Who has been the best UNT Prez for Athletics?

[Harry]

You thoughts? This was a tough one for me. Rawlins hit for the best average but you have to consider Pohl getting a traditionally anti athletic campus back on track. You could argue had Pohl not done what he did Rawlins wouldn't have been in a position to get everything he was able to get done. If it were for academics alone I think Hurley would have to be at the top of the list just because he kept us a viable academic university on piss poor state funding and didn't allow us to be taken over by A&M or UT Systems... a fact I am very proud of to this day. Simply put, Hurley kept us in the game.

As an aside -- I found it interesting that we had a president named John Joseph Kamerick (1968-1970) who was opposed to the Vietnam War and was forced out of his office from then governor Preston Smith...

After Kamerick we had we had 5 different presidents for the span of 12 years (1970-1982) prior to Al Hurley...wow - points to a real instability right about the same time that we lost Hayden Fry and ended up going to I-AA and the Southland conference. I would be interested to know what caused that period, if it was funding, or political etc... After reading some of Fry's book it made me wonder what was going on behind the scenes in the administration at North Texas during that time.

[UNTLifer]

Good poll/question. I went with Pohl based on the reasons you listed.

[GrandGreen]

Only thing that Hurley did was not kill sports entirely.

Jitter as most know went a little too far for athletics.

My vote goes to Pohl. Bataille and Rawlins certainly followed his lead, Pohl advanced NT after Hurley lackluster performance in all areas in my view. Rawlins in his short time as been a pleasant surprise.

Sports are only a secondary concern, but NT needs to ensure they make the right hire to replace Rawlins.

[greenjoe]

What sort of voice does athletics have in the search committee to look for a new president ?

[Mean Green Matt]

Norval Pohl.

[rws69]

J. C. Matthews (1952-1968), capacity crowds for exciting MVC basketball, solid track and field success, Abner Haynes and Joe Greene eras for football.

[meangreendork]

Dr. Pohl, bar none. He did a lot to turn around the culture of UNT both as a campus and for its athletic programs. I'm sure that Dr. Rawlins would've done as good or better in the same position, but Dr. Pohl was here when things were far worse and that's why he gets the vote. Dr. Bataille would be a close 3rd on the list.

[Harry]

J. C. Matthews (1952-1968), capacity crowds for exciting MVC basketball, solid track and field success, Abner Haynes and Joe Greene eras for football.

I've added him in -- feel free to vote for him now and thanks for the suggestion.

[DeepGreen]

Norval Pohl. Actually met him at one of those, never had one since, QUARTERLY MEETINGS.

[SilverEagle]

J. C. Matthews (1952-1968), capacity crowds for exciting MVC basketball, solid track and field success, Abner Haynes and Joe Greene eras for football.

J. C. Matthews?

About the only sport he was friendly towards was Basketball. J.C. Matthews is the father of our modern anti-sports culture at North Texas. When he was approached by alumni who wanted to start a Mean Green club-like organization he strongly discouraged it. His attitude was "they do fine within the budget we give them, and there is no reason to raise outside money". I'm told he had the same attitude toward outside contributions for other things as well. Which is one of the reasons we were so late in starting an endowment fund (which he discouraged or downright forbid) and why it is so small compared to other schools in Texas.

I voted for C.C. "Jitter" Nolan, who found a creative way to come up with the funds to pay Hayden Fry. He gave him two separate salaries, one as Head Coach, and one as AD. You can't get more athletic friendly than that.....at least for it's time anyway.

Edited March 11, 2013 by SilverEagle

[GL2Greatness]

al hurley was a joke and was the epitome of riding the pine

and hate to burst the bubble, but the UT and TAMU Systems are not really expansionist they do not go around looking for other schools to take over or other systems to disolve and UT especially would not want another school in the metromess

the schools that were PLACED into the UT and TAMU Systems in the 80s and 90s were put into those systems not at the request of those systems, but at the request of the legislators in their areas because they wanted to reduce the amount of PUF funds that UT, TAMU and PVAMU got for "excellence"

the UT and TAMU systems have repeatedly turned down the chance to expand their systems especially when it did not make sense

the UT System laughed at opening a campus in south dallas when it was offered and the TAMU System laughed at the idea of a full blown university and instead was looking at an upper division system center in conjunction with a community college as proven by the 2000 press release from the idiot royce west still on his senate website today about Aggies in South dallas......and that upper division system center approach is the same one used by the TAMU System in areas where there was an actual educational need like south San Antonio and Central Texas

so al hurley did not fend off any take over because there was NEVER a threat of that ever.....and other than that he was a do nothing that allowed useless and out dated programs to continue long past their need and turned down every opportunity to do anything meaningful and he watched the faculty take over the university and turn it into a center of apathy and a place where tenure requirements consisted of having a pulse

[ragpicker]

You know, we had some pretty good football teams back in the 20's, 30's and 40's and some pretty good coaches (Jack Sisco comes to mind). I don't even know who most of the presidents were back then, but maybe they should get some credit for getting this thing off of the ground despite some of the apathetic attitudes toward sports that came late (And that we are still paying for.)

Incidentally, by all indications, J.C. Matthews put up with athletics because he was stuck with athletics, not because he had any real interest in it. If anyone has any evidence to the contrary, please advise.

[PlummMeanGreen]

Think about what each president inherited when they signed on with North Texas. Pohl did a good job of elevating the

importance of NCAA D1 athletics better than most anyone.

UNT Prez' Jitter Nolen hired Fry after Rod Rust's last team in 1972 had "ZERO" wins. Seems more talk of dropping football came after Rust's last season. All doubts would be erased in December of 1972 when Jitter Nolen and his VP Dr. Roy Busby spoke with Fry and then hired him......much to the chagrin of our "teacher's college" crowd.

Hindsight is always....20/20 !

I sometimes think that UNT bit off more than our resources and far too few money rich friends/alums could really ever deliver when we kept expanding past the FW medical school to become a full-fledged system. In fact, had we not had the Dallas expansion (of which obviously putting the most prestigious schools, ie, law, medical, pharmacy, etc, in Dallas & Fort Worth) was part of the deal; anyhow, I wonder if our main campus could have picked up those prestigious additions instead. Yet our weak political presence in Austin probably prevented that. Again..........hindsight here.

I also wonder if we would have had an easier time of raising the necessary monies to become a Tier 1 research university if we weren't so spread out but rather only had to focus on raising the requred monies for our Denton campus?

So........do some schools now have an advantage over UNT because we are fighting too many academic wars at too many campuses in our UNT System?

GMG!

Edited March 12, 2013 by PlummMeanGreen

[GrayEagle]

Everyone except Al Hurley had a part in the advancement of athletics at North Texas and the poll reflects that.

While everything that Silver said about Carl Matthews is substantially correct his love for basketball did move us from Division II/small college days to Division 1/major college. He had AD Emmit Cambron obtain admission to arguably the best basketball conference (and a major football conference)...the Missouri Valley and he upheld the funding. Reluctantly, he should be on the ballot.

Jitter Nolen hired Hayden Fry and kept him funded; eventually at the cost of his job (although that was not the announced reason). There can be no debate that Hayden made us known nationally but the lack of a conference and bowls could not sustain the recognition. Still Jitter did everything within (and sometimes out of) his power to put us on the football map.

Although Dr. Hurley was responsible in our return to Division 1A, it was Norval Pohl that began the revival of the football program. He began major changes in sports facilities with the new athletic center and the acquisition of the Liberty Christian properties. He sold the importance of athletics to the Board of Regents but had to fight the faculty nearly every step of the way.

Gretchen Bataille had a background in arts, not sports, and I feared the worst when she was named president. But, she was a force behind improvements in facilities and funding and the building of Apogee Stadium.

As someone said, Lane Rawlins would have been a force majeure in advancing athletics cause had he been president at an earlier time. I believe that he was instrumental in our joining CUSA; a conference that he helped create. He was also likely to have had a hand in the selection of Dan McCarney.

Good topic and hard to choose a favorite.

[ragpicker]

Come to think of it, we must give old JC credit for the move to Division 1 and the Missouri Valley. It wasn't the SWC and we had no real rivals, but it was one of the best basketball conference a very good football conference and it distanced us from the small Texas school category. Those games in the old pit were so much fun and we got to see great players. Incidentally, I believe the MVC is the oldest athletic conference in the United States.

[JesseMartin]

I'm glad to see that others are aware of the insanity that was the huge span of Hurley's tenure. The only upside to that is that his political connections were decent, but the fact is that everything that went on at North Texas had to be for the gain of Al Hurley the whole time. I know you could point to how I've stated that the success of each of us contributes to one another's successes as well, but this went way beyond that. His threats and intimidation tactics if anyone "stepped out of line", be they student journalists who found out about things they shouldn't have or faculty and staff who were trying to do their jobs properly (but in a way that Hurley may not get as much credit as he preferred), are not only legendary but also at times so far off base as to be unconstitutional. If he had thought that the athletics programs would have helped make a bigger name for him, he would have supported them. It sickens me that the Admin Building is now named for him. Of course, anyone who was "in" with him wouldn't feel the same way, because he certainly helped those who helped him, but for anyone not on his list of favorites, there was a lot that went on behind the scenes that really should have been halted a long time before he left.

Dr. Pohl was a great find for every area of UNT, and I sincerely doubt that Bataille and Rawlins would have been able to achieve nearly as much, via athletics or any other area, without his revisionism and attempts to heal the wounds that had been left on the University community before he arrived. With internet and media being such a huge part of the average American's life, Pohl made UNT more visible for those on the outside as well as accessible and, shall we say, appropriately run to maintain the loyalty of those already within our community. Some of the previous Presidents in our middle years had their ups and downs, but I believe that Dr. Pohl advanced us in every area to where we were at the doorstep to where we should have been years before.

[Cr1028]

I just want to point out that Dr. Pohl hired RV so some of you may be interested in changing your votes.

[rcade]

His threats and intimidation tactics if anyone "stepped out of line", be they student journalists who found out about things they shouldn't have or faculty and staff who were trying to do their jobs properly (but in a way that Hurley may not get as much credit as he preferred), are not only legendary but also at times so far off base as to be unconstitutional.

I was the editor of The Daily in 1988 when Hurley was president and I wrote for the paper around two years. I don't recall Hurley ever trying to intimidate the student press, though I did hear sometimes that he wasn't happy about something we reported. We had a scoop on the school breaking the mandatory hazing reporting law and I had it published during homecoming to reach the widest possible audience of alumni. One of his VPs called me and the paper's faculty advisor Keith Shelton in to let us know his unhappiness that we reported it instead of working privately to fix it. I told him it would be inappropriate for a newspaper to do that. We were there to report stories, not fix problems so there was no story.

I did wonder sometimes whether Richard Rafes, the school's legal counsel and a close associate of Hurley, was trying to intimidate me by badmouthing me all over campus. I kept hearing what he was telling people about me. It was harsh.

After I was done with the school paper, I wrote a Fort Worth Star-Telegram story about Hurley's wife Johanna doing charity work for veterans. They liked it so much that she told me Al didn't like me before the story, but now he did. We were on good terms after that. I was fond of Big Al.  

Edited October 20, 2015 by rcade

[drex]

Once again I reiterate that Hurley had nothing to do with the return to D-1 football.  His only contribution was his decision not to go to D-2 football.  At that time it was move up to D-1 or drop down to D-2, as the NCAA was going to dissolve D1-AA (which they did not do, as it turns out). 

[Mean Green 93-98]

Once again I reiterate that Hurley had nothing to do with the return to D-1 football.  His only contribution was his decision not to go to D-2 football.  At that time it was move up to D-1 or drop down to D-2, as the NCAA was going to dissolve D1-AA (which they did not do, as it turns out). 

You mentioned this in another thread, but I believe you're either misinformed or remembering incorrectly on this.

[rcade]

Once again I reiterate that Hurley had nothing to do with the return to D-1 football.  His only contribution was his decision not to go to D-2 football.  At that time it was move up to D-1 or drop down to D-2, as the NCAA was going to dissolve D1-AA (which they did not do, as it turns out). 

Hurley was UNT president when we returned to I-A after a campaign by donors bought enough seats at Fouts for us to meet eligibility requirements. I don't know how it can be said he had nothing to do with this move, since he could've killed the idea. I do regard him as being mostly indifferent to UNT athletics during his tenure.

[Mo Green]

J. Nolan in the 60's

[Mean Green 93-98]

J. Nolan in the 60's

70's, you mean.

[GrayEagle]

Jitter Nolan, without a doubt.  He eventually got fired for making every effort to see that Hayden Fry had money to operate with.  Still, the Athletic Department couldn't balance its budget.

[SilverEagle]

Jitter Nolan, without a doubt.  He eventually got fired for making every effort to see that Hayden Fry had money to operate with.  Still, the Athletic Department couldn't balance its budget.

That's because North Texas had always maintained a modest athletic budget, while Hayden (as my dear departed father-in-law used to say) "bored with a big auger".