letsgiveacheer

At first glance, I could have sworn that was Vic Trilli.

Certainly Fred Cobb, the only North Texas coach to bring home national championships (four of them!) would need to be at the top of the list. It's also nice to see mention of Odus Mitchel who won three MVC championships and was runner-up three more times. In fact, the MVC named him their Coach of the Decade for the 60's.

Yes, most of the eastern universities do have Board of Visitors. I would guess this is a hold-over from the very early colleges like Harvard and William & Mary who were granted charters by the King. Perhaps a historian on this board can clarify.

Wow...what a finish. Congratulations!!

up by two

What an interesting thread! As the director of an opera company in New York City, I am not surprised that she was embarrassed by the alma mater. How old was she when she wrote this? 18 ? I am embarrassed by my early compositions (and some recent ones, as well!). Heaven forbid that they would be played 100's of times a year. Most writers, painters, composers, architects etc all wish things they created would go away. Many famous composers burn their works! While not having the pleasure of meeting Julia Smith, I understand she was indeed proud of North Texas. She married into "money" and is best known for her works on Aaron Copland. She was well-known enough to get a small obit in the NY Times. While on the subject of our alma mater, it was originally a much longer work. We now only sing the refrain. Regarding Morris Martin, I recall him as a fine man who has done quite a bit to build a world-class music library. As anyone knows who has been interviewed, sometime you make an "off the cuff" remark and then are very surprised and embarrassed to see it in print.

What a gentleman he was. RIP.

He has done fine things at Duke...bringing back excitement and even winning some ACC games! Most of the ACC schools have high academic standards with the obvious exceptions of the "student-athletes". Duke, to their credit, has maintained some reasonable academic standards for their athletes. To do as well as they did in the past few years says quite a bit for their coaching staff. BTW, their stadium is not unlike Fouts.

I've read this post with interest and readily acknowledge that there will not be a return to the great UNT marching band days of yore, no matter how much we "old timers" wish. Silver Eagle opened the thread with a wish to return to the traditions of the McAdow marching bands of the 40's through mid seventies. In those days, if you wanted to play in the top concert band, you had to march. In fact, the concert band (which was the top band) did not begin until the spring semester. You had future professional musicians marching alongside future band directors, there were no prima-donnas. The band learned a new show for each game. If we played six home games, the crowd was treated to six different shows, even back to back home games. There were no computer generated plots. It was all done with mimeographed hand-drawn charts! Over those thirty years, McAdow established a great number of traditions (besides instituting Scrappy!). These were: -A distinctive fanfare to open the pregame -Playing the other school's fight song at pregame while facing the visitor's stands -Marching into a clever NT formation to play the alma mater just before our National Anthem -If a visiting school brought their band, he would often invite their director to lead the National Anthem -The AFROTC squadron presented the colors -Each half time show would be based on a theme and the band would move through a series of formations. You may see an eagle flapping their wings, a movable typewriter, etc, etc. The crowd loved it! -In the stands, we played at least 20 different tunes a game during appropriate times. -Of course, we played the original fight song and it is a travesty that the arrangement was changed. Only at North Texas! As far as as I can tell, the traditions we now have are: -Pre Game March -Playing "Fly like an Eagle" as many times as possible -Alma mater after the game while holding our fingers in a talon. (Just like our friends in Austin -except they do the horns. So maybe that counts as another school's tradition borrowed by us.) Corps style marching is not to my taste. Most of The Big Ten bands resisted the trend and still march in an 8 to 5 style. And yes, you can play while marching like this. Corps style music is also not to my taste. A quick quiz, can anyone remember any song that was played by the Green Brigade this season (other than Fly Like an Eagle)? An earlier poster spoke of the need to march in a corps style as we trained many future band directors. Well, forget North Texas for a moment as our music educators are throwing away our band heritage. When was the last time our band played a Sousa march? Karl King anyone? Fillmore? Instead, our marching bands are playing music that is forgotten just as soon as the next show is learned. We will regret this one day. I know old farts like me always wish for a return of the old days, but it is a pity that we threw away great traditions and joined almost every other college and high school band in this communist corps marching style. Kudos to all those university bands that had the courage to maintain their traditions..like the Big Ten, historically black colleges, military schools like A & M and Va Tech, and others. PS. If you run into Silver Eagle, ask him to play the old marching band recording. I think you would be surprised!

Yes...it was a great game and finish. To imagine Idaho was once the doormat of the Big West! Look at them now.

I hope there is a good turn-out from the many soldiers stationed in Texas. Are are any large installations near Denton? I can't recall. Maybe times have changed, but when I was on active duty in the Air Force, no one much talked about AFA football other than their grads themselves. Besides, we all resented the mandatory deduction taken from every officer's pay to support AFA athletics (that has longed stopped). BeatNavy..I do recall one thing about those AFA Army games...you guys were always pushovers!! Joking aside, we are proud of you and your fellow cadets and wish you well in your career.

Interesting fact that the Army coach makes more...a lot more, than the ranking four star leading the troops on the ground. Says something about our priorities. For that matter Todd Dodge makes about double what a four star makes.

Assuming the new stadium is ready for the 2011 season, I would regretfully say Dodge gets another year. Then an untested new guy is brought in to build excitement and christen the new stadium.

Former SBC member Old Dominion in Norfolk is 8-2 playing a D-1aa schedule in their first year of football since 1940 or something. Playing to packed houses as well!

Ahem. We have become UNY...the University of Next Year.

I have no idea if this will work or not, so here goes! Hopefully, here are several photos scanned from a promotional vinyl record-in green, no less- that was made by the North Texas marching band in the 60's. he record contains the fight song (original version, of course), alma mater, some circus gallops, and the traditional pre-game fanfare. The band was much smaller then, about 120 students and if you wanted to play in the top concert band, you had to march. A new show was presented each game, even back to backs. The NTS formation was used to play Glory to the Green at pregame, just before the national anthem. Often, we would play the fight song of the visiting team just before this. If the visiting team brought their band, Mr. McAdow would usually invite the other director to conduct the national anthem. The star was typical of the formations made by the band at half time. Each show had a theme and one week could find the band as a giant eagle with flapping wings, a showboat that sailed down the field, or a typewriter with movable carriage and keys. http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2645/398182...144b85c24_o.jpg http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2439/398259...4ab29664d_o.jpg

I did not want to hijack the other thread, but playing the Alma Mater AFTER the game is a HS tradition that has carried over to many colleges, including ours. Why ask people to stand and sing when they are trying to leave or go onto the field? Makes no sense. The proper and logical time to play the Alma Mater is at the beginning of the game just prior to the National Anthem. People are in place, standing and ready to start the game. Speaking about the band, while listening on the Internet last night, I heard them play exactly four tunes: the fight song, a fanfare when we got a first down, "Fly Like an Eagle", and a very common ditty based on major thirds. Maybe other pieces were played while the radio was in commercial break, but even still, that seems like a pretty limited repertoire to me. Sort of like the early Dickey era when we only had one play...run the ball!

Socialized athletics!! What next, socialized education???? Medicine will be soon to follow if we don't watch it.

This is good!! I was a student at North Texas when the Super Pit was built. The campus talk all evolved around how this was going to lift our BB program to the next levels, bring increased recognition to North Texas, fill the seats, etc, etc. Most of the same augments for the new football stadium were used 35 years ago for the Super Pit. Thirty-five years from now, will we be complaining that the new stadium is ugly? If you think it is ugly now, you should have seen it when it was built. Instead of green upholstery, all the seats were burnt orange! The exterior was designed in the "brutalist" style of architecture which was in vogue at the time. There is another classroom building on campus built in the same style. I don't know what they call that building now but it has no windows and is near the museum.

Hargrave is just up the road from me. It is a high school level military academy with one year of PG basically for athletes to get their grades up to play ball for a D1 school. It's not a junior college or anything like that. The service academies also have a PG feeder system.

Well, the CAA is a fine I-AA conference. Richmond beat Duke. My late father graduated from W and M and my niece is a junior at UVa so my loyalties were split on this one. Future CAA football member,Old Dominion, from my hometown of Norfolk, played football today (and won) for the first time since 1940. I understand their 20K stadium is sold out for the season.

This is not the same North Texas I knew!! Well done.

It was more than that, especially in the first half but then it seemed to stop. It seems most people still remember us as North Texas State.

This is not the same team I saw last year. Well done!