Questions for older Alums

NorthTexasFan · October 7, 2006

4 minutes left in 3'rd quarter:
U of L 23
MTSU 10
Louisville has superior speed (as would be expected--remember Southern Miss couple years ago)? MT's receivers cannot get open due to UL's defensive back's superiour speed but.......................MTSU is giving it a good efftort.
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I WOULD be watching this one, but I'm in the dark ages here in D-town and I don't have cable, so the last I knew, it was MTSU 10 and L-ville 3.

PlummMeanGreen · October 7, 2006

I don'trecall the name of the book but there is a "History of North Texas" published within the last few years. My dad has a copy.
It is more of a history of the college in general and not just athletics.
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Dr. James Roger's "The Story of North Texas" can be found at even some Border's Book Stores.

One might "Google" it up and find a way to order it online. It is a good read from day one of our school's beginnings in 1890 and I found that Dr. Rogers did cover a bunch about Mean Green athletics with much on Hayden Fry.

You will also read where some campus types backin the late 1960's/early 1970's never wanted a 10,000 seat Super Pit but one that seated about 6,000. Well..........as we all know that would have sufficed for our basketball program much of the time the Super Pit has been around, but we must also remember that it was first built and was actually first called a multi-purpose facility and has served the region well for not just varsity basketball games but many other regional functions as well. 3 NCAA Regionals would have never come to Denton had some of our "teacher's college/short-sighted" types had gotten their way.

The fear of many is that our new football stadium's capacity will be down-sized as to keep us from ever getting some true Big 12 Top 10 schools into Denton. You don't just build stadiums big enough for whats happening today, but what can happen in the future if we somehow get out of this quarter century long slump of hiring head football coaches who can never take us to the next level.

VideoEagle · October 7, 2006

Following Tyler's one year at North Texas the decision was made to reduce the athletic budget and go to 1-AA. Fred McCain was made athletic director. The slide that took years to overcome (if we have overcome it yet) was underway.
Only at North Texas ...........
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Actually, the NCAA forced 1AA status on us. NT had no choice and nothing we could that year could have made any difference. The way the 1AA rule was written, in the years PRECEDING we needed to have had a larger average attendance. There was nothing that could be done after the fact.

A number of schools forced into 1AA appealed. None won their appeals. As I understand it, only Arkansas State had a strong enough case to even get some kind of hearing. Every other school's appeal was rejected out of hand.

Once forced to 1AA, then the football budget was reduced.

October 7, 2006

Lil" Abner's first year was 1956
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That's true....but. In 1956, when Abner was a freshman, he could not play on the varsity. There was a separate schedule for freshman teams. They played the freshman teams of other major universities and junior colleges. They could also play the junior varsity of small colleges.

Abner's first year on the varsity was 1957, which I'd call the late 50s.

eagle60 · October 8, 2006

I was at NT in 1957 when Abner Haynes started to play on the varsity squad. It's true that colleges has separate teams for freshmen in that time period. Actually, because of the junior colleges and other freshman teams the level of play was good.