Norm Hitzges talks about UNT Football

[HoustonEagle]

How many of you have your name on a wall in Apogee for donating money??? Junior does...

Doesnt matter, he still likes the team he grew up following and said some stupid things 20 years ago. He's a prick and doesnt deserve the benefit of the doubt despite his contributions and anything nice he said about us since. He must be hated, dispised and disparaged on this fourm even in threads that have nothing to do with him [sarcasm]

This is the how we treat our fellow alumni donors and people wonder why we don't have more???

Well said Baby Arm

[PlummMeanGreen]

Apparently, all hatchets have been buried (not into skulls,either) concerning the above sad chapter at UNT and thus....we now have the Bill Mercer Media Room at Apogee.

All's well that ends well?

GMG!

Edited December 19, 2013 by PlummMeanGreen

[Rudy]

[Baby Arm!]

What did Junior do to Bill Mercer?

Nothing. It was Georgio that replaced Mercer as the play by play announcer (Mercer didn't step down willingly). If you heard games back then it was obviously needed. Mercer was great in his prime and a legend, but his prime had long since past and it was time for him to step down. Its not an uncommon tale. Legends like Keith Jackson and Pat Summerall called games a couple of seasons too long too. It was uncomfortable listening.

[Green Mean]

Nothing. It was Georgio that replaced Mercer as the play by play announcer (Mercer didn't step down willingly). If you heard games back then it was obviously needed. Mercer was great in his prime and a legend, but his prime had long since past and it was time for him to step down. Its not an uncommon tale. Legends like Keith Jackson and Pat Summerall called games a couple of seasons too long too. It was uncomfortable listening.

We can add Dick Stockton to that list.

[Censored by Laurie]

No, we can't. We don't live in some 1960s hippy compound. Well, everyone except CBL, that is.

Sorry I'm late to the show...I was in a three-day, naked Bikram meditation session. Someone mention my name?

[FirefightnRick]

Nothing. It was Georgio that replaced Mercer as the play by play announcer (Mercer didn't step down willingly). If you heard games back then it was obviously needed. Mercer was great in his prime and a legend, but his prime had long since past and it was time for him to step down. Its not an uncommon tale. Legends like Keith Jackson and Pat Summerall called games a couple of seasons too long too. It was uncomfortable listening.

BS.... It was not needed and it was done in a classless way.

Rick

Edited December 19, 2013 by FirefightnRick

[VideoEagle]

BS.... It was not needed and it was done in a classless way.

Rick

Whether or not it was needed, it was handled very very poorly. There's a right way and a wrong way to encourage someone who's been on the job a long time that it's time to go and a wrong way. The way Jerry Jones fired Tom Landry created Jone's reputation for being an idiot. The back stabbing to get rid of Bill made the group that did it all look bad.

You call someone in quietly and tell them with a new management team the entire program is going to move in a new direction. You then announce a celebration of the person's long and distinguished career. You let them go out a hero even if they didn't really want to go. That's classy.

Three months of bad mouthing them behind their back in secret isn't classy.

I like the broadcasts with George. But the he wasn't the voice of the Dallas Cowboys for over a decade. He's never been play by play announcer for even one Super Bowl. He didn't call the Texas Rangers nor the Chicago Cubs games. And he's never done anything like be the reporter for the channel 4 at the midnight press conference when the sheriff's department trotted out Lee Harvey Oswald for the press. George is a great guy, but he still doesn't have the experience Bill did.

But this is all water under the bridge. We now have the Bill Mercer press box just like Tom Landry is now in the Ring of Honor.

[FirefightnRick]

Whether or not it was needed, it was handled very very poorly. There's a right way and a wrong way to encourage someone who's been on the job a long time that it's time to go and a wrong way. The way Jerry Jones fired Tom Landry created Jone's reputation for being an idiot. The back stabbing to get rid of Bill made the group that did it all look bad.

You call someone in quietly and tell them with a new management team the entire program is going to move in a new direction. You then announce a celebration of the person's long and distinguished career. You let them go out a hero even if they didn't really want to go. That's classy.

Three months of bad mouthing them behind their back in secret isn't classy.

I like the broadcasts with George. But the he wasn't the voice of the Dallas Cowboys for over a decade. He's never been play by play announcer for even one Super Bowl. He didn't call the Texas Rangers nor the Chicago Cubs games. And he's never done anything like be the reporter for the channel 4 at the midnight press conference when the sheriff's department trotted out Lee Harvey Oswald for the press. George is a great guy, but he still doesn't have the experience Bill did.

But this is all water under the bridge. We now have the Bill Mercer press box just like Tom Landry is now in the Ring of Honor.

That is EXACTLY the parallel I think of when Dr. Mercer's situation comes to mind.

Bill was so damn cool. I had the chance to spend time with him on several occasions, and then had the absolute pleasure of riding in the seat next to him all the way to Utah and back for our trip to the NCAA's. I had never seen someone love their school SO much to the point that he so rarely ever removed his class ring that it was WORN DOWN SMOOTH!!!! The stories I listened to were awesome. I was like a kid in a candy store, couldn't believe I was getting to sit and visit at such length with a guy I grew up watching and listening to? To me an Iconic figure in sports broadcasting.

Then, what was so upsetting for me was, during a bowl run year...'02 or '03 maybe?....I ran into Dr. Mercer at New York Subway on the morning of a game day. I apologized.....again....for how he was treated by our school, told him we all still loved and respected him, and I invited him to go with me to the game. I told him we would love to see him at the game that day, and he had the saddest look on his face that I will never forget. Without hesitation he said he would probably never step foot into a North Texas athletic event again. He then quickly ended the conversation, thanked me, turned around and left, visibly upset. That was almost 8 years after having to remove that dagger stuck in his back.

I wanted to claw some individual's eyes out right then and there. It's so typical of this place in how we have treated our past. So typrical.

Rick

[Cerebus]

Sorry I'm late to the show...I was in a three-day, naked Bikram meditation session. Someone mention my name?

[Ben Gooding]

I kind of agree with Rick here. You just don't put negative pub out on your own university. He has a voice that reaches the public and comments from him or any alum should be class A comments. Not degrading comments. GMG

[Quoner]

Cap'n Sorensen....good god.

[untjim1995]

Sorry, but you gotta let go of the past. Its amazing that some of you around here have stuck around for as long as you have. If you cannot get over an alum who thinks North Texas Athletics has been spare compared to name-your-AQ-giant T-shirt school within 10 hours of here, then you would have to dislike about 200k people...I mean, really, how did you stick around here when the likes of Al Hurley, Lee Jackson, Craig Helwig, Dennis Parker, Darrell Dickey, and Todd Dodge did FAR more damage to the UNT brand than Craig miller ever did. If you want to hold a grudge against someone from North Texas (State) past, look at all of the old nestors who tired to get football killed off in Denton in the early 70s or the folks who decided to let us go down to i-aa because it was cheaper to do. Look at the BOR and administration that allowed us to play in freaking Fouts Field for about 30 years too long. Look at the ADs that hired inexperienced coaches every year from 1979-2010 in football. And look at the Denton residents who have ALWAYS made it clear how much they could care less about North Texas Athletics, to the point where a town with 100k in it, even if it includes students, cannot even put 20k into the stands for most home games. Basically, no one could hold a grudge against that many people for that long and still come around here for games and contribute money to the program...its ok not to like Craig Miller, but his mindset is still the prevailing mindset today in DFW and, gulp, in Denton and on the UNT campus today. We may have more people coming to games than we did before, but our proportion of the student body/faculty/administration/Denton citizenry that cares about UNT Athletics is still woefully small. That's not Craig Miller's fault--and I don't blame him for following someone else closely. It amazes me that he even comes around at all, much less contributes anything toward UNT.

If you want to talk about amazing, look at the other UNT alum at the Ticket. I actually think that its incredible that we have an alum in George Dunham in the DFW media that has allowed himself to take the annual nut-kicks he has all of his professional career for publically supporting North Texas Football. That Craig Miller, his old classmate and buddy, feels the way that hundreds of thousands of people who have attended UNT at some point or live with an hour of the campus and have never even sniffed attending a UNT home game except when a bigger named team has played here, isn't really the story to me. Its the fact that someone in the SWC dominant DFW media actually declares publically his love for UNT. During the Ticket's existence, George Dunham's love for UNT has been paid back with a record at the FBS level of 78 wins and 146 losses, featuring all of 4 winning seasons out of 19, while playing in the Big West and SBCUSA for all but one of those years. Be mad at the people who allowed that to happen, not at an alum who grew up a huge fan of some other school that has actually captured hundreds of thousands of fans becuase of their winning tradition and gets to play teams regularly that Joe Fan cares about.

Hell, I'll be the first one to tell you that I'm jealous as hell of every single alum of any school in Texas/Oklahoma/Louisiana/Arkansas/Kansas/Missouri/etc.. that plays in an AQ league. I couldn't imagine how great it must be to have a Saturday schedule like Tech gets or Baylor gets every year, especially when you have gotten the "luxury" of comparing it to North Texas home games in the same time frame against the ULMs, Arkansas States, NMSUs, Nicholls States, and Troys of the college football world in front of "crowds" that would have been lucky to get to 15k at anytime in those 40 years. It will take a full decade of doing the same identical thing that TCU did just to make a dent within the Metroplex fandom for our school. And TCU had a lot of advantages we don't have right now and probably will never have, even before they moved into the Big XII. Other teams have shown a strong desire to play TCU in Texas, teams that Joe Fan cares about. All of this means we have to go out to places like Norman, Oklahoma and do something that TCU did--beat them on their field AND win their conference. When we do that, then we will make tons of waves. Until then, the DFW media and fans, like Craig Miller and those 200k living UNT alumni, will wait to see if we actually do something to warrant their attention. You get their attention, you'll get their attendance. You get their attendance, you'll get their donations. And you get their donations, you get to keep the successful coaches at UNT, instead of watching them ALWAYS go off to greener pastures.

Edited December 19, 2013 by untjim1995

[UNT 90 Grad]

Welcome home the prodigal son.

[FirefightnRick]

Sorry, but you gotta let go of the past. Its amazing that some of you around here have stuck around for as long as you have. If you cannot get over an alum who thinks North Texas Athletics has been spare compared to name-your-AQ-giant T-shirt school within 10 hours of here, then you would have to dislike about 200k people...I mean, really, how did you stick around here when the likes of Al Hurley, Lee Jackson, Craig Helwig, Dennis Parker, Darrell Dickey, and Todd Dodgedid FAR more damage to the UNT brand than Craig miller ever did. If you want to hold a grudge against someone from North Texas (State) past, look at all of the old nestors who tired to get football killed off in Denton in the early 70s or the folks who decided to let us go down to i-aa because it was cheaper to do. Look at the BOR and administration that allowed us to play in freaking Fouts Field for about 30 years too long. Look at the ADs that hired inexperienced coaches every year from 1979-2010 in football. And look at the Denton residents who have ALWAYS made it clear how much they could care less about North Texas Athletics, to the point where a town with 100k in it, even if it includes students, cannot even put 20k into the stands for most home games. Basically, no one could hold a grudge against that many people for that long and still come around here for games and contribute money to the program...its ok not to like Craig Miller, but his mindset is still the prevailing mindset today in DFW and, gulp, in Denton and on the UNT campus today. We may have more people coming to games than we did before, but our proportion of the student body/faculty/administration/Denton citizenry that cares about UNT Athletics is still woefully small. That's not Craig Miller's fault--and I don't blame him for following someone else closely. It amazes me that he even comes around at all, much less contributes anything toward UNT.

If you want to talk about amazing, look at the other UNT alum at the Ticket. I actually think that its incredible that we have an alum in George Dunham in the DFW media that has allowed himself to take the annual nut-kicks he has all of his professional career for publically supporting North Texas Football. That Craig Miller, his old classmate and buddy, feels the way that hundreds of thousands of people who have attended UNT at some point or live with an hour of the campus and have never even sniffed attending a UNT home game except when a bigger named team has played here, isn't really the story to me. Its the fact that someone in the SWC dominant DFW media actually declares publically his love for UNT. During the Ticket's existence, George Dunham's love for UNT has been paid back with a record at the FBS level of 78 wins and 146 losses, featuring all of 4 winning seasons out of 19, while playing in the Big West and SBCUSA for all but one of those years. Be mad at the people who allowed that to happen, not at an alum who grew up a huge fan of some other school that has actually captured hundreds of thousands of fans becuase of their winning tradition and gets to play teams regularly that Joe Fan cares about.

Hell, I'll be the first one to tell you that I'm jealous as hell of every single alum of any school in Texas/Oklahoma/Louisiana/Arkansas/Kansas/Missouri/etc.. that plays in an AQ league. I couldn't imagine how great it must be to have a Saturday schedule like Tech gets or Baylor gets every year, especially when you have gotten the "luxury" of comparing it to North Texas home games in the same time frame against the ULMs, Arkansas States, NMSUs, Nicholls States, and Troys of the college football world in front of "crowds" that would have been lucky to get to 15k at anytime in those 40 years. It will take a full decade of doing the same identical thing that TCU did just to make a dent within the Metroplex fandom for our school. And TCU had a lot of advantages we don't have right now and probably will never have, even before they moved into the Big XII. Other teams have shown a strong desire to play TCU in Texas, teams that Joe Fan cares about. All of this means we have to go out to places like Norman, Oklahoma and do something that TCU did--beat them on their field AND win their conference. When we do that, then we will make tons of waves. Until then, the DFW media and fans, like Craig Miller and those 200k living UNT alumni, will wait to see if we actually do something to warrant their attention. You get their attention, you'll get their attendance. You get their attendance, you'll get their donations. And you get their donations, you get to keep the successful coaches at UNT, instead of watching them ALWAYS go off to greener pastures.

We covered all of them at last year's Festivus.

Rick

Edited December 20, 2013 by FirefightnRick