Shout out to McNatt and Lovelace

[Wag Tag]

We should always have a top recruiting class! Special thanks to all that contributed to the School and the IPF.  Facilities matter and the IPF is very impressive! Gmg

[NTSU52]

They should have kept the name, and made the new Facility the Darrell Dickey Indoor Practice Facility. 

[El Paso Eagle]

1 minute ago, NTSU52 said:

They should have kept the name, and made the new Facility the Darrell Dickey Indoor Practice Facility. 

[El Paso Eagle]

With all due respect, the DD field was Mattress Mac's way of taking advantage of UNT when he knew we needed money. It was done more to be a slap in the face to the Administration as anything else.  

[Mean Green 93-98]

3 hours ago, El Paso Eagle said:

With all due respect, the DD field was Mattress Mac's way of taking advantage of UNT when he knew we needed money. It was done more to be a slap in the face to the Administration as anything else.  

Not exactly.  He had already planned to donate the million dollars (I think it was) for the practice fields well before Dickey was fired.  As far as the naming of the fields, that did come after, and that was Mac's choice, and it was his right to choose.  He was a big supporter of Dickey and had gotten crossways with RV--whether the naming was to honor Dickey, slap RV, or a little of both, it's tough to say.

[El Paso Eagle]

Good points. We might be the only school were a coach with DD's record is in their HOF and he got a field named after him after he was fired.

This is a great example of the issue UNT has with our historical perception. Some people need to understand how our program was perceived over the years

 

[NTSU52]

45 minutes ago, El Paso Eagle said:

Good points. We might be the only school were a coach with DD's record is in their HOF and he got a field named after him after he was fired.

So a coach that won four straight conference championships and got us to a bowl for the first time in 50+ years isn't worthy of a HOF spot? Good grief.

[El Paso Eagle]

I believe his coaching record was something like 42 and 65. If you think that is worthy of a Hall of Fame career then I guess we can agree to disagree what a Hall of Fame standard should be.

[Cr1028]

2 hours ago, NTSU52 said:

So a coach that won four straight conference championships and got us to a bowl for the first time in 50+ years isn't worthy of a HOF spot? Good grief.

If you drop us in the Southland tomorrow I’d bet just about anything that Seth could win 4 straight conference titles if he didn’t get poached first. Dickey did some good things but don’t get ahead of yourself and make him out to be on the level of Odus Mitchell and Hayden Fry.

[greenminer]

14 minutes ago, Cr1028 said:

If you drop us in the Southland tomorrow I’d bet just about anything that Seth could win 4 straight conference titles if he didn’t get poached first. Dickey did some good things but don’t get ahead of yourself and make him out to be on the level of Odus Mitchell and Hayden Fry.

What was our budget relative to the rest of the Belt?

[RBP79]

For some..like DD...they let their ego get ahead of their ass. 

But he did get UNT on a roll that we haven't seen since, regardless of his win/ loss record.

[NTSU52]

What he was able with our horrible facilities/ funding, is worthy of a HOF spot. Not to mention that we were new to the Sun Belt, and we were playing some better teams than we had before. Such a shame he's wearing maroon now.

[hickoryhouse]

Offseason is here ...   the Dickey debate is back....

back in school we called the Bourbon Bowl the Darrell Dickey invitational and we loved it!   That guy was good for the program and made us relevant.   i am proud to have him in my school’s hall of fame.  
 

We are UNT and our future is bright.   Dickey is part of our past and I’ll tell you what, it was fun to be in Fouts back then and i had.m a blast being a part of that past.  

[cogido]

Granted,  Dickey did give North Texas an exciting run and did so with poor facilities and poor funding. That four year run was great.  HOWEVER,  Dickey obviously then stopped recruiting and the program sank.  THE UNPROFESSIONAL manner in which Dickey departed was an ugly “fuc# you” felt by most of us fans.  Once fired he never should have been allowed to coach  the remaining season.  Rick Villarreal  totally mishandled Dickey’s departure, necessary as it was.

[DeepGreen]

2 hours ago, cogido said:

Rick Villarreal  totally mishandled

....the entire Athletic Dept.

[El Paso Eagle]

5 hours ago, DeepGreen said:

....the entire Athletic Dept.

THIS IS SO TRUE

[El Paso Eagle]

16 hours ago, NTSU52 said:

So a coach that won four straight conference championships and got us to a bowl for the first time in 50+ years isn't worthy of a HOF spot? Good grief.

"Good Grief"? 

On one hand we complain that other conferences and people do not have a higher opinion of UNT athletics and on the other hand we boast of this being a HOF standard? Disagree with me all you want but perception is important and history is important. People don't understand why player "X" would go to another school instead on UNT and we have to understand outside of those of us who will follow and support UNT regardless, the perception of UNT was very low and has slowly started gaining traction in the past couple of years. And absolutely no disrespect to the players on those teams, outside of UNT fans and other Sun Belt fans there was very little excitement over what they achieved. That might piss some of you off but it's true. We were a good to very good team in what was considered one of the worst conference in a long time.

Edited February 7, 2020 by El Paso Eagle

[Cr1028]

15 hours ago, El Paso Eagle said:

I believe his coaching record was something like 42 and 65. If you think that is worthy of a Hall of Fame career then I guess we can agree to disagree what a Hall of Fame standard should be.

42 and 64 at UNT with a 34-22 conference record. Now that conference record doesn’t look too bad except when you remove the 26 straight victories out of the middle and are left with a 8-22 conference record. He was 5-11 in the big west and 4-10 in the Sun Belt once USU, NMSU, and Idaho weren’t around for us to beat on. He lost to FAU in 2004 and Troy in 2001 before they were in the Sun Belt. If they had been in the conference his record conference winning streak would’ve been halved to 13 games.

Now don’t get me wrong here, I am not saying he did no good here because he did, however I think it is important to point out that we have had more important and successful people come through our athletic programs for whom to name facilities after.

[El Paso Eagle]

14 minutes ago, Cr1028 said:

we have had more important and successful people come through our athletic programs for whom to name facilities after.

For Example 

The "Harry Miers GoMeanGreen.com" field at Apogee Stadium

and

The Bret Vito Parking Space at the Parking Lot at Apogee Stadium

Edited February 7, 2020 by El Paso Eagle

[GrayEagle]

To be fair, Rick Villareal did not totally mishandle the Athletic Department.  If Apogee Stadium were his only accomplishment that would make him semi-successful.  When he came Liberty Christian occupied what is now the athletic complex.  He had a hand in that design and the Athletic Administration Building as well.  I think that he did a good job with facilites on a somewhat limited budget.  His biggest goofs were in hiring coaches...especially football and basketball.  Again, we had limited funds thanks to an administration that took most of the money to build academics.  No complaint there but it did hamstring building the athletic program.  

[greenjoe]

Jim McIngvale donated 1 million dollars to the athletic dept in a ceremony at the Coliseum.  I was there.   When RV fired Darrell Dickey, Jim insisted that some tribute be paid to his friend DD or, that the money given to athletics be instead given to the Department of Music.  Nobody wanted to give the money back and we had a plot of land without a name and that practice field became the DD Practice Field.  There must have been some sort of string attached to the gift or it must have been paid out over a period of time. 

[UNTLifer]

To have a facility named after Dickey and none after first Odus Mitchell or Fry is a crime.  Hell, if I were DD, I would be embarrassed.

[Got5onIt]

Special place in my NT fandom heart for the Ol’ Buick. Yeah, he ran through the Sun Belt like Mexican Water through an American Tourist, but it was a helluva fun time to be a fan. 

[greenminer]

2 hours ago, Got5onIt said:

Yeah, he ran through the Sun Belt like Mexican Water through an American Tourist,...

I'm not sure what this means.  My memory of the Belt run was one of rare dominance.  We managed a ton of close games in our favor which, IMO, made the run even more remarkable.  Lets also not forget that for various reasons, Dickey had to manage a revolving door at some of the coaching spots.

[GrandGreen]

Give great credit for his conference winning streak.

However, he was his own worst enemy and should have been fired long before he was. 

I can understand granting McIndale his wish to name a practice field after DD, NT was that desperate for money.

Dickey's losing record and a propensity to speak negatively about NT, was not exactly HOF fodder.  Whoever made that decision was either very stupid or just unaware of his history.  

A lot is being made of DD's lack of resources, seldom mentioned is that the vast majority of his wins were over Belt teams with even less resources. 

DD quit on NT because he thought he was too good for the job.   I am happy that Dickey has resurrected his career as an assistant coach, but I think overall he was a bad hire for NT.  I believe there were a lot of coaches that could have duplicated his success at NT without the drama that DD caused. 

Edited February 9, 2020 by GrandGreen