Great Article On Being Excellent In Athletics As Well As Academics

UNTLifer · April 22, 2009

Great Quote from the AD:

“If we were still using the same chemistry department built in 1951, the same Bunsen burners, we’re not going to get chemists here,” Del Conte said. “That’s the reality. So having to invest in intercollegiate facilities is the big thing.”

Here's where we missed the boat after the conference winning streak and the bowl games. Strike while the iron's hot! This quote is about their recent bowl game in Houston:

“It ignited the hope of an entire university,” Del Conte said. “We only have 40,000 living alumni. Twenty-six thousand people showed up at the bowl game. That’s when you realize there’s true passion. I think it’s opened up a lot of people’s eyes to say, ‘Oh, that’s what we’ve been missing.’
“We see light at the end of the tunnel of what it could be if we invest.”

Here was a very interesting fact from Del Conte's page in their football program regarding their trip to the New Orleans Bowl which was their first bowl game in 45 years:

Nearly 12,000 Owls filled multiple hotels in New Orleans for Rice's trip to the R&L Carriers New Orleans Bowl, making it the largest gathering of alumni for an event not held on the Rice University campus.

Rice, at the printing time of that program, had raised $72 million for facilities since Del Conte arrived in 2006 and he mentioned how a successful athletic's program had allowed this to occur while also spurring contributions to all areas of Rice University.

Now Rice produces alumni that make quite a bit of cash, but considering that Rice has in the neighborhood of only 40,000 living alumni, NT should be able to do the same just based upon the vast numbers of alumni it produces. NT almost has three times as many living alumni in the DFW market as Rice has worldwide.

My point in this thread is to show those that may visit this website but not be regular posters that successful athletics can benefit the entire university. Rice is a prime example within our own state that proves athletics and academics can and do both succeed on one campus. The focus shouldn't be solely on one or the other, but the goal should be excellence across all aspects of our university.

Edited April 22, 2009 by UNTLifer

NT Drummer · April 22, 2009

Thanks, Lifer. I had seen the article in print, but had forgotten to go find it online to post.

Did we "miss the boat" when we were in the N.O. bowl back in 2001-2004? Not entirely. It brought me back - I had been disassociated from NT for years until 2001, and now I'm a MG Club member. Yes, much more could have been done. But we can't look back, we have to look forward.

LongJim · April 22, 2009

Great article and great post, Lifer.

Success in the money-making sports has been shown to be a boon for colleges over and over in term of enrollment, facilities improvement, and endowments. It can happen at UNT, as well.

UNT90 · April 22, 2009

Impressed that the AD knew how many (approximate, I'm sure) living alums Rice had. I wonder if anyone at UNT has an approximate on this number.

The win streak brought me back, sort of, to being interested in UNT athletics and the University as a whole. Problem was, there was no place to get info on the program (sparsely covered by local media, athletic website not very good). I found this board while looking for recruiting info after Dodge's 1st season, heard what a great time everyone had at games, how tailgating was allowed, got the recruiting info I was after, and became hooked. Now I have season tickets, contribute to the Mean Green Club, and am an ex's member.

I love this board, but wish the Athletic Department could do more to get the info out there.

DallasGreen · April 22, 2009

You are stating the obvious here, and I do believe Dr. B gets the picture when it comes to this, but we do have to hit the marketing hard if we can show some hope for success. SEVEN FB wins in FOUR years won't exactly ignite alumni gifts.

NT Drummer · April 22, 2009

Somewhat related: Maggard retiring as UH athletics director

The article itself isn't much, it's the comments:

cfougerat wrote:
I guess he didn't get the backing he wanted for the stadium improvements
PearlandStephen wrote:
So, on Monday we read that Maggard has changed his views on the North Endzone construction, and would prefer to re-do the entire stadium, and the next day he 'decides to retire'. That sounds like odd timing.
uhsupert wrote:
WHAT THA!?!? He was just pushing to make Robertson Staduim bigger and now he's leaving!? What just happened!?!?

That led me to look for the article about UH's stadium from Monday: UH thinking bigger picture on Robertson upgrade plan

KRAM1 · April 22, 2009

Lifer...great post and great article. It can be done, and UNT is moving in that direction. Lots of folks have re-connected to UNT in recent months, years, etc. It takes effort to bring 'em back, much more than if you try to keep them engaged in the first place.

GO MEAN GREEN!

April 22, 2009

Impressed that the AD knew how many (approximate, I'm sure) living alums Rice had. I wonder if anyone at UNT has an approximate on this number.
The win streak brought me back, sort of, to being interested in UNT athletics and the University as a whole. Problem was, there was no place to get info on the program (sparsely covered by local media, athletic website not very good). I found this board while looking for recruiting info after Dodge's 1st season, heard what a great time everyone had at games, how tailgating was allowed, got the recruiting info I was after, and became hooked. Now I have season tickets, contribute to the Mean Green Club, and am an ex's member.
I love this board, but wish the Athletic Department could do more to get the info out there.

I've seen on several occasions that we have 175,000 (supposedly) living alumni. I believe that's the number in our database but I doubt that has been substantiated. Many of those are likely deceased or at the very least have moved; perhaps many times. Years ago I had an alumni list of Garland zip codes and found that only about 50% of the 4,000 names could be verified. For some, it was their parent's address and they no longer lived there. For others, I tried using the telephone directory and criss-cross directory at the library. It's a tedious and laborious job with far from 100% success ratio.

Also remember that this is a list of everyone who had attended North Texas. They probably do a better job with those that graduated but even then the list is only accurate when the alum notifies the college of an address change or death.