DRC: Apogee five years later Part II (Fans reflect on seat investments 5 years later)

MeanGreenMailbox aka TFLF · July 19, 2016

15 hours ago, Aquila_Viridis said:

To anyone who thought the stadium would 'vault the program forward', I take this fine opportunity to say 'I told you so.' What we needed much more was a major level up in coaching. Failure to direct the necessary funds to that is why there is no one in whatever stadium the Mean Green plays in.

We needed both.

39 minutes ago, Army of Dad said:

If Harry was just chasing clicks they wouldn't have banned political speech in an election year...

If my PMs are correct, he's still trying to "fix the glitch" that other moderators put in place to end TFLF; so, he's got a lot on his plate. Good man.

UNT90 · July 19, 2016

52 minutes ago, Cerebus said:

I think that is the difference between two types of fan.

Some people can come up to Apogee, drink with their friends in the parking lot, maybe rub elbows with the VVIP's, get some cotton candy during the game, talk to the people around their seats, wish we won, but not be miserable if we lose.

That is not how some of us are wired. I don't care if I meet my long lost twin brother at the tailgate, get a backrub from Pres Smatty while eating pre-game prime rib, sit next to Elvis, and then have the hottest girl on the dance team send me her snapchat address. If we then lose I am going to be miserable.

Yes, I do feel good about donating to athlete scholarships, but I do that for other colleges at the University as well. The football games are to win or lose. If we lose, there is nothing to be happy about. Win. That is what I want to go see, winning.

I am not saying my way is superior. I probably would enjoy things a lot more if I could not care about winning. But that isn't going to change, I hated losing when I played T-Ball, and it's never changed.

You just have to realize that some people are NEVER going to be able to enjoy anything related to NT football if we consistently get our asses handed to us on the field, which has been more or less the rule for the last ten years, with one season of teasing exception. Like I said about coach Mac, SL could walk onto the field at half time, point directly at me and call me a blithering idiot over the PA, and I would be just fine with it if he got us a bowl bid 3 out of 4 years. If he could get us to a CFB playoff game he could even insult my mother, she hates losing too.

So much this.

Except I am not ok with people who are fine with a status quo that accepts losing.

Can't do it. Won't do it.

greenjoe · July 19, 2016

My wife doesn't understand me.

We have, as far as I'm concerned, the best seats at Apogee. I like the people we sit with and I like that we've made new friends as a result of our game day experience. I have a good parking pass that helps me get up close when I arrive and keeps me in the parking lot too long when the game is over. I like the meal in the Club Level. Every time. My wife likes to get a glass of wine and watch me pout over bad plays. But, if we lose, I have had a bad day. I try to minimize that, but if we lose, I'm unhappy. Not with my wife or the fans or the stadium or the weather but I'm unhappy. I go to the games, much as I like my seats and my friends and the food and my pretty good parking pass, to win. Period. That is all that matters to me. If we lose, I'll still be there next week or next year, but I only come to win.

GO MEAN GREEN

Cerebus · July 19, 2016

3 hours ago, MeanGreen_MBA said:

I am on the Dean's Advisory Board for the College of Business,

First, CoB does a much better job than Athletics has on communicating goals, assessing success or failure, communicating those results to donors, and taking action to fix under performance. I always feel my donations are well shepherded and used for clear, communicable goals. Athletics could learn a lot from the way things are done in CoB.

Maybe if they had done those things better you wouldn't see the huge backlash RV faced when he made mistakes. I know that no one in CoB ever announced quarterly meetings and then never held them again in 15 years, and more to the point I know the leadership at CoB would never stand for it.

Second, you are mixing off the field and on the field success. Am I glad to give to help student athlete scholarships? Yes. I am glad to see student athletes succeed later in life? Of course. However the on the field success is where you hold the full time staff members who are paid to produce results. RV wasn't a non paid fellow alumn who is working his tail off to succeed in the classroom and on the field. He was a full grown man who we paid $300k/yr to produce results. Winning is one of those results, failure to bring those wins is why so many fans wanted him gone.

If a full time, salaried worker is under performing in any aspects of the AD, I want leadership that will correct their mistakes, and replace them if needed. I do not want someone who builds a culture of making excuses and not listening to the paying customers. I am not going to continue to help (in my own little way) underwrite the salaries of these professionals if they can not provide results, and more importantly if University leadership does not hold them accountable. I'll continue to make a MGC donation but the rest of the money... well other units on campus have done a better job reassuring me that it is well spent there.

Is UNT90 abrasive when he keeps demanding wins? He can be. However he is speaking for a lot of people who want to win. Is Apogee a really nice place to watch a game? Yes it is, but I was happier watching us win in Fouts. Is the club level a really nice place with top amenities? Sure, but I would match rather watch us win while using the trough urinals at Fouts. I would rather sit in those metal bleachers 60 yards away from the field and watch us win a conference championship than sit in the president's suite and watch a 1AA school flatten us.

Winning is what matters on the field. None of the game day amenities make up for losing. I don't care what a great time I had with people before kickoff, the entire day is terrible if we lose.

UNT90 · July 19, 2016

^^^

TreeFiddy · July 19, 2016

All this talk about win win win.

Yet we scream and pout if the BB coach stretches the rules with GA's, and we condemn players for relatively minor infractions when compared to the rape/murder/assault that goes on at other programs. And we don't want our boosters doing unethical things to get ahead. And we don't want our football coach recruiting questionable athletes that are superior to what we can get through normal recruiting.

Yet, these same activities occur again and again and again at the programs we want to hold up as proof of other programs winning.

Which is it going to be? You can't have it both ways. Are we really ready to go all in to win at all costs? Many are. I am ok with that mindset because, as has been shown, we would not be breaking new ground when compared to other programs.

But don't come in waving a righteous finger later.

Mean Green 93-98 · July 19, 2016

13 hours ago, Mike Jackson said:

That is fine point until you deal with the reality that ticket buyers who is not reasonably invested into success of the program aren't sitting in their seats for even 5 of the 6 homes game we get a year. So that 14,000 is inflated. Even if we averaged 18,000 to 20,000 paid for tickets a game and had less than 10,000 in actual attendance that would still be a huge problem. You don't change the perception of a program with a balance sheet. Don't agree? What if Seth get it really going and we get a Holiday Bowl bid (I know conference bowl agreements make this an impossibility now but bare with me) If we could guarantee that UNT fans would sellout our allotment "Holiday Bowl" tickets but only half or less of our fans would actually show up the Holiday Bowl organizers would incompetent if they weren't looking for a replacement for us. You don't impress recruits, students, or anyone with a good team in a half empty stadium no matter how many tickets you sold. So yes the Graham Harrell fan club is welcome but if you think they are show up at a game in November that is damp, windy with temperatures in the 40s you are dreaming. They will find other things to do cause it doesn't mean much to them.

NOTE: I count ACTUAL attendance as being in the stadium from the midpoint of the first quarter to at least 2 minutes into the 4th quarter of a game that is in doubt. I have been attending games since Darrell Dickey days and in my experience our ACTUAL attendance figure I estimate is right at 10,000. And If is an average bad season it is lower than 10,000.

I'm not sure if you're trying to disagree with me, or just making a remotely related point. Because I don't really disagree with anything I say and in your post you really don't disagree with anything I say. My point is that (1) we don't have enough fans, and (2) we need more fans--fans buying tickets, fans in seats, fans donating money, fans wearing UNT T-shirts wherever they live--and I don't care where they come from.

Edited July 19, 2016 by Mean Green 93-98

Cerebus · July 19, 2016

Just now, TreeFiddy said:

But don't come in waving a righteous finger later.

I want us to be a top competitive G5 program. There isn't a single school in the nation that runs a completely clean program. For the simple reason that we are dealing with college age young adults. You can expect the athletes to behave as well as the general student population, you can't expect them to be perfect angels that behave better than the general students. College age young adults are gonna make some stupid decisions.

What you can't have is full grown adults trying to cover up things, like what happened at Baylor. The full grown adults who support the program better keep their nose clean as well, unless you want a SMU situation.

There is no reason to think we can't run a program that wins consistently at the G5 level and where the student athletes behave as well as the general student population. Will I panic if some student athlete gets busted with a little pot or steals a turkey from Walmart? No more than I would if any other student did. What would cause me great concern is if the adults running the program looked the other way or created a culture where such behavior was acceptable. It would concern me greatly if there was a general culture of paying athletes under the table was acceptable. You can't control every bad apple but good leadership controls the overall culture.

Wag Tag · July 19, 2016

3 hours ago, Cerebus said:

I think that is the difference between two types of fan.

Some people can come up to Apogee, drink with their friends in the parking lot, maybe rub elbows with the VVIP's, get some cotton candy during the game, talk to the people around their seats, wish we won, but not be miserable if we lose.

That is not how some of us are wired. I don't care if I meet my long lost twin brother at the tailgate, get a backrub from Pres Smatty while eating pre-game prime rib, sit next to Elvis, and then have the hottest girl on the dance team send me her snapchat address. If we then lose I am going to be miserable.

Yes, I do feel good about donating to athlete scholarships, but I do that for other colleges at the University as well. The football games are to win or lose. If we lose, there is nothing to be happy about. Win. That is what I want to go see, winning.

I am not saying my way is superior. I probably would enjoy things a lot more if I could not care about winning. But that isn't going to change, I hated losing when I played T-Ball, and it's never changed.

You just have to realize that some people are NEVER going to be able to enjoy anything related to NT football if we consistently get our asses handed to us on the field, which has been more or less the rule for the last ten years, with one season of teasing exception. Like I said about coach Mac, SL could walk onto the field at half time, point directly at me and call me a blithering idiot over the PA, and I would be just fine with it if he got us a bowl bid 3 out of 4 years. If he could get us to a CFB playoff game he could even insult my mother, she hates losing too.

I would bet most of us on this blog have played some kind of competitive sport in high school or at sometime and we know the sacrifice it took. I can't even imagine the sacrifice it takes at the college level. I really enjoy seeing youth strive for a common goal. I love seeing overachievers succeed and hate seeing underachievers (HATE, HATE) This is what I feel sums up UNT on athletics an underachiever. Potential potential ,potential means you have not done squat! It is not just the on the field success, but what else can be done to make games more enjoyable and fan friendly. It is an EVENT! I get PO when we are not even competitive. How great was the first half of the Georgia game! I expect us to surpass our potential and be competitive in every sport. I will also do all I can to help that happen! GMG

HoustonEagle · July 19, 2016

This notion that there are those among us that are perfectly content with losing is ridiculous. I don't ever see fans high-fiving after losses. Everyone looks much like I feel. It ruins my day. It ruins my weekend (sadly). It certainly ruins my 5 hour drive back home. I hope and pray that the next AD turns it around. I have already told those in the AD that I don't have many more years of the losing left in my tank. I am sure many others have done the same.

Edited July 19, 2016 by HoustonEagle

Army of Dad · July 19, 2016

36 minutes ago, TreeFiddy said:

All this talk about win win win.

Yet we scream and pout if the BB coach stretches the rules with GA's, and we condemn players for relatively minor infractions when compared to the rape/murder/assault that goes on at other programs. And we don't want our boosters doing unethical things to get ahead. And we don't want our football coach recruiting questionable athletes that are superior to what we can get through normal recruiting.

Yet, these same activities occur again and again and again at the programs we want to hold up as proof of other programs winning.

Which is it going to be? You can't have it both ways. Are we really ready to go all in to win at all costs? Many are. I am ok with that mindset because, as has been shown, we would not be breaking new ground when compared to other programs.

But don't come in waving a righteous finger later.

Maybe I'm just a hopeless idealist, but I tend to think you can have a clean winning program.

TreeFiddy · July 19, 2016

11 minutes ago, Army of Dad said:

Maybe I'm just a hopeless idealist, but I tend to think you can have a clean winning program.

I think history has proven that many of those programs we were led to believe were clean and doing it the right way were in fact no better than the ones that got caught years earlier. Continually winning at anything, including college sports, is a dirty business.

redallover · July 19, 2016

Y'all are crazy for jumping on a large donor because he likes to meet the AD and Coach and supports his wife's alma mater. My school would like more people willing to pay over $2K per seat per year, especially in a stadium with lots of empty seats. To optimize revenue, you have to give some access. You don't think Charlie Strong goes to alumni functions and gets his picture taken with tons of fans and signs stuff? What about practice access for the really well heeled? GMG!

UNT90 · July 19, 2016

56 minutes ago, redallover said:

Y'all are crazy for jumping on a large donor because he likes to meet the AD and Coach and supports his wife's alma mater. My school would like more people willing to pay over $2K per seat per year, especially in a stadium with lots of empty seats. To optimize revenue, you have to give some access. You don't think Charlie Strong goes to alumni functions and gets his picture taken with tons of fans and signs stuff? What about practice access for the really well heeled? GMG!

No offense, but you have zero knowledge of the problems at UNT.

3 hours ago, TreeFiddy said:

I think history has proven that many of those programs we were led to believe were clean and doing it the right way were in fact no better than the ones that got caught years earlier. Continually winning at anything, including college sports, is a dirty business.

Not true.

There are so many rules that, yes, minor ones may be violated, but there are numerous examples of G5 and P5 programs that have basically done it right with a winning program. Houston and Boise St come immediately to mind and are apt comparisons.

Edited July 19, 2016 by UNT90

Mike Jackson · July 20, 2016

On July 19, 2016 at 0:18 PM, greenjoe said:

My wife doesn't understand me.

We have, as far as I'm concerned, the best seats at Apogee. I like the people we sit with and I like that we've made new friends as a result of our game day experience. I have a good parking pass that helps me get up close when I arrive and keeps me in the parking lot too long when the game is over. I like the meal in the Club Level. Every time. My wife likes to get a glass of wine and watch me pout over bad plays. But, if we lose, I have had a bad day. I try to minimize that, but if we lose, I'm unhappy. Not with my wife or the fans or the stadium or the weather but I'm unhappy. I go to the games, much as I like my seats and my friends and the food and my pretty good parking pass, to win. Period. That is all that matters to me. If we lose, I'll still be there next week or next year, but I only come to win.

GO MEAN GREEN

And it not just losing, it is not being competitive. If go to a conference game and we are in the game until the late in the 4th quarter I am NOT happy but I don't feel ripped off. I want to stay for the playing of our alma mater. But when your team looks like it was an amateur team playing a pro team you don't feel like it. It is impossible and unreasonable to expect to even every home game. We should have the expectation as fans and alumni of the team that a teenager nearing making a decision to go to college get the impression from the quality of the stadium, the fans and the play the field that UNT is a top notch university. A university on par with (or better than) any other public university in the state of Texas. Apogee is a great investment but we need a bigger heart investment by more of our alumni. Crushing Abilene Christian in Apogee is not much better than in Fouts Field. The only difference are nicer distractions from a game that should not be a contest. And I thought the whole purpose of building Apogee was to have fewer games against FCS schools and more against schools you would be proud for your children to attend if they did not choose UNT. (This is no shot at Abilene Christian because you choose that school for things that large public university can't give you.) You want to play more teams that are recognizable to your average college football fan. Nothing cheapens the value of your ticket than offering your ticket to a friend only to have explain who opponent is. (Even when that friend watches CFB almost every weekend). I started with 4 season tickets, reduced it to 3, then to 2 and now to none. It was painful cause I love my school and want support it beyond just donations. Sorry but amenities only go so far when the team isn't playing an opponent you want to see half the time and losing the other half the time. We need more fans whose passion is greater than what they spend on season tickets. That means demanding competitiveness! That isn't winning the division every year but that mean getting the first Saturday in November every year with shot at it.

Edited July 21, 2016 by Mike Jackson

Ben Gooding · July 20, 2016

I've been talking about expectations on here since I joined this board. It's the pulse of a program. I am finally starting to read things that have me thinking we have a slightly palpable pulse. Not radial, we're not there yet. But there's definitely something there in the carotid. Bravo.

Aquila_Viridis · July 20, 2016

Well I do regret that I put everyone in the same boat. So no, I should not address all of the club level group collectively. However, my point is that more and more I feel that there is a set of people, and definitely not all in the club level, that care more about the game as a social event. In fact, at one point I felt this group was very desperate because they were concerned they might lose this social opportunity altogether. For this relatively very small group, the social aspect seems more important to them than winning or having a team is important even to the rest of us.

I see this social model sort of working right now for Ole Miss. But it won’t work for long. And it took them a LONG time for it to bear any fruit. And Ole Miss is about as different a place from NT as there is anywhere. This is not going to ever work at NT. There are too few such people for NT.

For NT, there are a lot more people who care, or would care, about winning. But I have never heard an NT president say ‘we are committed to winning’.

Yes we needed a new stadium but not right away, and the money for it would have come if we had been winning all these years. People said, ‘well we need it to recruit’. No, not with a high profile coach, then the stadium would not have been needed for that. And look to the pitiful extent it has actually helped with recruiting and to the game results from that.

That was one of the worst mistakes I have ever seen and we are living the consequences now.

I think the leaders at NT can’t even imagine what would happen, if they got committed to winning, set a higher fee on the incoming vast number of students (so known up front) and used the money to hire a coach and staff who would - for certain, not maybe - have extreme success at our level (and no I don’t condone extreme discipline issues), then experienced sustained winning, and even more importantly - competitiveness against P5 opponents. That little stadium would not be able to contain all the people. You have like 7 million people down there within a short radius. It takes a very tiny fraction of that to make 100,000 people. That number of people is not going to come out because of the fine venue and tailgating. I do think there is a group of people, that have had opportunities to be heard, who do not want to see that happen, and that makes me really angry.

Maybe the university has only heard the viewpoint of these socializers, because for the most part they're the only ones still around. Of course the university is not going to get the input of many people who care about winning, because those people are mostly not around due to lack of winning. And the university has not made much effort to go out and ask about it, and even if they did, a lot of people they might ask would not even understand because the concept of it is so foreign. But if they saw it, then they would understand.

FirefightnRick · July 20, 2016

11 hours ago, Cerebus said:

First, CoB does a much better job than Athletics has on communicating goals, assessing success or failure, communicating those results to donors, and taking action to fix under performance. I always feel my donations are well shepherded and used for clear, communicable goals. Athletics could learn a lot from the way things are done in CoB.

Maybe if they had done those things better you wouldn't see the huge backlash RV faced when he made mistakes. I know that no one in CoB ever announced quarterly meetings and then never held them again in 15 years, and more to the point I know the leadership at CoB would never stand for it.

Second, you are mixing off the field and on the field success. Am I glad to give to help student athlete scholarships? Yes. I am glad to see student athletes succeed later in life? Of course. However the on the field success is where you hold the full time staff members who are paid to produce results. RV wasn't a non paid fellow alumn who is working his tail off to succeed in the classroom and on the field. He was a full grown man who we paid $300k/yr to produce results. Winning is one of those results, failure to bring those wins is why so many fans wanted him gone.

If a full time, salaried worker is under performing in any aspects of the AD, I want leadership that will correct their mistakes, and replace them if needed. I do not want someone who builds a culture of making excuses and not listening to the paying customers. I am not going to continue to help (in my own little way) underwrite the salaries of these professionals if they can not provide results, and more importantly if University leadership does not hold them accountable. I'll continue to make a MGC donation but the rest of the money... well other units on campus have done a better job reassuring me that it is well spent there.

Is UNT90 abrasive when he keeps demanding wins? He can be. However he is speaking for a lot of people who want to win. Is Apogee a really nice place to watch a game? Yes it is, but I was happier watching us win in Fouts. Is the club level a really nice place with top amenities? Sure, but I would match rather watch us win while using the trough urinals at Fouts. I would rather sit in those metal bleachers 60 yards away from the field and watch us win a conference championship than sit in the president's suite and watch a 1AA school flatten us.

Winning is what matters on the field. None of the game day amenities make up for losing. I don't care what a great time I had with people before kickoff, the entire day is terrible if we lose.

Exactly.

Rick

mgfan · July 20, 2016

Many of these post are too long to read. Let's use less words for us simple folks

Cerebus · July 20, 2016

7 hours ago, mgfan said:

Many of these post are too long to read.

Philistine.

/s

Wag Tag · July 20, 2016

9 hours ago, Aquila_Viridis said:

Well I do regret that I put everyone in the same boat. So no, I should not address all of the club level group collectively. However, my point is that more and more I feel that there is a set of people, and definitely not all in the club level, that care more about the game as a social event. In fact, at one point I felt this group was very desperate because they were concerned they might lose this social opportunity altogether. For this relatively very small group, the social aspect seems more important to them than winning or having a team is important even to the rest of us.

I see this social model sort of working right now for Ole Miss. But it won’t work for long. And it took them a LONG time for it to bear any fruit. And Ole Miss is about as different a place from NT as there is anywhere. This is not going to ever work at NT. There are too few such people for NT.

For NT, there are a lot more people who care, or would care, about winning. But I have never heard an NT president say ‘we are committed to winning’.

Yes we needed a new stadium but not right away, and the money for it would have come if we had been winning all these years. People said, ‘well we need it to recruit’. No, not with a high profile coach, then the stadium would not have been needed for that. And look to the pitiful extent it has actually helped with recruiting and to the game results from that.

That was one of the worst mistakes I have ever seen and we are living the consequences now.

I think the leaders at NT can’t even imagine what would happen, if they got committed to winning, set a higher fee on the incoming vast number of students (so known up front) and used the money to hire a coach and staff who would - for certain, not maybe - have extreme success at our level (and no I don’t condone extreme discipline issues), then experienced sustained winning, and even more importantly - competitiveness against P5 opponents. That little stadium would not be able to contain all the people. You have like 7 million people down there within a short radius. It takes a very tiny fraction of that to make 100,000 people. That number of people is not going to come out because of the fine venue and tailgating. I do think there is a group of people, that have had opportunities to be heard, who do not want to see that happen, and that makes me really angry.

Maybe the university has only heard the viewpoint of these socializers, because for the most part they're the only ones still around. Of course the university is not going to get the input of many people who care about winning, because those people are mostly not around due to lack of winning. And the university has not made much effort to go out and ask about it, and even if they did, a lot of people they might ask would not even understand because the concept of it is so foreign. But if they saw it, then they would understand.

What do you do to get people in the stands before you start winning? Anything it takes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

KRAM1 · July 20, 2016

9 hours ago, Aquila_Viridis said:

Well I do regret that I put everyone in the same boat. So no, I should not address all of the club level group collectively. However, my point is that more and more I feel that there is a set of people, and definitely not all in the club level, that care more about the game as a social event. In fact, at one point I felt this group was very desperate because they were concerned they might lose this social opportunity altogether. For this relatively very small group, the social aspect seems more important to them than winning or having a team is important even to the rest of us.

I see this social model sort of working right now for Ole Miss. But it won’t work for long. And it took them a LONG time for it to bear any fruit. And Ole Miss is about as different a place from NT as there is anywhere. This is not going to ever work at NT. There are too few such people for NT.

For NT, there are a lot more people who care, or would care, about winning. But I have never heard an NT president say ‘we are committed to winning’.

Yes we needed a new stadium but not right away, and the money for it would have come if we had been winning all these years. People said, ‘well we need it to recruit’. No, not with a high profile coach, then the stadium would not have been needed for that. And look to the pitiful extent it has actually helped with recruiting and to the game results from that.

That was one of the worst mistakes I have ever seen and we are living the consequences now.

I think the leaders at NT can’t even imagine what would happen, if they got committed to winning, set a higher fee on the incoming vast number of students (so known up front) and used the money to hire a coach and staff who would - for certain, not maybe - have extreme success at our level (and no I don’t condone extreme discipline issues), then experienced sustained winning, and even more importantly - competitiveness against P5 opponents. That little stadium would not be able to contain all the people. You have like 7 million people down there within a short radius. It takes a very tiny fraction of that to make 100,000 people. That number of people is not going to come out because of the fine venue and tailgating. I do think there is a group of people, that have had opportunities to be heard, who do not want to see that happen, and that makes me really angry.

Maybe the university has only heard the viewpoint of these socializers, because for the most part they're the only ones still around. Of course the university is not going to get the input of many people who care about winning, because those people are mostly not around due to lack of winning. And the university has not made much effort to go out and ask about it, and even if they did, a lot of people they might ask would not even understand because the concept of it is so foreign. But if they saw it, then they would understand.

Just curious...are you a frequent visitor in the Club area or do you have Club seats?

UNT90 · July 20, 2016

9 hours ago, Aquila_Viridis said:

Well I do regret that I put everyone in the same boat. So no, I should not address all of the club level group collectively. However, my point is that more and more I feel that there is a set of people, and definitely not all in the club level, that care more about the game as a social event. In fact, at one point I felt this group was very desperate because they were concerned they might lose this social opportunity altogether. For this relatively very small group, the social aspect seems more important to them than winning or having a team is important even to the rest of us.

I see this social model sort of working right now for Ole Miss. But it won’t work for long. And it took them a LONG time for it to bear any fruit. And Ole Miss is about as different a place from NT as there is anywhere. This is not going to ever work at NT. There are too few such people for NT.

For NT, there are a lot more people who care, or would care, about winning. But I have never heard an NT president say ‘we are committed to winning’.

Yes we needed a new stadium but not right away, and the money for it would have come if we had been winning all these years. People said, ‘well we need it to recruit’. No, not with a high profile coach, then the stadium would not have been needed for that. And look to the pitiful extent it has actually helped with recruiting and to the game results from that.

That was one of the worst mistakes I have ever seen and we are living the consequences now.

I think the leaders at NT can’t even imagine what would happen, if they got committed to winning, set a higher fee on the incoming vast number of students (so known up front) and used the money to hire a coach and staff who would - for certain, not maybe - have extreme success at our level (and no I don’t condone extreme discipline issues), then experienced sustained winning, and even more importantly - competitiveness against P5 opponents. That little stadium would not be able to contain all the people. You have like 7 million people down there within a short radius. It takes a very tiny fraction of that to make 100,000 people. That number of people is not going to come out because of the fine venue and tailgating. I do think there is a group of people, that have had opportunities to be heard, who do not want to see that happen, and that makes me really angry.

Maybe the university has only heard the viewpoint of these socializers, because for the most part they're the only ones still around. Of course the university is not going to get the input of many people who care about winning, because those people are mostly not around due to lack of winning. And the university has not made much effort to go out and ask about it, and even if they did, a lot of people they might ask would not even understand because the concept of it is so foreign. But if they saw it, then they would understand.

You didn't put everyone in a catagory. What you did was hit a nerve with some people that needed that nerve hit. Bravo to you.

At any point in a close game, you can wonder around inside the club level and see people perfectly content to drink and socialize without paying any attention to the game. Probably right around half of the club attendees.

And these aren't just the non-sports fans that came with somebody. There are big donors and posters to this board included in this group.

When you lose and lose consistently over a long period of time, one of three things happen to a fan. You either stop following the program, you get really pissed off and stay that way until you win, or you justify losing by going for "the social aspect" of the experience. You tell yourself winning isn't important. You stop caring about the actual game. You accept it.

Under the previous AD I understood that mindset. UNT was never going to be successful with that guy running a complete sh1+ show of a program. But if UNT goes outside for a new hire, I would hope these attitudes change.

For far too long people have accepted a status quo with UNT athletics that wouldn't have been accepted at all other FBS programs and a whole lot of FCS programs. That needs to change, from the fan base to the top of UNT administration. We have that opportunity. Will we F it up yet again?

Edited July 20, 2016 by UNT90