Report: Coker out at UTSA

UNTFan23 · January 6, 2016

3 minutes ago, untjim1995 said:

Me, too.

I'm just saying that waaayyyy more people connected to UNT care about music than they do about football. Not on gmg.com, obviously. But we are overwhelmingly known for our Music programs, which attracts students from all over. Add in the students and alumni who follow Denton's music scene and it dwarfs our athletic support. Maybe it wouldn't have been that way if we treated football better in the decades previously, but we didn't. Its a liberal school and is well-known for music and arts, as well as being a teacher's college. Those aren't really well-known fans of football. And the faculty, administration, BOR, and citizens of Denton have shown forever that athletics, particularly football, will never be accepted as the major window to the university, supplanting music and arts. It won't happen.

If you need further evidence of this, see, Villareal, Rick being your AD for 15 years. Even if Smatresk wanted to fire him, which we don't know, those above him have made it clear that they won't let that happen. Would the College of Music's Dean be allowed to stay in his job for even 20% of that time if every metric available showed that the department was completely failing at its mission? There's no chance--that tells most people where the university's priorities lie. And I am not even saying that's wrong. Its just completely different from every single FBS university in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, and the other states we compete with in athletics.

I just don't see where you are getting the idea that there is more support for Music than Athletics. You can't go off of just attendance numbers for our sports. You really should try going to one of the many concerts that are put on almost nightly and let me know just how many people are in attendance for these events.

Edited January 6, 2016 by UNTFan23

Eagle-96 · January 6, 2016

14 minutes ago, UNTFan23 said:

The Murchison Performing Arts Center holds just over 1000 people, which means they would need to hold 13 concerts compared to just one football game. I've never stepped foot inside the building and I'll bet most of the people on this message board haven't either. About the only thing I might go see there is a Broadway type production but Bass Hall in Fort Worth holds more people, so a play of that level would be down there rather than up in Denton.

EDIT: Added the missing 'ING' because people don't what building I'm talking about.

Yeah, but tons of people on the Jazz message board have been there.

Harry · January 6, 2016

Keep in mind UTSA had 7 mid term signees which is a fair amount. That along with rats off a sinking ship makes me think that they may have known this was coming.

Cr1028 · January 6, 2016

42 minutes ago, untjim1995 said:

I will gladly stand on the reality that if you and I went around and asked UNT students, faculty, and the local citizenry if they would rather watch a UNT Football game at Apogee or to watch the Green Brigade perform, the number of people who would choose the Green Brigade would monumentally crush the number of people who want to watch UNT Football.

We are a top Music School in the country. We just finished as the worst football team in FBS this past year, which represented the 11th out of the last 12 as a loser.

There are Mean Green covered glasses and then there is reality...

Think about what you are saying here. You aren't saying they'd rather watch a Norah Jones/Don Henley/Eli Young Band or even One O'clock Lab Band concert over a NT football game. You are saying they would rather watch a marching band perform. Halftime is when the bulk of the stadium bolts for the restroom and concession stand. I went to school with a lot of people that didn't care about our football team but I assure you they cared about our marching band even less. Have you been to a marching band contest? The attendance is maybe a quarter, at most, of football game attendance. Maybe you should reconsider what you are saying. This is still Texas. I bet if you asked that same group of people if they'd rather watch Sanger play Argyle in football or watch the Green Brigade for 3 hours, they'd choose Sanger/Argyle at least 75% of the time.

greenjoe · January 6, 2016

OK...Here's a thought...I'm willing to bet that even on one of our worst attendance days, football (NT Football), draws more in attendance than all the music concerts and recitals combined for a school year.

GO MEAN GREEN

Stan R · January 6, 2016

5 hours ago, Ben Gooding said:

haha, I know what it is. I was just being a jackass. We need to move music and art buildings out onto Discovery Park. Better yet, Fair Park.

Ben Gooding · January 6, 2016

3 minutes ago, Stan R said:

haha +1

HoustonEagle · January 6, 2016

ahhhhhh North Texas, where we argue to no end about who is the shorter midget.

rcade · January 6, 2016

2 hours ago, greenjoe said:

OK...Here's a thought...I'm willing to bet that even on one of our worst attendance days, football (NT Football), draws more in attendance than all the music concerts and recitals combined for a school year.

You'd lose that bet. There are enough events that sell out at the Murchison and attract decent crowds at other venues to top one game's football attendance.

GrandGreen · January 7, 2016

NT is more known for bad football than a great music school. That is the power of athletics.

I am happy that NT has a great music school, I don't know why that is continually brought up as any kind of factor related to NT sports. If NT closed down their entire music department, it would not make NT any better at sports or help athletic attendance.

UNT90 · January 7, 2016

9 hours ago, UNTFan23 said:

I just don't see where you are getting the idea that there is more support for Music than Athletics. You can't go off of just attendance numbers for our sports. You really should try going to one of the many concerts that are put on almost nightly and let me know just how many people are in attendance for these events.

The fact that if our athletics were as good as our music program, we would be annually ranked in the top 25 in football and basketball.,

And if our music department suddenly was one of the worst in the nation, there would be immediate and swift consequences for the head of the music department.

Yet here we sit, 15 years in and as bad as we've ever been.

Brant Croucher, if your reading, feel free to use the above line as a song inspiration. But the song HAS to be about UNT athletics.

UTSA Fan · January 7, 2016

7 hours ago, Harry said:

Keep in mind UTSA had 7 mid term signees which is a fair amount. That along with rats off a sinking ship makes me think that they may have known this was coming.

Coker left due to health reasons. Reports show a figure twice his salary for the H.C. position. One thing to keep in mind, if you were an experienced coach being asked to take over a young program, you would want to quickly and easily build your staff, not inherit one. The table is set on the $ side and the staff building side. Watching unt restart and now utsa, this will be an interesting study in the RV vs LH saga.

Christopher Walker · January 7, 2016

12 hours ago, untjim1995 said:

...the faculty, administration, BOR, and citizens of Denton have shown forever that athletics, particularly football, will never be accepted as the major window to the university, supplanting music and arts. It won't happen.

If you need further evidence of this, see, Villareal, Rick being your AD for 15 years. Even if Smatresk wanted to fire him, which we don't know, those above him have made it clear that they won't let that happen. Would the College of Music's Dean be allowed to stay in his job for even 20% of that time if every metric available showed that the department was completely failing at its mission? There's no chance--that tells most people where the university's priorities lie. And I am not even saying that's wrong. Its just completely different from every single FBS university in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, and the other states we compete with in athletics.

I seemed to have opened a can of worms with @untjim1995, so let me now try to close it. What everyone arguing this whole music vs. football bit is truly wrong over is this line of thinking that it's an either/or decision for fans and alumni; like as if the football fans could never be the music/art fans and vice-versa. No! More often than not, I've found that the Venn Diagram of the two puts a majority of both camps converging. What tees you off is thinking that the loudest complainers of athletics funding represent the whole. They are minute in number. (see also: extremists in American political parties)

8 hours ago, greenjoe said:

OK...Here's a thought...I'm willing to bet that even on one of our worst attendance days, football (NT Football), draws more in attendance than all the music concerts and recitals combined for a school year.

For the 2014-2015 school year, 32,158 people enjoyed UNT concerts in person, and an additional 17,000 watched online live through the CoM Recording Services website, which is recognized as one of the best collegiate streaming service in the country. Those numbers don't include then the additional few thousand who also re-watched those concerts off the RecServ archive.

Try again.

2 hours ago, UNT90 said:

The fact that if our athletics were as good as our music program, we would be annually ranked in the top 25 in football and basketball.,

Probably true.

2 hours ago, UNT90 said:

And if our music department suddenly was one of the worst in the nation, there would be immediate and swift consequences for the head of the music department.

Again, probably true. The current search for a new Dean (Jim Scott retired last month) is probably going to say a lot about this.

2 hours ago, UNT90 said:

Yet here we sit, 15 years in and as bad as we've ever been.

That's more to do with the institution that is Rick Villarreal over anything else.

----

Once again, stop trying to grasp at straws in some disillusioned "we'll only ever be a music and or teacher school" argument, everyone.

eulessismore · January 7, 2016

13 hours ago, Ben Gooding said:

haha, I know what it is. I was just being a jackass. We need to move music and art buildings out onto Discovery Park. Better yet, Fair Park.

You periodically make minor yet boring variations on this most stupid of all UNT arguments. Kill the superachievers to encourage those who haven't achieved anything of note in the lifetime of its target audience? This is what gives socialism a bad name. Get this straight: UNT is known throughout the world for excellence in music; UNT is known throught the United States for its misery in athletics. Why are we not known worldwide for our misery in athletics? Because most people in the world only know football as a game played with a round ball by guys bouncing said ball off their heads.

Get back in touch when heads of government throughout the world request and pay for the presence of a UNT athletic program. Better yet, tell us, why did you choose to attend a school that is world famous for its artists, writers, and musicians?

Ben Gooding · January 7, 2016

8 hours ago, eulessismore said:

You periodically make minor yet boring variations on this most stupid of all UNT arguments. Kill the superachievers to encourage those who haven't achieved anything of note in the lifetime of its target audience? This is what gives socialism a bad name. Get this straight: UNT is known throughout the world for excellence in music; UNT is known throught the United States for its misery in athletics. Why are we not known worldwide for our misery in athletics? Because most people in the world only know football as a game played with a round ball by guys bouncing said ball off their heads.

Get back in touch when heads of government throughout the world request and pay for the presence of a UNT athletic program. Better yet, tell us, why did you choose to attend a school that is world famous for its artists, writers, and musicians?

Definitely better make it Fair Park.

Christopher Walker · January 7, 2016

12 minutes ago, Ben Gooding said:

Definitely better make it Fair Park.

UNT90 · January 7, 2016

11 hours ago, Christopher Walker said:

Once again, stop trying to grasp at straws in some disillusioned "we'll only ever be a music and or teacher school" argument, everyone.

Just to clarify, I completely agree that we can and should be both. But that would require the UNT administration committing to both.

They haven't.

Otherwise a 15 year AD that has UNT in the worst position W/L wise in revenue sports than UNT has ever been in those 15 years wouldn't still be employed (and the last 5 he has had very competitive facilities, so he can stop using that excuse, and yet we are in the worst position we have been in during RV's entire tenure).

I agree, Chrs, that it shouldn't have to be one or the other, but that unfortunately is the culture the UNT administration has developed.

Edited January 7, 2016 by UNT90

greenjoe · January 7, 2016

Thanks to Christopher Walker. OK...33,000 watched music events during the 2014-2015 school year. I loose my bet. But arguably, if you'll give me 2 home games at Apogee, football surpasses that total. I don't know how to count the number of people that watched NT football on television nor the number, like me, that watch a replay of previous games. At least the ones we win.

GO MEAN GREEN

MeanGreenTexan · January 7, 2016

8 minutes ago, greenjoe said:

Thanks to Christopher Walker. OK...33,000 watched music events during the 2014-2015 school year. I loose my bet. But arguably, if you'll give me 2 home games at Apogee, football surpasses that total. I don't know how to count the number of people that watched NT football on television nor the number, like me, that watch a replay of previous games. At least the ones we win.

GO MEAN GREEN

Depends on which 2 you choose to use.

Chris Drybread · January 7, 2016

On January 5, 2016 at 0:18 PM, Eagle-96 said:

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Lmao " the live ones smell worse than the dead ones" I love tremors !

2 hours ago, Ben Gooding said:

Definitely better make it Fair Park.

When Unt opened it was called NorthTexas normal collage meaning a school for teachers which event though they broadened Ther horizons Unt is still a fine teaching school as well as a school of music . That said sports at the meangreen nation is historically monumentaly horrendous only cause the board of regents has always been a collection of nerds who don't give half a hoot about sports . The amazing Litrell hire is unpresidented us. # glorytothegreen

Arkstfan · January 7, 2016

Don't know how things are in Texas but in Arkansas if you are a music major hoping to get employment teaching you at bare minimum need marching band experience and odds are stacked against you getting one of those few teaching spots unless you served as drum major. My son's ex-girlfriend was a drum major at AState and when she changed her major from music she was told she could play but would have to come down from the step ladder because the music majors needed the spot for employment.

Dropping football? It's going to happen somewhere. It will be someone taking 75% or so of their budget from student fees and university transfers who has declining enrollment.

Mean Green 93-98 · January 7, 2016

43 minutes ago, Arkstfan said:

Don't know how things are in Texas but in Arkansas if you are a music major hoping to get employment teaching you at bare minimum need marching band experience and odds are stacked against you getting one of those few teaching spots unless you served as drum major. My son's ex-girlfriend was a drum major at AState and when she changed her major from music she was told she could play but would have to come down from the step ladder because the music majors needed the spot for employment.

Things may have changed since I graduated, but at that time no UNT music ed graduate had any problem whatsoever finding employment in the field.

Chris Drybread · January 7, 2016

33 minutes ago, Mean Green 93-98 said:

Things may have changed since I graduated, but at that time no UNT music ed graduate had any problem whatsoever finding employment in the field.

Going back to the topic of this thread I saw in 30 for 30 U pArt 2 and Larry Coker inherited butch Davis's team that was freakishly amazing and won his title like Barry Switzer won with Jimmy's Cowboy's team. When that team graduated the it went to hell and Coker was fired . He was a babysitter chosen by the players so they could finish the legacy and championship chase started by Butch Davis since was an hold over and the players and Coker knew each other He was at best a motivator or a team builder.

UTSA Fan · January 7, 2016

1 hour ago, Chris Drybread said:

Going back to the topic of this thread I saw in 30 for 30 U pArt 2 and Larry Coker inherited butch Davis's team that was freakishly amazing and won his title like Barry Switzer won with Jimmy's Cowboy's team. When that team graduated the it went to hell and Coker was fired . He was a babysitter chosen by the players so they could finish the legacy and championship chase started by Butch Davis since was an hold over and the players and Coker knew each other He was at best a motivator or a team builder.

Because his 6 years as an O.C. and Q.B. Coach with recruiting and player development didn't count in Miami? That position doesn't even make sense. Of course the players wanted to keep the O.C. and scheme, it worked. Eli Manning said the same thing about learning a new system this week.