For those who question the commitment

[TIgreen01]

I call it stealth because the AD couldn't or wouldn't even speak up during the run-up to the election for the simple reason that everyone knew that it would sway the faculty and NT Daily even more so to get out the vote against the new stadium fee, just as it had the previous time that RV got involved.

After the vote was done, if you'll remember, several people came out and basically screamed about how so many people didn't know about the election, that the Athletic Department never promoted it enough to get the attention it deserved. That's why I called it "stealth"--it was actually genius by the AD not to get involved, becasue that was the only way it had a chance of passing. Otherwise, we still play at Fouts right now in the SBC, with a very real possibility of having to drop back down to FCS or get rid of football since the crumbling stadium couldn't handle the needs of FBS program in today's world.

From the first thread linked, above, and in UNTFlyer's own words:

"Mr. Young claims the administration is "imposing" this fee on students. While the university's administration offered advice on the wording and context of the referendum in order for it to pass legislative muster, in no way did they campaign for or against the fee. In contrast to this, many professors violated SGA campaign rules by speaking out AGAINST the fee during class time, making false claims about losing vital funding for microscopes and other supplies if the referendum passed. These and other violations committed by those who opposed the fee were for the most part ignored."

It would have been a violation of SGA rules for the AD to publicly support the fee. Doing so would have opened the door to having the 'yes' vote recalled.

[GrandGreen]

We have gone from basically openly scorning athletics to grudging acceptance.

I guess that's progress, but it isn't anywhere close to the TCU's of the world.

Hell, it isn't even close to the UTSA's of the world.

It's half-ass. It needs to change.

What needs to change? If you mean getting capable people in the right positions, sure that needs to be done.

Acceptance grudging or not of what? I think we need to be reasonable but demanding of all NT personnel. I doubt if any one poster on this forum has the resources to effect any changes in NT athletes.

However, you would have to be a fool or delusional not to be aware of the overall prevalent view of NT athletes. Just look at the support the program currently has. I bet basketball season tickets were at an all time high last year, but the season was so bad that attendance was almost back to late Trilli levels at the end of the year. A brand new football stadium two years ago with the best home OC schedule probably of all times, and NT attendance could not be labeled anything but a big disappointment. Despite advances in football facilities and coaching salaries, NT remains at the bottom of the barrel in Texas football recruiting.

So the status of NT's major sports is certainly known, and with or without message board ultimatums, changes will be made unless things substantially improve.

[Green Dozer]

What needs to change? If you mean getting capable people in the right positions, sure that needs to be done.

Acceptance grudging or not of what? I think we need to be reasonable but demanding of all NT personnel. I doubt if any one poster on this forum has the resources to effect any changes in NT athletes.

However, you would have to be a fool or delusional not to be aware of the overall prevalent view of NT athletes. Just look at the support the program currently has. I bet basketball season tickets were at an all time high last year, but the season was so bad that attendance was almost back to late Trilli levels at the end of the year. A brand new football stadium two years ago with the best home OC schedule probably of all times, and NT attendance could not be labeled anything but a big disappointment. Despite advances in football facilities and coaching salaries, NT remains at the bottom of the barrel in Texas football recruiting.

So the status of NT's major sports is certainly known, and with or without message board ultimatums, changes will be made unless things substantially improve.

Increased sales of season tickets for men's basketball? No, there was not an increase. Now, there are a lot of folks who are not going to re-new for next year. I personally know of two fans who mailed their tix directly back to RV.

[UNT90]

What needs to change? If you mean getting capable people in the right positions, sure that needs to be done.

Acceptance grudging or not of what? I think we need to be reasonable but demanding of all NT personnel. I doubt if any one poster on this forum has the resources to effect any changes in NT athletes.

However, you would have to be a fool or delusional not to be aware of the overall prevalent view of NT athletes. Just look at the support the program currently has. I bet basketball season tickets were at an all time high last year, but the season was so bad that attendance was almost back to late Trilli levels at the end of the year. A brand new football stadium two years ago with the best home OC schedule probably of all times, and NT attendance could not be labeled anything but a big disappointment. Despite advances in football facilities and coaching salaries, NT remains at the bottom of the barrel in Texas football recruiting.

So the status of NT's major sports is certainly known, and with or without message board ultimatums, changes will be made unless things substantially improve.

Yes, changes will be made. In the 4th year of contracts after programs have been completely destroyed.

This administration had a chance to send a message to its alum after the terrible basketball season. It could have sent the message that losing will not be tolerated, especially lgoing 6-12 when are are the consensus favorite to win your division.

Instead, they sent the message if business as usual, a message they have consistently sent through the failure to protect the student fee in Austin, to brining back Dodge after the Army game in his 3rd year.

That message is its all about the bottoms line at UNT.

[greenminer]

A brand new football stadium two years ago with the best home OC schedule probably of all times, and NT attendance could not be labeled anything but a big disappointment. Despite advances in football facilities and coaching salaries, NT remains at the bottom of the barrel in Texas football recruiting.

Not disputing your overall point, but I thought - regarding this statement - we were actually breaking season attendance records?

[PlummMeanGreen]

Hey! I'm 62, a newly diagnosed diabetic (no more pizza darn it) and still very susceptible of rambling--of course I also did that at ages 52, 42, and 32.

Why on earth can we ever expect all the pieces of our very complex UNT athletics puzzle to fall in place if we cannot regain our habit of having continuous winning seasons at North Texas? Ever tried to promote and gain new fans with losing teams that lose much too often? What is UL-Monroe, ULaLa, La Tech doing that we cannot seem to copy their kind of success in Denton?

Football-wise, the missing ingrediant at UNT is still our abysmal W/L record in football the last 18 years which has produced 3 big winning seasons which all that alone creates a climate for such quotes as................. "if UNT cannot win with Dan MaCarney then we should drop down a level." Pleeeeeezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...................spare us more "the sky is falling in Denton" logic. That is tantamount to saying that if we cannot get this Boeing 747 airborn with Rick V at the helm we should just abandon athletics, all foreseeable hope and just say this will never get done in Denton.

I (and many others on this board) actually knew a day when North Texas had (obviously) NCAA Division One talent running a NCAA Division One operation and that's when we were shakin' and bakin' in Denton................such personnel "you will know them by their fruits" to put a religious tone on it and at most NCAA outposts winning on a regular basis are those fruits. Yes, yes, yes.............I know that some of you Young Gun Alums who all but look down on my generation of UNT grads because we've had a glimpse of how exciting NCAA football can be, when Mean Green footbll was even the talk of one particular NCAA winter convention, etc, etc, ect, yet...........you still only know about any of this because you've heard all the stories. To quote Bill Clinton: "We can feel your pain."

The sad part of all this is how some of the youngest set of UNT alums at this rate may very well live their entire lives without ever seeing one UNT head football coach leave Denton with a respectable record that may even have gotten him a higher up job. I hope for all of us Dan McCarney will break our drought but the jury is still out until it happens--I think it will.. Still, I'd wager that our program and what he has to put up with on a daily basis up there "stress-wise" most likely caused him to already have one stroke---we all hope its his last. It's one thing to die for your country, but i'm not sure anyone should die because of their job. It's just not worth it for anyone or their family.

GMG.com...........A Divided Forum............ I had a fellow alum & GMG.com poster who I had to block off my Facebook yesterday because of his ludeness & crudeness who actually had the b@lls to come on my FB page, insult me and then doubt my patriotism. Yet I suppose because I do not concur with his kind of politics that I am not a patriot? Even U of North Texas came into the cyber/discussion with my never going to agree with anything coming from the "isolate & demonize" crowd. He went on to pronounce that suddenly (to him) I have also become an embarrassment to North Texas? Do I still say it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know the difference between a rising NCAA FBS level program versus one whose trend highly suggests that it is still-borne and going anywhere and my then me expressing an opinion on an opinion board is causing "ME" to be an embarrassment to UNT? If so, then I'm by God just going to keep embarrassing a few on this forum who really seem to me to be way too easily embarrassed. In fact, if freedom of speech still lives here I will continue to express my doubts until the present UNT Board of Regents (most of whom know how to run a business since most of their own businesses were successful); but until they get their heads out of the clouds and apply their own business (for profit) practices for North Texas' athletics to emulate I guess I will keep voicing concern. (Anyone venture to guess how many of our elect don't care to even do that anymore)? Yet it will be a happy day when our UNT powers that be figure out how their collegues at most other NCAA FBS outposts who seem to have no struggle whatsoever as far as to who to hire or fire. All this really is sort of embarrassing when you think about it, now isn't it? http://[url=

GMG!

Edited May 3, 2013 by PlummMeanGreen

[JesseMartin]

I call it stealth because the AD couldn't or wouldn't even speak up during the run-up to the election for the simple reason that everyone knew that it would sway the faculty and NT Daily even more so to get out the vote against the new stadium fee, just as it had the previous time that RV got involved.

After the vote was done, if you'll remember, several people came out and basically screamed about how so many people didn't know about the election, that the Athletic Department never promoted it enough to get the attention it deserved. That's why I called it "stealth"--it was actually genius by the AD not to get involved, becasue that was the only way it had a chance of passing. Otherwise, we still play at Fouts right now in the SBC, with a very real possibility of having to drop back down to FCS or get rid of football since the crumbling stadium couldn't handle the needs of FBS program in today's world.

From the first thread linked, above, and in UNTFlyer's own words:

"Mr. Young claims the administration is "imposing" this fee on students. While the university's administration offered advice on the wording and context of the referendum in order for it to pass legislative muster, in no way did they campaign for or against the fee. In contrast to this, many professors violated SGA campaign rules by speaking out AGAINST the fee during class time, making false claims about losing vital funding for microscopes and other supplies if the referendum passed. These and other violations committed by those who opposed the fee were for the most part ignored."

It would have been a violation of SGA rules for the AD to publicly support the fee. Doing so would have opened the door to having the 'yes' vote recalled.

I think a good bit of that hearkens back to the Rec Center issue a few years prior. The whole thing was started by students, for students, voted on by students, but at one point a couple of departments used part of their discretionary budgets (read as "use it for whatever you want" budget) to make signs, etc. promoting the Rec Center before the vote. There were some who liked the extra support, but some like me who REALLY wanted the Rec Center and had worked on it:

1) Wanted it to stay a student issue, and any departmental or administration involvement in campaigning for it made it more likely that students would think it was being "pushed" on them rather than being what it was (an idea from students for students) and

2) The money being used was from student service fees, and it's a bit presumptuous to think that we would be okay with paying fees that would be used to ask us to vote for another fee. Using our own "services" money to promote us voting on something that pretty much every student already knew about seemed a bad example of responsible spending, and when the issue itself was another fee, not the kind of example we wanted students to think of if they were considering whether the funds they paid were being used wisely.

I don't know if the more recent SGA thinking and policies were based on this at all, but it's sound reasoning. If the "service" we get from paying into one thing is advertising to us to pay more, then what will you do with that new money? It set up a slippery slope precedent and was better left to the students so that the question of irresponsible spending wouldn't come up as an issue to detract from what we really wanted, which was to see if the majority of students voting agreed that the Rec Center, Apogee, whatever is up at the moment is an idea we can get behind and want to pursue. Plus the difference between "the administration is trying to get us to pay more" versus "other students think this is something worth paying a few extra bucks for and want me to vote on it" is pretty heavy.

[oldguystudent]

flyonthewall, on 02 May 2013 - 11:35, said:

Well at least you "duded" me. People don't "dude" me in my world. I am crawling back in it for a couple of more weeks until I just can't take any more again.

You miss me, don't you? I can dude you all day.

Tried to email you last week, but forgot what time of year it was. Give me a shout.

[GrandGreen]

Not disputing your overall point, but I thought - regarding this statement - we were actually breaking season attendance records?

As someone who has been to every game at Apogee, I can assure you that actual attendance was not anywhere close to the announced numbers for the last four games of the first year. However, even if you accept the announced numbers; it would still be disappointing.

[GrandGreen]

Increased sales of season tickets for men's basketball? No, there was not an increase. Now, there are a lot of folks who are not going to re-new for next year. I personally know of two fans who mailed their tix directly back to RV.

I have no doubt there was a sizable increase in season tickets last year. Why do you think there was not? I upped my numbers and yet got a big downgrade in parking priority, that didn't happen because there was less interest.

[KRAM1]

Not getting, giving.

Amen, brother!

[greenminer]

As someone who has been to every game at Apogee, I can assure you that actual attendance was not anywhere close to the announced numbers for the last four games of the first year. However, even if you accept the announced numbers; it would still be disappointing.

Our attendance is traditionally sad, indeed, but I personally didn't expect us to break attendance records.

In that sense, I wasn't disappointed.

Edited May 4, 2013 by greenminer

[Shadesofgreen]

Why do you think the players reaction to a coach after he is hired, has anything to do with his hiring? IMO, one of the main reason for Benford's hire was that it was thought that he could kept the team in tow.

It has everything to do with a hire. Don't have to look far to see what happens when you hire coaches who build trust with players (Harper & Pitino). Even Brady's team shows up everyday, plays hard & executes. Green fans didn't make it uncomfortable enough for decision makers. Now stuck...

[emmitt01]

I've always wondered how Benford's supposedly tight AAU connections could be limiting our options in terms of firing/reassigning him. You have to think that our administration has a finger on the pulse of that community.

Yep. He's just tearing it up on the local AAU circuit. He went out and got Greg Wesley and....and.....and, oh yeah, also.....

[DeepGreen]

Yep. He's just tearing it up on the local AAU circuit. He went out and got Greg Wesley and....and.....and, oh yeah, also.....

I sense bitterness in the Benford hire.

[NT03]

Shanice Stephens - bad hire, no head coaching experience (but hey, she had a powerpoint presentation and came from "big time university")

Benford = bad hire, no head coaching experience; we didn't even give Danny Kaspar the courtesy of a call. And probably other "more qualifed head coaches. (but hey, Benford came from "big time basketball U", so head must be able to be a head coach)

McCarney = I'm giving him this year to get us a winning season (no. 3 for those counting) Didn't we have a shot at Francione and the ex-South Florida coach who would have loved to come to Denton? I'm sure there were others.

If we lose our head tennis coach, or men's golf coach, without offering them both a contract extension, then there is only one common denominator in the UNT athletics department. And we all know the answer.

How could u leave off Dodge on that list

[DeepGreen]

How could u leave off Dodge on that list

Ouch! Would "having a brain fart" do for an excuse?

Todd Dodge = bad hire, no college head coaching experience, and he brought in a "crack team" of high school coaches as his assistants at the FBS level. Brilliant strategy! And I actually thought this hire "might" be worth a gamble, given Dodge's HS record and connections He definitely created a stir in Denton. Oh, I haven't been to Vegas since!

[GrandGreen]

It has everything to do with a hire. Don't have to look far to see what happens when you hire coaches who build trust with players (Harper & Pitino). Even Brady's team shows up everyday, plays hard & executes. Green fans didn't make it uncomfortable enough for decision makers. Now stuck...

What are you even commenting on? To catch you up, my original comment was that Benford's familarity with the players was a factor in his hiring. This was met with something like you have to look at the players actions not words to tell the true reaction of the players to a coach.

Which is total nonsense because what happened after Benford was hired as absolutely nothing to do with the motivation to employ him.

[Shadesofgreen]

What are you even commenting on? To catch you up, my original comment was that Benford's familarity with the players was a factor in his hiring. This was met with something like you have to look at the players actions not words to tell the true reaction of the players to a coach.

Which is total nonsense because what happened after Benford was hired as absolutely nothing to do with the motivation to employ him.

Actually it had a lot to do with the motivation to hire him. Thought was that he already had a connection to several of the core members of team and that they'd stay. It was also thought that he'd build those relationships even stronger when on board and entire team would follow. Only thing that was correct was the core stayed.

Not trying to challenge you, just stating what thought process was. In addition to being far less expensive than Fraschilla, seemed like a no brainer to decision makers. Failed very early...

Edited May 5, 2013 by Shadesofgreen

[NT03]

WKU Faculty regent wants self-sustaining athletic department: http://t.co/qCySbdvXVZ

[GrandGreen]

Actually it had a lot to do with the motivation to hire him. Thought was that he already had a connection to several of the core members of team and that they'd stay. It was also thought that he'd build those relationships even stronger when on board and entire team would follow. Only thing that was correct was the core stayed.

Not trying to challenge you, just stating what thought process was. In addition to being far less expensive than Fraschilla, seemed like a no brainer to decision makers. Failed very early...

I give up, you are now repeating what I essentially said to counter my point.

[UNT90]

WKU Faculty regent wants self-sustaining athletic department: http://t.co/qCySbdvXVZ

You would think she was a UNT Regent.

[flyonthewall]

Finally you are pointing jabs in exaaacccctttlllyyy the right direction!!!!!!!! Bingo, our regents.

[UNT90]

Finally you are pointing jabs in exaaacccctttlllyyy the right direction!!!!!!!! Bingo, our regents.

Well, it can only be so many things.

1) RV is too prideful to fire anybody before their 4th year because he doesn't want to admit a bad hire (something I doubt);

or

2) The administration (which includes the BOR) continues UNT's long history of not putting the proper emphasis on athletics.

What other message does retaining Benford send to those that don't have conversations with the powers that be?

Perception is a powerful thing.

Edited May 6, 2013 by UNT90

[KRAM1]

You are correct, UNT90....perception is a powerful thing. It's like if you say something enough times, you think people might just start believing it.