Local Sports Writer talks trash about UNT

[UNT_playmaker]

Insight to the opinion on the Denton Record-Chronicle's  sports staff regarding this board....

Ethan B. Szatmary / They've Got To Be Kiddin'

ESPN mag makes UNT look more lean than Mean

09:40 AM CDT on Sunday, September 11, 2005

 

Ethan B. Szatmary

Oh to have been a fly on the wall when University of North Texas athletic director Rick Villarreal sat down to read the Sept. 12 issue of ESPN: The Magazine.

Like anyone who backs the Mean Green, Villarreal must have been excited about the prospects of the national magazine writing a feature story on North Texas’ back-to-back NCAA rushing champions, Patrick Cobbs and Jamario Thomas.

While the article “Lean and Mean” by Eric Adelson suggested that Villarreal may be responsible for UNT’s dominance of the Sun Belt Conference in football, it also begins by describing Fouts Field, the Mean Green’s 53-year-old stadium, as “decrepit.” Even mentioned the players call Fouts “the Tin Can.”

Adelson isn’t exactly helping UNT’s recruiting right there, is he? And, he didn’t get around to mentioning the new athletic complex until much further into his story and didn’t bother contrasting its opulence to Fouts Field. He just said it was almost one quarter the size of LSU’s training complex.

Adelson even started talking smack about Denton sports fans.

“You can’t pity a place where public expectations are as low as attendance,” Adelson wrote. “See, down in Denton, no boosters bitch about a boring running game.”

Did Adelson bother to get on the Mean Green fan message boards that we here at the Denton Record-Chronicle call the “Idiot Board” and the “Bitter Board” — not because they’re kind and understanding fans?

Anyone who’s ever sat in the alumni section at Fouts Field has heard the “Throw the ball!” pleas of fans too short-sighted to understand the simplistic genius of Darrell Dickey’s rushing attack.

“No overbearing alums call for the coach’s head after a blowout loss to Oklahoma,” Adelson continues.

Nope, but I can remember Dickey’s front lawn filling up with “for sale” signs when the Mean Green lost to Utah State back in 2000.

The Mean Green love the pub, but maybe ESPN should have waited a couple of weeks and had Adelson do some research. Hey, attend a game or two, maybe. Tailgate, go to Fry Street, talk to some fans. ...

ETHAN B. SZATMARY can be reached at 940-566-6869. His e-mail address is eszatmary@dentonrc.com.

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im extremely furious and completely offended by the comments of the DRC writer who is an obviously washed up sports writer from the boonies. Not only should this message board demand an apology but the DRC should takes steps to relieve Szatmary of his job. An attack in the local sunday newspaper tells people that our message board doesnt support the mean green but paints a degrading picture of who we are.

There is not a single organization on campus that supports our team at home and away games like we do. To have a local sports writer say bad things about North Texas fans and the message board is not only unacceptable but can no longer be tolerated

If you have something to say to Loser Ethan, than you can surely contact him at his small cubicle at (940) 566-6869 or email him at eszatmary@dentonrc.com or if you dont want to talk to local loser yourself you can gladly call any of his supervisors:

Russ Goodall (sports editor at DRC) 940-566-6871

Bill Patterson (Publisher) 940-387-3811

[Zeke]

Lets be a little more thick skinned guys.

[untgirl04]

Lets be a little more thick skinned guys.

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Honestly, the guy is entitled to his opinion, but that wasn't a prudent thing to publish in the paper. This is permanently in print for people to read all around Denton. This board is a great way to get fans involved. Now, if perhaps a budding fan chooses to read the DRC and sees this article, they won't want to join us. Think of all the amazing opportunities they are missing out on because of one negative comment.

This guy just insulted the most active group of alumni at UNT. If he were even-handed and commented on the lack of support from Dentonites, or the somewhat lackluster student involvement, then we could talk. But he singled out our group negatively and didn't even bother to mention all of the great things that are accomplished by this board.

Should he lose his job over this? Probably not. Should he stick to HS sports and leave his opinions about the UNT alumni to himself? YES.

[Coffee and TV]

this is a better idea than writing to the guy, although i doubt it'll make much of an impact.

[UNT_playmaker]

bump

[stebo]

First of all, I have worked for a paper before and all sorts of things are said at the writing level. We all know that their are two boards (soon to be a third from from I hear) and one is this board and the other is the bitter board. The article that Ethan wrote was making fun of the ESPN article more then us... he was pointing out that we have fans just like any other program - and even have two message boards with fans that they have nicknames for at the paper. Not every school has active fan sites - go to the FAU board, there are about 3 fans keeping that float. Denver doesn't have a board at all, and other places like UNO and FIU have boards but no posters/fans that use it. I think what Ethan was trying to say is that the article points out that our fans have no opinions at all - and at the DRC they disagree - we have two boards, some with idiots, some with bitter fans, and they simply didn't mention that we have some "normal" fans as well.

Before you jump all over the DRC for this, think about the countless posts that have been made about the DRC not covering a story, or investigating an incident, or calling our beat writer "Ditto" instead of his real name Vito, because he writes on things that we all seem to have heard about on GMG before it comes out in the paper. Yes, they are taking a shot back at us - but this is just one shot, that really doesn't make up for the countless times that we have talked bad about the DRC. Just my 2 cents.