jaguars coach, lolz) + Harris I think we'll end up with the better college quarterback. Hands down.

still time...

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's the only way. Which I'm sure A&M folks have done, but that ain't me. I ain't afraid to call on help, though.

School pride and bragging rights. And because it takes to seconds to click to vote. Moral victories don't work for me. I prefer to best people in their own game with the odds stacked against my team.

Go vote!!! Check out @Tex_Sports's Tweet: https://twitter.com/Tex_Sports/status/745746221176750085?s=09