Nt Athletics Article On Need For New Stadium Campaign

NT80 · December 26, 2006

I must have missed this stadium campaign info being posted on the official athletic site a couple months ago (with all the other stuff going on then!). I received the email survey sent about a month ago re: the new stadium, and saw a post about the hiring of a company to oversee the campaign and list it's priorities by this coming January 2007. Hopefully the full campaign will begin soon after...while the iron is "hot"!!.....

https://www.nmnathletics.com/ViewArticle.db...p;ATCLID=113995

Edited December 26, 2006 by NT80

MeanGreenBuzz · December 26, 2006

I think I remember this article being posted about the time DD got fired and people wondering about prices to name stuff after certain people... might have been a different one I am remembering though...

UNT_playmaker · December 26, 2006

Wow, great article....if only the incompetent Athletic Dept could back up what they say....

From what I read, I dont think it would be too hard to get a sponsor for such great venue and I believe that article proves it in each point put forth....

Let's get this thing going.....

Bryan316 · December 26, 2006

Wow, great article....if only the incompetent Athletic Dept could back up what they say....
From what I read, I dont think it would be too hard to get a sponsor for such great venue and I believe that article proves it in each point put forth....
Let's get this thing going.....

:lol: I love reading your posts. The athletic department under RV has done nothing but improve. How many times do you need to read that the stadium campaign will hit the roads at the beginning of '07?

PlummMeanGreen · December 26, 2006

The sooner we build our new football stadium out at our Eagle Point Campus aka the Mean Green Village, the longer we'll ward off potential suitors for a good UNT coaching staff (especially from other non-BCS schools who don't like all this attention we're getting with Todd Dodge) and we'll also be able to keep the kind of coaches we want to hang around Mean Green Country for awhile, too.

Honest to goodness, though, I still don't think many of our top academians (staring with our Deans?) fully realize what this particular edifice located in the middle of Denton's Interstate 35 corridor will ultimately mean for each of their own departmental fundraising efforts.

Our campus fundraisers really need to put it in 4'th gear on this new stadium project if they haven't already. We need to turn dirt on this within the next 6-12 months and no later than that. Time is of essence and he who hesitates--loses? I know, easier said than done, but doggon' it, there are pro athletes getting paid the kind of monies UNT needs to build a very, very nice NCAA D1-A major college football stadium; and with that fact in mind, there is money out there to be had for this project, folks. :huh:

Edited December 26, 2006 by PlummMeanGreen

emmitt01 · December 26, 2006

I love reading your posts. The athletic department under RV has done nothing but improve. How many times do you need to read that the stadium campaign will hit the roads at the beginning of '07?

You make the assumption that playmaker can read.

UNT_playmaker · December 26, 2006

I love reading your posts. The athletic department under RV has done nothing but improve. How many times do you need to read that the stadium campaign will hit the roads at the beginning of '07?

My point is that this campaign has been long delayed.

PlummMeanGreen · December 27, 2006

My point is that this campaign has been long delayed.

...but we cannot afford the "dirt turning" part of the ceremony with all the NT dignitaries and a photo op with each of them holding their gold-plated shovels to be delayed. I think many of our own gut feelings tells us it will not delayed now due to recent developments.

You know, I am not sure we'll ever know if Todd Dodge was really ever RV's first choice; guess it really doesn't matter now. Personally, I don't think he was as I believe there were serious temptations to hire from other fronts (of which UNT-oriented public opinion may have discouraged), but what I think was our backing into the Todd Dodge hire has turned out to be a magnficently sweet hire for the NT Athletic Dept., Todd Dodge (himself) and a terrific early Christmas present for the entire UNT community and our Mean Green Nation.

I don't think we'll ever know how surprised many on the UNT campus (specifically athletics) would be with the local, regional and national publicity UNT has received with the hiring of Todd Dodge, either.

BUT..........we are asking Rick Villarreal (along with the very high profile new Mean Green HFC Todd Dodge who IMHO will be key to all of this new stadium business happening sooner than later) to raise more monies for our eventual new football stadium than is in the entire UNT System's endowment. I think with that aforementioned fact alone we would all sorta' know (from past history) how raising this amount of monies for a new stadium is probably going to go over like submarine with a chicken wire top hatch with many of our academians at our main campus.

This group (of academians) on our main campus may need to be reminded frequently, though, that it is actually the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) who is also saying UNT will need a new football stadium since they (TxDOT) will eventually take over interstate frontage property almost adjacent to the Fouts Field press box and concessions area.

BUT.........paraphrasing (liberally) a quote from that MeanGreenSports.com feature article of which almost 100% on this forum would agree: This will be the single-most important facility to be built at UNT as far as how it will affect every aspect of UNT life at our main campus.

I think all would agree that both the city of Denton and Denton County (which has a population larger than the city of New Orleans pre-Katrina) will also see some very nice windfall profit$ and benefit$ from the construction and usage of this enormous new facility, too.

FWIW, this new football stadium which will be located inside the Mean Green Village out at our Eagle Point Campus will most definitily be a win-win situation for every constituency mentioned in this very lengthy post.

Edited December 27, 2006 by PlummMeanGreen

Green Mean · December 27, 2006

...but we cannot afford the "dirt turning" part of the ceremony with all the NT dignitaries and a photo op with each of them holding their gold-plated shovels to be delayed. I think many of our own gut feelings tells us it will not delayed now due to recent developments.
You know, I am not sure we'll ever know if Todd Dodge was really ever RV's first choice; guess it really doesn't matter now. Personally, I don't think he was as I believe there were serious temptations to hire from other fronts (of which UNT-oriented public opinion may have discouraged), but what I think was our backing into the Todd Dodge hire has turned out to be a magnficently sweet hire for the NT Athletic Dept., Todd Dodge (himself) and a terrific early Christmas present for the entire UNT community and our Mean Green Nation.
I don't think we'll ever know how surprised many on the UNT campus (specifically athletics) would be with the local, regional and national publicity UNT has received with the hiring of Todd Dodge, either.
BUT..........we are asking Rick Villarreal (along with the very high profile new Mean Green HFC Todd Dodge who IMHO will be key to all of this new stadium business happening sooner than later) to raise more monies for our eventual new football stadium than is in the entire UNT System's endowment. I think with that aforementioned fact alone we would all sorta' know (from past history) how raising this amount of monies for a new stadium is probably going to go over like submarine with a chicken wire top hatch with many of our academians at our main campus.
This group (of academians) on our main campus may need to be reminded frequently, though, that it is actually the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) who is also saying UNT will need a new football stadium since they (TxDOT) will eventually take over interstate frontage property almost adjacent to the Fouts Field press box and concessions area.
BUT.........paraphrasing (liberally) a quote from that MeanGreenSports.com feature article of which almost 100% on this forum would agree: This will be the single-most important facility to be built at UNT as far as how it will affect every aspect of UNT life at our main campus.
I think all would agree that both the city of Denton and Denton County (which has a population larger than the city of New Orleans pre-Katrina) will also see some very nice windfall profit$ and benefit$ from the construction and usage of this enormous new facility, too.
FWIW, this new football stadium which will be located inside the Mean Green Village out at our Eagle Point Campus will most definitily be a win-win situation for every constituency mentioned in this very lengthy post.

Plumm you are definitely right on the importance of this new stadium. My next question is how big do you build it? 30K? 35K? 40k? Even as of this year i think the biggest crowd was against SMU that still only generated about 25k people(even thats not a sellout at fouts field). I want this stadium badly for NT but I am not surprised that the donations for the stadium are moving that far because frankly people dont go to the games. Its free for ALL students but not even they can fill the thing up even though there are almost 35k students attending. The only way the stadium will be a necessity is if we can consistently have 20k-30k attendance every home game no matter what. Maybe the hiring of TD will be the answer but for how long? One season? Two seasons? All I can say is that the mean green nation need to come together now and fill up the seats for all the football and basketball games. Only then will get start getting respect for our competing schools in the area, state, region, and then nationally. What do you guys think?

Stan R · December 27, 2006

The only design I've seen so far was for 35K seats if I remember correctly. Expandable to 50K. I think that is reasonable. If you start selling out the 35K then add an additional 5-10K and so on. But let's start selling out the new stadium with 35K fans first. It will be VERY interesting to see the attendance numbers for next season.

PlummMeanGreen · December 28, 2006

Plumm you are definitely right on the importance of this new stadium. My next question is how big do you build it? 30K? 35K? 40k? Even as of this year i think the biggest crowd was against SMU that still only generated about 25k people(even thats not a sellout at fouts field). I want this stadium badly for NT but I am not surprised that the donations for the stadium are moving that far because frankly people dont go to the games. Its free for ALL students but not even they can fill the thing up even though there are almost 35k students attending. The only way the stadium will be a necessity is if we can consistently have 20k-30k attendance every home game no matter what. Maybe the hiring of TD will be the answer but for how long? One season? Two seasons? All I can say is that the mean green nation need to come together now and fill up the seats for all the football and basketball games. Only then will get start getting respect for our competing schools in the area, state, region, and then nationally. What do you guys think?

Good post, Green Mean...To answer one of your questions, I say a 40,000 seat stadium (1'st phase) because that will help us get some of the high profile Big 12 schools into Denton. Would we fill it every time? Of course not, but does Baylor fill theirs for every Big 12 home game in Waco? but with a 40,000 seat stadium we would pay a heckuva' lot of bills when we do fill it for those September OOC Big 12, Big 10, SEC, home season openers. We should all remember that UNT, Denton and Denton County have no immediate plans in any of their short-term and long-range planned growth studies of getting smaller in enrollment and populations.

So many times in the past we seem to act like everything that happens in the future of our Mean Green football program will be based on whats happened the last 9 to 25 or so years and with the leadership we had during much of that time. During these past decades, we had some good leaders & we had some bad leaders who only delivered lip-service when it came to Mean Green athletics; but during most of that time we had no leaders who wanted to lead us into the direction a school our size and scope should have been being led all the time. Former Prez. Dr. Norval Pohl helped us play a lot of catch-up with our NT athletic program and he came to us during a crucial time--but he left us at a crucial time, too (and we will probably never know all the reasons for that other than his taking up for one of his UNT VP's). NOTE: Many of us thought there may have been a philosophical conflict between he and Chancellor Jackson, too, but that is probably just a message board guess.

Listen to me (if you will) fellow nestors, NT Exes and MG enthusiasts for the cause :lol: : This is a new era! Let's repeat those 5 words together again: :rolleyes: THIS IS A NEW ERA! ! ! ! ! ! Our school will continue to grow, Denton will continue to grow and Denton County will continue to grow. If we have not found those on our campus who cannot market these kind of growth demographics that we have been getting in Mean Green Country an an annual basis, then............. .................well, you fill in the rest of this statement.

Schools that act like they are going to get bigger and better just use some common sense and build to meet such expecations. If we build in the future based on our 12 years in 1-AA and most of the last 25+/- years, then lets just build a small stadium to meet small expectations at UNT and continue to hang in there toward the Bottom 25 of NCAA D1-A while we win a few SBC championships and go to a few bowls (but not much else that anyone outside the SBC has seemed to notice).

UNT Has More Potential To Be a BCS Championship Series Major Bowl Contender Than The Boise State Broncos! Put That In 3 Inch Headlines!(Well, I guess I just did). :rolleyes:

Funny thing is, but I don't think only SBC/Bottom 25 mild successes is exactly what Todd Dodge has signed on for at UNT. I think most of really feel in our heart of hearts that he has much more in mind for Mean Green football with his being our new head football coach. He knows he cannot get the Notre Dame job by emulating everything Darrell Dickey did in Denton. That is a no-brainer. If DD had to do all this all over again, I think even he would have taken a different approach.

BUT................hellsbells, :blink: Coach Dodge probably knows that even he can't get a major college job offer after 5, 7 or 10 years in Denton by doing everything just as we've been doing things the last 9- 25 years in MG Country. I would think he probably realizes thats Mean Green football will most likely need to do things at the level the Boise State Broncos have been almost since we left their presence as Big West Conference-mates many years ago.

FWIW.................UNT has already identified a handful who could build our new football stadium and one that could probably seat as many as 50,000 if that is what they want to do initially, but its just a matter of what I feel will be a very high profile UNT new stadium committee (with NT President/Dr. B, Rick Villarreal and Todd Dodge among that group) sitting down with 1 or 2 or 3 of these corporations or indviduals that UNT already knows has the Big Bucks to get started with the new stadium. Todd Dodge's presence makes this about 200% more do-able than where we were, folks, and I think most of you (like it or not) would now have to mostly agree with that, too.

And what we will be getting started on with this enormous new football palace to be located inside the Mean Green Village will be one of the most exciting chapters our school will have ever experienced since it opened it doors for business (circa 1890) when Texas was not that far removed from the days when Commanche and Kiowa Indians were still raiding many of our northern Texas ranches and farm houses.

........................................................................

Our journey toward what many, many, many of us have thought for decades could be our ultimate (much higher profile) NCAA D1-A destination will be almost as exciting as reaching that destination point itself. Hang onto your seats, fellow Mean Green'ers! It's going to be one heckuva' wild ride!'

.........................................................................

GMG!

Edited December 28, 2006 by PlummMeanGreen