C-USA Baseball coming to UNT?

[UNTeagle88]

Is this idea dead in the water for the C-USA conference?

I know there are plans to build a baseball field...

[MDH]

Well in a halftime interview today RV specifically mentioned baseball coming to UNT.

[KRAM1]

Baseball is on the way to UNT. Patience, grasshopper, patience. It will not be that much longer now.....

[GreenBat]

The Big question is will RV still be at NT when baseball gets added? His coaching hires have not been too successful with the exception of Women's soccer and volleyball, do any coaches he has hired have a better than .500 record at NT? Honest question.

[Mean Green Scrappy]

Well in a halftime interview today RV specifically mentioned baseball coming to UNT.

I missed this, what did he say? Anything about a timeline?

[MDH]

I missed this, what did he say? Anything about a timeline?

No timeline, but it was the first time I've actually heard it mentioned by Rick. He also said we raised $3.1m for the Bball practice facility and Super Pit upgrade (target was 2 or 2.5 IIRC?), that we're working on an indoor golf practice facility ($1.5m IIRC, 600k pledged), and have a 7 figure commitment but can't announce it yet.

[Green Mean]

Well it seems Aston would have been a good hire, bad luck there. Peterson is a proven head coach, so hopefully the improvement in WBball continues.

• Sujay Lama in tennis has completely turned that program around, from a joke to a ranked team.
  
• Both men's and women's golf where ranked last year and the men's team is strong again this year (women's has fallen off a bit).
  
• As you mentioned soccer and volleyball are very good.
  
• Women's track won the 2012 belt title (outdoor).
  
• Swimming is solid (ranked 10th in 'mid-majors').
  
• Softball made it to the conference semis and finished above .500 and set a program record for conference wins.
  

And the jury is still out on Mac and Benford.

Stephens and Dodge were nightmare hires. Overall, I think the coaching hires have been better than average. The steaming pile that Dodge left tends to mak us forget that in all-round sports, UNT has been consistently soild, with the low finishes in Women's bball and football really bringing our bubbas cup point totals down, keeping us in 3rd place.

I like RV but we have to judge him on the critical and high visibility hires of football and men's basketball. He goes from Dodge to Coach Mac which in his first two years have been less than average. In basketball he had a stacked team to work with and brought on Benford and while the jury is still out on him it is alarming to see the trends and level of play the first half dozen games of the season. And on the side let's also not forget the hiring of Shanice Stephens. Overall RV has done great things here but if the right hires aren't made for the football team and men's basketball then his job status shouldn't be untouchable here IMO.

[scratch1976]

how bout the Johnny Jones hire? good hire...

[MeanGreenBuzz]

I manage 12 retail stores and from a managers standpoint what some of y'all are saying about RV is rediculous. I'm not going to fire a good store manager because he makes a bad hire. Hell I've made multiple bad hires over the years. Some times you get guys with great resumes, great references, and interview great that just don't pan out. Thats part of managing a team and personnel. If you could just look at someone and say, "yeah, your gonna be great" life would be a lot easier but thats not how it works. Sometimes you make the right call and sometimes you dont. It's what you do after that counts. You cut the dead weight and move on to the next guy. And for the record I don't remember anyone on here complaining about the Benford hire. We all though he could come in and coach this team to the sweet 16. In my experience you have to interview 10 people minimum to find 1 good hire and usually only 1 in 5 of those hires turn out to be exceptional. So far Rick is doing better than that.

[outoftown]

Well it seems Aston would have been a good hire, bad luck there. Peterson is a proven head coach, so hopefully the improvement in WBball continues.

• Sujay Lama in tennis has completely turned that program around, from a joke to a ranked team.
  
• Both men's and women's golf where ranked last year and the men's team is strong again this year (women's has fallen off a bit).
  
• As you mentioned soccer and volleyball are very good.
  
• Women's track won the 2012 belt title (outdoor).
  
• Swimming is solid (ranked 10th in 'mid-majors').
  
• Softball made it to the conference semis and finished above .500 and set a program record for conference wins.
  

And the jury is still out on Mac and Benford.

Stephens and Dodge were nightmare hires. Overall, I think the coaching hires have been better than average. The steaming pile that Dodge left tends to mak us forget that in all-round sports, UNT has been consistently soild, with the low finishes in Women's bball and football really bringing our bubbas cup point totals down, keeping us in 3rd place.

fixed

[MeanGreenTexan]

I manage 12 retail stores and from a managers standpoint what some of y'all are saying about RV is rediculous. I'm not going to fire a good store manager because he makes a bad hire. Hell I've made multiple bad hires over the years. Some times you get guys with great resumes, great references, and interview great that just don't pan out. Thats part of managing a team and personnel. If you could just look at someone and say, "yeah, your gonna be great" life would be a lot easier but thats not how it works. Sometimes you make the right call and sometimes you dont. It's what you do after that counts. You cut the dead weight and move on to the next guy. And for the record I don't remember anyone on here complaining about the Benford hire. We all though he could come in and coach this team to the sweet 16. In my experience you have to interview 10 people minimum to find 1 good hire and usually only 1 in 5 of those hires turn out to be exceptional. So far Rick is doing better than that.

Let's put this into a hypothetical:

You manage 12 retail stores (re: 12 different athletic programs). 3 of them each produce more revenue than all of your other stores combined. Now forget your flagship store that your corporate office just built a brand new storefront for... that one has its own set of problems. For now, lets focus on your 2nd biggest store. This store still doubles, maybe triples the revenue of all of the other stores combined (minus the flagship store). For the past 10 years, you have watched this store's profits grow and attract great workers. Your store manager decides to take a different managerial job at a bigger store somewhere. You go out and hire a new guy and he immediately tanks that store's profits in the first month, and the Christmas season is coming up with no turnaround in sight.

Your bosses are not going to be happy with the second biggest store's margins. They're going to wonder what happened, and you'll have to explain that your hire is the only difference. What do you do? What would you expect your bosses at corporate to do?

[Grant.UNT]

Let's put this into a hypothetical:

You manage 12 retail stores (re: 12 different athletic programs). 3 of them each produce more revenue than all of your other stores combined. Now forget your flagship store that your corporate office just built a brand new storefront for... that one has its own set of problems. For now, lets focus on your 2nd biggest store. This store still doubles, maybe triples the revenue of all of the other stores combined (minus the flagship store). For the past 10 years, you have watched this store's profits grow and attract great workers. Your store manager decides to take a different managerial job at a bigger store somewhere. You go out and hire a new guy and he immediately tanks that store's profits in the first month, and the Christmas season is coming up with no turnaround in sight.

Your bosses are not going to be happy with the second biggest store's margins. They're going to wonder what happened, and you'll have to explain that your hire is the only difference. What do you do? What would you expect your bosses at corporate to do?

Interesting scenario as I've managed many retail locations in my past lives. I have taken over good stores and crappy stores. All stores that I have managed have been better when I left than when I started. However, building a new culture in a store, doing well or not, takes time. The store's profits may have been through the roof when I got there, but I still had plenty of housekeeping to do. I had to re-program plenty of good employees, bring in good assistant managers, promote some mediocre employees to customer, and build my new culture. It took time, but my DM's always new that the turnaround would come. This lengthy turnaround is exasperated because Christmas shopping season is nye upon us, aka TM is going pro next year.Still it took me time to achieve my goals as it will take time for TB to get this ship righted with his own culture in place.

aww to hell with it, FIRE HIM NOW!!

[MeanGreenBuzz]

aww to hell with it, FIRE HIM NOW!!

Unfortunately this is the mentality now. Fire first ask questions later. If we had this mentality 40 years ago Tom Landry would have been canned after his second season as the Cowboys head coach, Aikman would have been benched after his first season, etc.

As for the previous post. I would be held accountable for that store and managers poor performance but the conversation would be about what am I doing to fix the problem not about my job. Especially if I have a track record of growing my companies profit, market share, and facility standards for the past decade. Now if I ignore the problem that's a different story. Lets give Benford more than 7 games and give RV some credit for all he as accomplished since he arrived. He has done more in all facets of his responsibilities than any AD I can think of for NT. There are a lot of schools that would kill to have seen the improvements we have for the last decade.

[DeepGreen]

RV has to manage only one store, and has 12 dept. managers under him. Each department(sports) is a profit center(wins), some accounting for more sales/profits than others (football, basketball), and the managers are paid a bonus based on the profits(wins, title IX, etc.) generated by their respective departments. When departments lose money(lack of wins), in time, the buck stops at the guy running the store(RV) who hired the department managers in the first place. Again, the buck stops with RV.

Brought to you by DeepGreen, 45+ years in the distribution business.

Edited December 4, 2012 by DeepGreen

[MeanGreenBuzz]

RV has to manage only one store, and has 12 dept. managers under him. Each department(sports) is a profit center(wins), some accounting for more sales/profits than others (football, basketball), and the managers are paid a bonus based on the profits(wins, title IX, etc.) generated by their respective departments. When departments lose money(lack of wins), in time, the buck stops at the guy running the store(RV) who hired the department managers in the first place. Again, the buck stops with RV.

Brought to you by DeepGreen, 45+ years in the distribution business.

I do agree the buck stops with RV. I never countered that point. I disagree with calling for his head.

[UNTLifer]

I do agree the buck stops with RV. I never countered that point. I disagree with calling for his head.

I agree. Brought to you by UNTLifer with 20 years of management experience.

[DeepGreen]

I agree. Brought to you by UNTLifer with 20 years of management experience.

Didn't call for his head, but I'd damn sure put him on notice!

Brought to you by DeepGreen, 45+ years in the distribution business, Exec, VP, and many years hiring and fireing guys like UNTLifer!

Just kidding Lifer!! I couldn't let you off the hook that easy!

Carry On.

Edited December 6, 2012 by DeepGreen

[UNTDude]

The Big question is will RV still be at NT when baseball gets added? His coaching hires have not been too successful with the exception of Women's soccer and volleyball, do any coaches he has hired have a better than .500 record at NT? Honest question.

Hedlund was not hired by RV....

[NT91]

I wonder if NT will use the Alum logo on there hat?

[NT91]

How can we give money to NT baseball?

Edited December 16, 2012 by NT91

[KRAM1]

How can we give money to NT baseball?

I can help you with that if you want to PM me with your contact info.

[meangreanmick]

http://endow.unt.edu. Click on DONATE button, if you want to specify a purpose you choose the area and can put restrictions on it (i.e. only for baseball)