Nothing Better To Do

DeepGreen · April 13, 2016

Retired and with nothing better to do, I attended a breakfast and listened to the guest speaker Scott Woodard, the new athletic director of ATM. Besides being a pretty good speaker, especially if you're an aggie, this guy is really impressive. Briefly, he was at LSU, then Univ of Washington, and now atm. Listening to him vs RV is like night and day!

The reason for me adding this thread, Woodard announced atm would be building a new softball complex/stadium to the tune of..............$39 million dollars! And another $39 million for a new track and field complex. I can only guess how much money these types of programs receive from their conferences and from donors. $39 million for a freakin' softball stadium!!!!

But hey, UNT has RV and the UNT 17!!!!!

Edited April 13, 2016 by DeepGreen

UNT90 · April 13, 2016

1 minute ago, DeepGreen said:

Retired and with other better to do, I attended a breakfast and listened to the guest speaker Scott Woodard of ATM. Besides being a pretty good speaker, especially if you're an aggie, this guy is really impressive. Briefly, he was at LSU, then Univ of Washington, and not atm. Listening to him vs RV is like night and day!

The reason for me adding this thread, Woodard announced atm would be building a new softball complex/stadium to the tune of..............$39 million dollars! And another $39 million for a new track and field complex. I can only guess how much money these types of programs receive from their conferences and from donors. $39 million for a freakin' softball stadium!!!!

But hey, UNT has RV and the UNT 17!!!!!

I'd love to see what UNT could do with a professional, aggressive, early 40s athletic director. Instead, UNT has a guy protecting his kingdom from the fans of the very program he serves.

Only at North Texas.

Cr1028 · April 13, 2016

17 minutes ago, DeepGreen said:

Retired and with nothing better to do, I attended a breakfast and listened to the guest speaker Scott Woodard, the new athletic director of ATM. Besides being a pretty good speaker, especially if you're an aggie, this guy is really impressive. Briefly, he was at LSU, then Univ of Washington, and now atm. Listening to him vs RV is like night and day!

The reason for me adding this thread, Woodard announced atm would be building a new softball complex/stadium to the tune of..............$39 million dollars! And another $39 million for a new track and field complex. I can only guess how much money these types of programs receive from their conferences and from donors. $39 million for a freakin' softball stadium!!!!

But hey, UNT has RV and the UNT 17!!!!!

I get your point and we should get someone more qualified and hungry. We agree on this. Having said that. The TAMU athletic department and the UNT/NTSU athletic department are different animals and always have been.

School--------------------------Conference-------------------Total Revenue----------------Total Expenses-----------------Total Subsidy----------------% Subsidy

Texas A&M

SEC

$119,475,872

$95,663,483

$1,241,457

1.04

North Texas

C-USA

$31,617,094

$31,182,673

$19,784,033

62.57

Edited April 13, 2016 by Cr1028

untjim1995 · April 13, 2016

7 minutes ago, DeepGreen said:

Retired and with other better to do, I attended a breakfast and listened to the guest speaker Scott Woodard of ATM. Besides being a pretty good speaker, especially if you're an aggie, this guy is really impressive. Briefly, he was at LSU, then Univ of Washington, and not atm. Listening to him vs RV is like night and day!

The reason for me adding this thread, Woodard announced atm would be building a new softball complex/stadium to the tune of..............$39 million dollars! And another $39 million for a new track and field complex. I can only guess how much money these types of programs receive from their conferences and from donors. $39 million for a freakin' softball stadium!!!!

But hey, UNT has RV and the UNT 17!!!!!

This is where the Aggies love (delusion) for their school comes into play. I've said forever that being an AD at Texas A&M has to be the easiest AD job at a Power conference school. They don't care about winning nearly as much as they do about their university. Sure, if they have losing seasons, they will get rid of their coach, but that is because they have the funds and fans to do it. Otherwise, an AD can ask for anything to cover costs for athletic facilities or buyouts and it will be done within a week or two.

Aggies are ingrained to love their school, from their alumni, their students, their faculty, and their administration. They make the 12th Man a huge deal. I'm not sure that there are any other places quite like A&M, in that regard. It certainly isn't from being front-runners, since they haven't won a national championship since 1939 or a conference championship since 1998.

3 minutes ago, Cr1028 said:

I get your point and we should get someone more qualified and hungry. We agree on this. Having said that. The TAMU athletic department and the UNT/NTSU athletic department are different animals and always have been.

School--------------------------Conference-------------------Total Revenue----------------Total Expenses-----------------Total Subsidy----------------% Subsidy

Texas A&M SEC $119,475,872 $95,663,483 $1,241,457 1.04
North Texas C-USA $31,617,094 $31,182,673 $19,784,033 62.57

Our goal should be to try and be like UH, but that doesn't appear to be feasible at this point.

DeepGreen · April 13, 2016

The point of my post was that atm is spending $78 on softball and track stadiums. We're talking $39 on a softball stadium! The $78 mil is basically what Apogee cost. And BTW, Apogee is a fine stadium, IMHO.

Edited April 13, 2016 by DeepGreen

Cr1028 · April 13, 2016

10 minutes ago, untjim1995 said:

This is where the Aggies love (delusion) for their school comes into play. I've said forever that being an AD at Texas A&M has to be the easiest AD job at a Power conference school. They don't care about winning nearly as much as they do about their university. Sure, if they have losing seasons, they will get rid of their coach, but that is because they have the funds and fans to do it. Otherwise, an AD can ask for anything to cover costs for athletic facilities or buyouts and it will be done within a week or two.

Aggies are ingrained to love their school, from their alumni, their students, their faculty, and their administration. They make the 12th Man a huge deal. I'm not sure that there are any other places quite like A&M, in that regard. It certainly isn't from being front-runners, since they haven't won a national championship since 1939 or a conference championship since 1998.

I agree on the fundraising side but on the hiring side I think their athletic directors would be more accountable to their hires than ours because they can afford to go out and hire away a conference rival's DC for a $1.5M salary which is more than our entire assistant salary pool. They have the money to go out and get anyone on the market so they have very few excuses when those hires do not work out.

Cr1028 · April 13, 2016

32 minutes ago, untjim1995 said:

Our goal should be to try and be like UH, but that doesn't appear to be feasible at this point.

I'd be happy with that.

4 minutes ago, DeepGreen said:

The point of my post was that atm is spending $78 on softball and track stadiums. We're talking $39 on a softball stadium! The $78 mil is basically what Apogee cost. And BTW, Apogee is a fine stadium, IMHO.

Let's remember that the $78M price we paid was a steal because of the state of the economy at the time. The true value of Apogee is likely much higher. Tulane's new stadium cost $75M and it isn't even in the same class with Apogee. The new UH stadium cost $128M and with the exception of having more seating, isn't as nice as Apogee.