Defining the UNT Fan Base

SilverEagle · November 20, 2014

When you think about a one-word definition for our fan base it's rather easy. The word is fickle.

First, we are marginally a FBS program anyway. My criteria for a big-time program is revenue of $25M+, a stadium of 30,000 or better, a head coach salary of at least $750K and attendance average equal to the number in the student body or at least 20,000 average. We squeak by on the first three but we want even reach the minimum on the latter after this week. We stand at 20,161 right now and we won't even have the pathetic SMU attendance this Saturday. The only time that we've matched the student body enrollment in attendace was the Heart of Dallas Bowl.

I don't even have the right to complain about Saturday. I have four tickets and I'm going to be the only one using one of the tickets.. But, we're fair-weather fans. If things are going well we'll show in moderate numbers. Last year we averaged a little more than 21,000; our best season average. We'll bitch and moan about our home schedule but who wants to schedule a home and home with us with our puny attendance. Our $800,000 to a million guarantee at least helps balance our budget.

We have shortcomings regarding recruiting, coaching, scheduling, donations, and other factors but it doesn't get any better if we fail to show up on gamedays or stay outside tailgating. No ones saying that we can't complain but continue support or we'll not be able to support even a G5 lifestyle. These next few years are critical to Conference USA and our program in particular. Make a committment and don't be wishy-washy about your support of North Texas football or it's pretty much guaranteed that it won't improve.

Believe it or not, It's always with great trepidation that I participate in threads like this. And adding on to Jack's post seems like a safe place to do it. "Fickle" is a pretty good or generous word to describe our student/alumni base. But "unsure", "ambivalent", "anxious", "frustrated" and "rudderless" might also apply. Social behavior all comes back to upbringing, or the lack thereof. When I see children and adults who are publicly rude and inappropriate my first thought is "where are/were their parents?"

I remember my grandfathers funeral up in Texarkana in the early 90's. We were on the way to the cemetery with the customary funeral procession going through the main part of town. Everyone that we passed on the street and in cars showed the appropriate respect as we drove by. But I was particularly struck by a group of ditch diggers working on a street/utility project. As we passed by, all of those dirty grubby ditch diggers stopped what they were doing, took off their grubby caps, faced us, and stood respectfully silent as we passed by. They may have been ditch diggers, but their parents taught them at least one lesson about respect and how to act in public.

We are who we are as fans because we were not taught (or consistently taught) the rules about school spirit, or the importance of school spirit. Not to mention the importance of supporting your fellow family member who is out there representing your school in a public forum. OR, we are who we are as fans because like a chaotic family system......there are no rules. Traditions (such as they are), symbols, logos, shades of school colors, etc come and go with just about every group of students that enter UNT. There is no consistency. And consistency starts from the top.

Edited November 20, 2014 by SilverEagle

oldguystudent · November 20, 2014

I am who I am as a fan because I wondered on to campus when I was 36 years old for absolutely no reason other than geographic proximity to where I lived. I took some classes, watched some of the shittiest football I've ever seen in my life, ate a whole bunch of generic macaroni and cheese, got told on numerous occasions that that gear I scrimped to purchase was the wrong color, wrong logo, wrong size, wrong, wrong wrong. Was humiliated, yelled at, and generally shown disdain for not doing anything the right way.

I held on to the coattails of a big donor who funded a great deal of my time at UNT, decided I was only going to attend when it was fun, and did so.

Three and a half years later I came into possession of this diploma looking thing and went back to work. I got off the coattails, started funding my own way, at my own level, at my own pace.

Today, I still have no freaking idea whatsoever what the words to the alma mater are, I have no freaking idea whatsoever why we're supposed to do the bendy elbow arm thing during it or how to do it, I'm not entirely sure how to make the talon hand gesture thing-a-ma-bob.

But my tickets are mine. I earned them. I will consume them in any matter I damn well please and I couldn't give one constipated squirrel dropping if it's within the realm of anybody else's "right way" or not.

My parents are both long gone and neither one of them ever heard of UNT. I guess I just wasn't raised right.

See you Saturday.

UNT90 · November 20, 2014

Doesn't it already exist? I recall I was the #1 person on the list of people NOT to invite to it.

Get over your self important self.

oldguystudent · November 20, 2014

Get over your self important self.

You gotta be a dedicated bastard to achieve #1 DO NOT INVITE status. I apply myself, son.

Ben Gooding · November 20, 2014

To The Tasty Greek:

You, sir, are an ass!

If you and others on this board did only half of what Kram does for our university, this university would reach heights never before imagined!

But no..........many of you on this board only want to bitch and moan!

Negative click away - I, for one, have had my fill of the Ben Goodings (and there are many more like you) that reside on this board.

Rhey Nolan
tylermeangreen

There are too many softies on this board.

TheTastyGreek · November 20, 2014

There are too many softies on this board.

I've been taking fiber supplements. No one can say I'm not doing my part to change things.

Coffee and TV · November 20, 2014

Doesn't it already exist? I recall I was the #1 person on the list of people NOT to invite to it.

4chan.org

Eagle1855 · November 20, 2014

I really prefer Mexican Coca-Cola to its American counterpart. Real cane sugar just tastes better.

oldguystudent · November 20, 2014

I really prefer Mexican Coca-Cola to its American counterpart. Real cane sugar just tastes better.

This is Dublin Dr. Pepper country! I think you best just turn tail and leave!

MeanGreenTexan · November 20, 2014

This is Dublin Dr. Pepper country! I think you best just turn tail and leave!

Nah. Mexican Coke (the kind you don't need a cartel to import) also applies here. Good stuff!

VideoEagle · November 20, 2014

This is Dublin Dr. Pepper country! I think you best just turn tail and leave!

Dublin Dr Pepper is just a memory, but you can get Mexican Coca Cola at any good taqueria.

Eagle1855 · November 20, 2014

Dublin Dr Pepper is just a memory, but you can get Mexican Coca Cola at any good taqueria.

I swore off Dr. Pepper the day Snapple shut down Dublin.

UNT90 · November 20, 2014

You gotta be a dedicated bastard to achieve #1 DO NOT INVITE status. I apply myself, son.

I feel ya. I received that status at a certain level one level above the club just last week.

Fly can confirm it for you. ;-)

Coffee and TV · November 20, 2014

I really prefer Mexican Coca-Cola to its American counterpart. Real cane sugar just tastes better.

I do too but it gives me a tummy ache :-(

untjim1995 · November 20, 2014

Ben Gooding, this is a perfect example of why I told you that you would join the ranks of the beaten down UNT alum as time goes on...we have almost no fanbase, yet the ones that we do have love that it is small and they can rub elbows with RV and the BOR. That circle of fans thinks that you or anyone else who complains is a terrible fan, that a real UNT fan should just enjoy playing Florida International at home in November in the rain in SBCUSA play for the right to finish 4-8 or 3-9. They think its just great that we got SMU scheduled for the next decade, that playing Texas Southern, NIcholls State, and Incarnate Word is just fine for OOC games at a brand new stadium. Basically, eveything this school does regarding funding, advertising, and hiring for the athletic department is literally 30 years behind the times. All of the improvements we have seen in the last five years should have been done in 1981, not 2011. Getting a home-and-home with SMU today is a tad different from getting a home-and-home with SMU in 1981. SO, that 's why we are where we are athletically speaking. 30 years ago, when we should've doing what we are doing now, we were apparently trying to kill the program. Today, knowing all that we know about the current landscape of college football, paying $78 million to build a stadium that frankly doesn't bring in any crowd or team that decrepit Fouts could've handled is eventually going to catch up to the administration and BOR. And it will glorious when it does--because the irony of them never funding athletics more than a few crumbs for decades to please the clear majority of people who are anti-athletics at the university will probably get someone fired for actually having to oversee Apogee being built on the backs of the student body who voted for it. And, speaking of 30 years ago, the NCAA forced us and others like us to choose between 1-aa or nothing at all in 1982. Again, how ironic, that 30+ years later, that same equivalent, the P5s splitting off, is upon us again. If we had done something right when we should have in 1982 to get things back in order, maybe, just maybe, we are not in this situation. Maybe we actually built a winner at the i-a level while the SWC fell apart from their cheating scandals. Maybe North Texas would've looked a bit more impressive to other conferences back then, as well as within the last decade. But it would've cost money--and that dear gmg.com posters--is the turd in the punchbowl to this place. We ain't paying a dime more than we have to as far as athletics goes--never have, never will. So when you hear windbag alums griping about who has the biggest package in their pants and how its a clownshow around here amongst you peasants, know that they have the BOR's ears and the AD's heart. And that's how a 37k enrollment school, with hundreds of thousands of alumni within an area that millions reside in, cannot draw more than 20k regualrly to its football games.

VideoEagle · November 20, 2014

Ben Gooding, t...

Don't hold back, tell us how you really feel!

UNT90 · November 20, 2014

Ben Gooding, this is a perfect example of why I told you that you would join the ranks of the beaten down UNT alum as time goes on...we have almost no fanbase, yet the ones that we do have love that it is small and they can rub elbows with RV and the BOR. That circle of fans thinks that you or anyone else who complains is a terrible fan, that a real UNT fan should just enjoy playing Florida International at home in November in the rain in SBCUSA play for the right to finish 4-8 or 3-9. They think its just great that we got SMU scheduled for the next decade, that playing Texas Southern, NIcholls State, and Incarnate Word is just fine for OOC games at a brand new stadium. Basically, eveything this school does regarding funding, advertising, and hiring for the athletic department is literally 30 years behind the times. All of the improvements we have seen in the last five years should have been done in 1981, not 2011. Getting a home-and-home with SMU today is a tad different from getting a home-and-home with SMU in 1981. SO, that 's why we are where we are athletically speaking. 30 years ago, when we should've doing what we are doing now, we were apparently trying to kill the program. Today, knowing all that we know about the current landscape of college football, paying $78 million to build a stadium that frankly doesn't bring in any crowd or team that decrepit Fouts could've handled is eventually going to catch up to the administration and BOR. And it will glorious when it does--because the irony of them never funding athletics more than a few crumbs for decades to please the clear majority of people who are anti-athletics at the university will probably get someone fired for actually having to oversee Apogee being built on the backs of the student body who voted for it. And, speaking of 30 years ago, the NCAA forced us and others like us to choose between 1-aa or nothing at all in 1982. Again, how ironic, that 30+ years later, that same equivalent, the P5s splitting off, is upon us again. If we had done something right when we should have in 1982 to get things back in order, maybe, just maybe, we are not in this situation. Maybe we actually built a winner at the i-a level while the SWC fell apart from their cheating scandals. Maybe North Texas would've looked a bit more impressive to other conferences back then, as well as within the last decade. But it would've cost money--and that dear gmg.com posters--is the turd in the punchbowl to this place. We ain't paying a dime more than we have to as far as athletics goes--never have, never will. So when you hear windbag alums griping about who has the biggest package in their pants and how its a clownshow around here amongst you peasants, know that they have the BOR's ears and the AD's heart. And that's how a 37k enrollment school, with hundreds of thousands of alumni within an area that millions reside in, cannot draw more than 20k regualrly to its football games.

So much truth in this post. Many people want their kingdom, no matter how small that kingdom may be.

Cerebus · November 20, 2014

Did that WALLOFTEXT cause your eyes to spontaneously bleed? Well try it now with the CLEANSING POWER OF PARAGRAPHS!

Ben Gooding, this is a perfect example of why I told you that you would join the ranks of the beaten down UNT alum as time goes on...

We have almost no fanbase, yet the ones that we do have love that it is small and they can rub elbows with RV and the BOR. That circle of fans thinks that you or anyone else who complains is a terrible fan, that a real UNT fan should just enjoy playing Florida International at home in November in the rain in SBCUSA play for the right to finish 4-8 or 3-9. They think its just great that we got SMU scheduled for the next decade, that playing Texas Southern, NIcholls State, and Incarnate Word is just fine for OOC games at a brand new stadium.

Basically, eveything this school does regarding funding, advertising, and hiring for the athletic department is literally 30 years behind the times. All of the improvements we have seen in the last five years should have been done in 1981, not 2011. Getting a home-and-home with SMU today is a tad different from getting a home-and-home with SMU in 1981. SO, that 's why we are where we are athletically speaking. 30 years ago, when we should've doing what we are doing now, we were apparently trying to kill the program.

Today, knowing all that we know about the current landscape of college football, paying $78 million to build a stadium that frankly doesn't bring in any crowd or team that decrepit Fouts could have handled is eventually going to catch up to the administration and BOR. And it will glorious when it does--because the irony of them never funding athletics more than a few crumbs for decades to please the clear majority of people who are anti-athletics at the university will probably get someone fired for actually having to oversee Apogee being built on the backs of the student body who voted for it. And, speaking of 30 years ago, the NCAA forced us and others like us to choose between 1-aa or nothing at all in 1982.

Again, how ironic, that 30+ years later, that same equivalent, the P5s splitting off, is upon us again. If we had done something right when we should have in 1982 to get things back in order, maybe, just maybe, we are not in this situation. Maybe we actually built a winner at the i-a level while the SWC fell apart from their cheating scandals. Maybe North Texas would've looked a bit more impressive to other conferences back then, as well as within the last decade. But it would've cost money--and that dear gmg.com posters--is the turd in the punchbowl to this place. We ain't paying a dime more than we have to as far as athletics goes--never have, never will.

So when you hear windbag alums griping about who has the biggest package in their pants and how its a clownshow around here amongst you peasants, know that they have the BOR's ears and the AD's heart. And that's how a 37k enrollment school, with hundreds of thousands of alumni within an area that millions reside in, cannot draw more than 20k regularly to its football games.

ForneyGreen · November 20, 2014

Did that WALLOFTEXT cause your eyes to spontaneously bleed? Well try it now with the CLEANSING POWER OF PARAGRAPHS!

You kids with your fancy shmancy paragraphs and punctuation! We older folk learned to appreciate the beauty of block text and run-on sentences

The Fake Lonnie Finch · November 20, 2014

Dear Fellow Mean Green Supporters,

Stop fighting and love each other...in a non-sexual way.

Love,

The Fake Lonnie Finch

P.S.: On Saturday, who among us can accurately guess the attendance on Saturday given the season's direction and threat of rain-like precipitation on Saturday,