A New Beginning

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SOURCE: http://www.dentonrc.com/sharedcontent/dws/...4.3c9f5250.html

A new beginning

North Texas coaching change is DRC's top story of 2006

10:46 AM CST on Sunday, December 24, 2006

By Brett Vito/Staff Writer

When North Texas began football practice in the fall, talk centered on the potential for a turnaround under head coach Darrell Dickey.

The Mean Green had a national rushing champion returning in Jamario Thomas, not to mention perhaps the best receiver in school history in Johnny Quinn. The quarterbacks who were inexperienced in 2005 had an extra year behind them and UNT was only a year removed from a run of four straight Sun Belt Conference titles.

That journey back to the top of the conference never materialized, leading to the most dramatic turn of events in the last few years in UNT athletics. The Mean Green had a second straight terrible campaign, Dickey had a heart attack and school officials fired him just a few weeks later with three games left in the season. A messy divorce followed – all of which set the stage for Southlake Carroll head coach Todd Dodge to become UNT’s next head coach.

There were plenty of big stories in the Denton area in the past year: the Argyle girls won a state basketball title, Sanger football coach David Hughes retired and the Ryan football team's 21-game winning streak in Class 4A came to a close, just to name a few.

Each of those stories was important, but all rank behind the wild turn of events with the UNT football team in the Denton Record-Chronicle's annual survey of its sports staff.

UNT athletic director Rick Villarreal acknowledged just what a tough few weeks it was for everyone in the Mean Green athletic department when he introduced Dodge as the school’s new football coach at a press conference on Dec. 12.

“This was a tedious process," Villarreal said. "I have lost about 25 pounds. … When we started our search we set out some criteria. We wanted someone that was a proven consistent winner, had a wealth of experience, had college coaching experience, was involved in their community, had Texas ties and, most of all, we wanted someone who wanted to be at North Texas."

UNT officials believe they got their man in Dodge, but endured a wild few months in the interim.

UNT enjoyed one of its most successful eras in program history under Dickey, who pointed out all the Mean Green had accomplished during his tenure before leaving the school. Thomas and his mentor Patrick Cobbs won national rushing titles and UNT posted a 26-game conference winning streak.

“We accomplished a lot without sacrificing our values,” Dickey said at his final midweek press conference. "I was hired to build a program that placed academics first, conduct second and football third. That is an order of importance that is not found at many other programs in the country. I believe that we have followed it and made progress in each area.”

Dickey couldn’t sustain that success on the field in his last two seasons. UNT finished 2-9 in 2005 and was 2-7 when he was fired with three games left in the season on Nov. 8 just a few weeks after he suffered a heart attack. Dickey had surgery to have a stent placed in his heart, but missed just one game before returning to the sideline.

Dickey coached UNT's final three games after he was fired, a situation that became even more uncomfortable when UNT letterman and booster Jim McIngvale publicly expressed his feelings that Dickey was fired unjustly.

McIngvale donated $1 million in 2004 that played an important role in the school building the Mean Green Athletic Center, a key piece in a host of new facilities that have been built in the last few years.

McIngvale asked that the UNT football team’s practice fields that were to be named after him instead be named after Dickey, who McIngvale said didn't have the resources necessary to consistently win at UNT. The request became a national story.

"I just think both sides of the story need to be told," McIngvale said. "People need to know that you need to have big money to get big wins. You don't go to a gun fight with a knife."

After the season was over and Dickey had time to think about it, he and McIngvale asked that the fields instead be named after Andrew Smith, a former UNT quarterback who died in a car accident before the 2004 season.

By then UNT’s board of regents had already agreed to name the fields after Dickey. The dilemma has yet to be resolved.

Villarreal spent a little more than a month with a more important issue on his mind – finding a new head coach. The search took many twists and turns, but ended up where many thought it might with Dodge.

The former Texas quarterback spent two years at UNT as an assistant coach and built one of the most successful high school programs in the country at Carroll. Dodge’s passing offense made him an even more desirable option at UNT after nine years in Dickey’s run-first offense.

UNT introduced Dodge as its new coach on Dec. 12 in front of a packed press conference crowd -- ironically just a few yards away from the sign that is set to have Dickey’s name or that of his former quarterback put on it in the coming weeks.

Dodge immediately talked about the potential UNT has as a program and even spoke of the Mean Green becoming the Metroplex’s college football team, one that alumni of any school could get behind.

Most UNT alumni were thrilled with the decision, although a few questioned the wisdom of hiring a high school coach.

Only time will tell if Villarreal and UNT made the right choice.

What is of little doubt is that there was no bigger story in the Denton area last year. The Dickey-to-Dodge story had controversy, conflict and made national headlines.

The decision Villarreal and other UNT officials made will resonate for years not only in Denton, but also in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

And it sure was an interesting story along the way.

BRETT VITO can be reached at 940-566-6870. His e-mail address is bvito@dentonrc.com.