RV being recognized at Collegiate Facilities Summit

[Harry]

Looks like Rick is either being recognized or a speaker at this event:

http://www.collegiatefacilities.com/rick-villarreal/

[greenminer]

Who else would want to be a fly on the wall when Gene Smith enters that room?

[flyonthewall]

Nice write up except for the fact that it doesn't mention apogee, he has three grandchildren now, and he is well past 55 at this point.

[PlummMeanGreen]

Big week for RV...Maybe time for all to help him circle the Mean Green wagons no matter what good or bad experiences you've had or no matter what was said from either parties in the past?

Honestly and looking at our past, doesn't a program like North Texas get from Point A to Point B much quicker and more successfully if we are all on the same page? Some might call it "bury the hatchet:" time? Or.......... like in the movie (as you know I am a movie buff) but in the 1959 version of the "The Alamo" when Davey Crocket (played by Duke Wayne) told Jim Bowie ( Richard Widmark) who had just had a big bruhaha over a whole bunch of nothing with Colonel William Barrett Travis (Laurence Harvey) .......but after one of Bowie and Barrett's angry encounters Crocket told a very stubborn Jim Bowie........"you're just not much into this forgivn' thing now are you, Jim?"

Just a thought...

GMG!

Edited June 22, 2013 by PlummMeanGreen

[JesseMartin]

Taking what Plumm said one step further...is there really anything RV needs to be forgiven for? As far as coaching hires, there will always be people on one side or the other and so you can't please all of them, so no matter which ones work and which ones don't there will be people mad that you picked somebody other than who they wanted. But the fact is, we are now where we should have been before he came to Denton. So yeah, in the overall scheme of things, we should be even farther along by now. But without Rick's involvement, would we have made up the ground we have under his watch? I'd say probably not. Admin and Regents have been more Athletics-friendly as of late, but I suspect we would still be waiting for something big to happen before going the extra mile. Rick got the ball rolling as it should have been for decades prior. As was recently pointed out by a couple of our long-standing alum fans, he's gotten almost as much done as every other AD we've ever had, combined. So even if there isn't much to measure up to, the fact that he measures up to the aggregate is pretty impressive. I'd like to think that quite a few of us helped, because that's how it works-we're in it together. But he saw what he had with all of us and made things happen that others couldn't, even with many of the same supporters. We still have a bit more ground to make up, but I really do think that there would be even more yet to be done if Rick hadn't come along and finally gotten us headed in the right direction MUCH faster than anyone else.

[GrandGreen]

Taking what Plumm said one step further...is there really anything RV needs to be forgiven for? As far as coaching hires, there will always be people on one side or the other and so you can't please all of them, so no matter which ones work and which ones don't there will be people mad that you picked somebody other than who they wanted. But the fact is, we are now where we should have been before he came to Denton. So yeah, in the overall scheme of things, we should be even farther along by now. But without Rick's involvement, would we have made up the ground we have under his watch? I'd say probably not. Admin and Regents have been more Athletics-friendly as of late, but I suspect we would still be waiting for something big to happen before going the extra mile. Rick got the ball rolling as it should have been for decades prior. As was recently pointed out by a couple of our long-standing alum fans, he's gotten almost as much done as every other AD we've ever had, combined. So even if there isn't much to measure up to, the fact that he measures up to the aggregate is pretty impressive. I'd like to think that quite a few of us helped, because that's how it works-we're in it together. But he saw what he had with all of us and made things happen that others couldn't, even with many of the same supporters. We still have a bit more ground to make up, but I really do think that there would be even more yet to be done if Rick hadn't come along and finally gotten us headed in the right direction MUCH faster than anyone else.

As long as comparisons are made with the past which isn't great in athletics at NT, people will be happy because we are better off than back when NT spend next to nothing relatively to everyone else on athletes. The merit of RV or any coach should be how is he doing compared to what could have been reasonably been expected assuming competent leadership. A more difficult evaluation than if NT is better off than they were over a decade ago.

Not many AD's would have survived the hiring of Dodge? It was a high risk decision that miserably failed. Add to that the complete failure of the most ballyhooed season in any sport at NT, last year MBB season plus lackluster at best attendance at Apogee and there is more than enough to question RV's leadership.

Facility gains are nice but many seem to forget that the students are paying the lion share of the Apogee cost because outside fund raising was low. Whether you think this is ok or not, many forget that a large amount of potential funds are tied up in paying for a facility unlike the much larger fees at some Texas peers that are being used to primary to augment athletic operating cost.

If you think that comparisons with prior periods when AD's were primarily football coaches or retired football coaches is meaningful than NT has made process. However, what is going on at other peer programs is the real gauge of process.

Frankly, undoubtedly NT has made big strides in athletics, but I am concerned with the future not the past. If the program is not moving forward than it is in trouble.

[UNT90]

As far as coaching hires, there will always be people on one side or the other and so you can't please all of them, so no matter which ones work and which ones don't there will be people mad that you picked somebody other than who they wanted. .

No, no, no, no, never, never, never, never!!!!!!!!

Anyone that judges coaching hires by anything but results just doesn't get it. Results have been terrible in major sports hires 3 times, with the possibility of a 4th (depending on how the football season turns out). Results are important, at least to a few of us.

RV has been great with facilities, but be honest about his failures. Coaching hires have been, well, far below average, and that is being nice.

[JesseMartin]

This is very true, but what do we know about behind-the-scenes stuff? Do we know if he was pressured to make those hires instead of others? There are a lot of similar questions that could be asked. I know the money sports are the ones that tend to matter the most in terms of retention, but the other hires and results have been overall very good. The biggest problem is that his bad hires were in the "big sports". In addition to facilities, look at athletes' GPAs, the fact that we haven't had any NCAA sanctions against us, etc. The winning seasons in football and basketball have been fewer and farther between than in pretty much all of the others, so that's really the only downside. We like to win, yes, but often lose sight of the fact that we do win a whole lot, just not in the areas that tend to matter most to the press and most of the alums/donors/students. And it sucks, I'm not saying it doesn't. But we have all of our other ducks in a row for the first time...ever, pretty much. So I guess my point is that he did everything else right, so the excuses for failing in terms of winning games in those sports are pretty much gone. So yeah, we had better be doing pretty well within a couple of years or so. We no longer have any reason not to...logistically speaking, anyway.