Ex-Players' Fouts Field Memories

[Mean Green 93-98]

Brian Waters

Johnny Quinn

Casey Fitzgerald

Craig Robertson

[greenminer]

I want that same shirt Casey is wearing.

[meaniegreenie]

I want that same shirt Casey is wearing.

Here ya' go.

Edited August 10, 2013 by meaniegreenie

[greenminer]

Favorite memory #361

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFygGhuoDuY

[UNTexas]

Camp Sparta. That was terrible. Waters is correct. That old turf was so bad. I still have scars from that old awful turf.

In 94 so many guys quit during camp that year we started calling the guys leaving after lights out the midnight train. You could hear them walking down the halls at West Hall as they quietly quit.

The one thing I don't think any player will forget is the awful meeting rooms under Fouts and the cricket invasion. They smelled so bad.

[PlummMeanGreen]

Favorite memory #361

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFygGhuoDuY

The best game I as an alum and Mean Green fan ever witnessed at Fouts Field The first game at Fouts I attended was in September of 1973.

In this video, hard to believe how loud our fans were with a winning Mean Green football team at our former football home...... "acoustically challenged" Fouts Field.

That one Booger Kennedy recruiting class made the bowl games happen. Another recruiting class or 2 similar would have probably made even more bowls possible and maybe with a ranked team. It was not to be.

Anyone have the video of the goal post coming down in the south endzone after this win which sent us to

a bowl game?

GMG!

PS: The below photo which with my computer "non-savvy" skills I could not get to show on this post was a 1967 crowd at Fouts Field which I believe would have been Mean Joe Greene's junior year. Of course, Mean Joe had a pretty darn good supporting cast during that eras Mean Green teams, too.

Had seen the below photo before in an old UNT Yucca yearbook and thought this: If this group of students and their families were still attending North Texas Mean Green football games we would have had to build at least a 45,000 seat football stadium in Denton.

Folks, we're all tired of hearing it or even saying it, but if there were ever a sleeping Jolly Green Giant at the NCAA FBS level it is still that university located in the western part of Denton, Texas, America, which now has a fabulous college football stadium located between those 2 Texas interstates.

> 1967 Pic of Student Side at Fouts Field: C:Users1Picturesgallery_1221_3_100179.jpg

> Bonus Pic: Here's a 'football trading card' of Mean Joe Greene: C:Users1PicturesGreene, Joe f.jpg

GMG ! !

Edited August 10, 2013 by PlummMeanGreen

[trud1966]

If you don't know what Johnny Quinn is talking about, make sure to watch Necessay Roughness. You can actually hear all of the players footsteps loud-n-clear when the run on the field. Sounds like horses galloping on concrete.

[untjim1995]

From an old Manager's view, Fouts was the ultimate dump. You had to get the blocking pads out of the West Side closet that literally swarmed with Crickets every August. I mean, you fought crickets all the way through that closet--everyday until the insecticide began to work. Then, they died and stunk for a few more weeks, as you swept out the dead ones that often stacked up to the middle of your legs.

The rooms underneath Fouts were about the equivalent of going to a meeting in a bathroom that might have been cleaned at some point in the previous 6 months. Plus, the fans that were brought down there to try and keep it cooler and get the air moving didn't really help much.

Every August that rolls around, I thank my lucky stars that I used my scholarship wisely enough to not EVER have to be outside working during this heat again. Those 5 football seasons were very good at providing perspective for the rest of your life--sometimes, you end up in tough places, where success is just plain harder than at other places, but if you just fight through the adversity, the road ahead often clears up. When I get down about my job, I think about the days that started at 6am at Fouts, involved two full practices, took about 4-5 hours to finish laundry after practices ended for 100 guys and 15-20 coaches, all while fixing helmets, shoulder pads, cleats, etc...It was not unusual to spend the night at the "cage" because you got done with laundry at around 3am and had to be back there ready to go by 6am.

I'm sure most people are thrilled that the students of today have a better campus life than we had it when we went to school in Denton. But, for me, the folks I will always be happiest for are the football players and coaches and trainers and managers, who must feel like they went from the streets of Mumbai to the Taj Mahal in the course of just a few years. And I'm not even exaggerating--it was really that bad at Fouts.

Edited August 12, 2013 by untjim1995

[Mean Green 93-98]

> 1967 Pic of Student Side at Fouts Field: C:Users1Picturesgallery_1221_3_100179.jpg

> Bonus Pic: Here's a 'football trading card' of Mean Joe Greene: C:Users1PicturesGreene, Joe f.jpg

Your photo links aren't working . . . You will probably have to upload to the gallery, and then link to the location.