North Texas Football: Eras of success

[Harry]

EDITORS NOTE: The following is the second story in a three-part series on the 100th anniversary of the North Texas football program. Todays story examines the programs history.

Joe Greene kept trying to correct the people he ran into who called him Mean Joe Greene after he joined the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1969, fresh off a standout career at North Texas.

The UNT football teams mascot is an Eagle, and at the time so was its official nickname, one that was starting to fade away with the rise of the moniker Mean Green.

The Mean Green was our defense, but people kept calling me Mean Joe, Greene said. The name elevated me in the minds of people who might not have remembered me as well otherwise. Its not uncommon for football players to have nicknames like that, so I stopped fighting it.

Joe Greene was known as Mean Joe from that point on during a career that earned him a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. UNT held out a little longer, but eventually adopted Mean Green as the nickname for all its sports teams as well.

The rise of the Mean Green nickname is a part of the colorful history of UNT and its football program that will celebrate its 100-year anniversary this fall.

UNT played its first season in 1913 and has left its mark on the college football world.

UNT was one of the first schools in the Southwest to integrate its football team in 1956 when Abner Haynes and Leon King joined the freshman team. Greene helped elevate the program in the late 1960s before legendary coach Hayden Fry put it on the national map in the 1970s.

UNT will celebrate that history throughout the 2013 season and unveil throwback jerseys in the next few weeks for its season opener against Idaho. Those uniforms will incorporate elements of the jerseys worn in the Greene and Fry eras. The school announced a 100th anniversary team at its spring game.

Read more: http://www.dentonrc.com/sports/colleges/north-texas-headlines/20130728-football-eras-of-success.ece