DRC: New Year's resolutions for UNT athletics

[Brett Vito]

DRC:

http://www.dentonrc.com/sports/mean-green/2017/12/31/new-years-resolutions-unt-athletic-department

[djohnnie]

Good write up Brett!

[SilverEagle]

Mason Fine makes a great point. I remember having a discussion with my son back in 2004 right after the NO bowl with S. Miss. I mentioned our four straight Sunbelt championships and our four trips to the NO bowl. He just smiled and said "yeah, but how many of those bowl games did NT win? Four championships followed by four bowl wins is much more impressive to the general public"

[drex]

KEEP WREN BAKER should be the number one priority.

[drycreek]

GOT TO KEEP WREN & SETH AND HOPE THE PRESIDENT STAYS AROUND ALSO.  MUST ALSO KEEP BOTH BASKETBALL COACHES.  A TALL ORDER BUT MUST BE DONE.  

[BTG_Fan1]

UNT is trending up.. 

But a few things for the resolutions that I would like to see...

1= WB, and the MGC need to increase the donation and membership of current members and start selling to soon to be graduates, and recent grads.. We saw the donation rate at something like .03% before the school year started... Just need to sale students/recent graduates on even a simple $25 donation goes a long way.. May sound dumb but say what the donations go towards.. Don't say it goes to coaches getting gas money or food, dress it up and make it sexy.. Your donation improves our recruiting ability by doing XYZ... Any ideas, or suggestions from people on here in terms of increasing donor rates please DM to be and i will single-handily give it to WB in the office. 

2- Need to start the construction of the IPF. Its been in the works over a year now, the plan has been submitted and approved and now we are waiting on the last couple of donations... WB, needs to get this started ASAP. It's great having up signs and billboards but again, we need to start moving dirt. It's great for potential recruits to see a sign with images, its another thing for the sign to be there and construction being started... The Soccer/Track complex was delayed and it likely didn't look good that coaches were selling recruits on playing in it now rather than later. 

3- Football, if changes are made on the staff meaning guys leave for bigger jobs, or are let go... SL needs to talk with WB about increasing the assistant coach pool... Finishing as West Champions, and multiple way to close games we need to improve the coaching and recruiting. No idea the current staffing budget but if its at 1M, we need to bump it up to 1.5, or if its 1.5 then we need to move it up to 2M (whatever the next notable figure is). Its time that we add ideally 2 or 3 recruiting aces. Yes it will be costly, but again this when UNT needs to be doubling down and making a run and not sitting back. Having the 6th best class is nice, but recruiting needs to improve big time. Yes a FIU is aided by 2 4* prospects and so are a few other schools by adding talented kids but after wining 9 games, being west champs, etc that we did this year.. we should be higher than 6th.

4- Getting the Student Fee Increase passed. This is something that was overlooked, and somewhat thrown at students before the end of the Fall Semester. WB and the staffs need to be working on showing examples of how and what the increase will be used for and what it will not be used for. The AD Office was getting out the word on the increase just a few days before and during the event, and should be using this time as a way to craft the message and have a plan for getting it passed. 

5- Basketball.. GMac has already improved the team in terms of record.. Keep it up, and im not sure what to expect in terms of end of year results in the W/L column but would love to see this team keep improving and make some noise and maybe ruin 1 or 2 teams CUSA tournament plans. WBB, has been the best of the 3 sports that we have had recently. Would like to see them keep improving (believe they are playing 3 true freshman). Again, hope that they can keep improving.

 

 --Things that missed...

1- Improving the Strength and Condition- We saw at times how small and undersized and lack of speed compared to other schools. Hopefully in Year 2 with the new Nutritional Staff we can see bigger improvements. 

2- Expansion of Weight-room to Weight-Rooms.. 

3- Increasing the UNT Merchandising ability of the Athletic Department. From the shirts that SL has worn to the Dry-Fit, to even simple images of memorable moments or of Apogee. Many fans have commented on here but no one have heard any real replies. 

[untjim1995]

On ‎1‎/‎2‎/‎2018 at 3:15 PM, BTG_Fan1 said:

4- Getting the Student Fee Increase passed. This is something that was overlooked, and somewhat thrown at students before the end of the Fall Semester. WB and the staffs need to be working on showing examples of how and what the increase will be used for and what it will not be used for. The AD Office was getting out the word on the increase just a few days before and during the event, and should be using this time as a way to craft the message and have a plan for getting it passed. 

 

This will tell me all I need to know about the direction of this program for the future. If the students pass this, it means that the New Denton really does exist and people do genuinely care about UNT Athletics. If not, then its back to the reality that this place is either apathetic to athletics or absolutely loathes its existence.

I've seen one of these pass--and it was UNTFlyer's genius that got it passed, nobody else. Hell, they had to keep RV as far away from this as possible, since it never got passed with his involvement in the years preceding that vote to get Apogee funded.