Question for 1970s and prior alums

[ragpicker]

When people call Todd Dodge our worst coach don't remember Bob Tyler. Tyler managed to get the NCAA sniffing around for violations while running the team into the ditch.

And that was at one of only two Texas D1 colleges (Rice is the other) that have never been on NCAA probation. Our administration back then must have been a bunch of back-woods pedagogues who would have made Larry, Moe and Curly look downright brilliant.

[NorthTexan95]

When people call Todd Dodge our worst coach don't remember Bob Tyler. Tyler managed to get the NCAA sniffing around for violations while running the team into the ditch.

I don't remember Bob Tyler ... but he was only here for one year. We had 3+ years of Dodge.

[wardly]

I served on the University Foundation Board for 3 years in the early 90's, and part of our job was to try and consolidate small donations into funds that Al Hurley could have access to for special speakers,events,etc. However,we made him jump thru hoops when he requested money.I asked why, and was told that when Hayden Fry left North Texas the athletic program was indeed broke. The only thing that had kept it afloat was President Nolan transferring funds to the athletic department that had been given to the University,some of which had been designated by the donor for a specific purpose other than athletics. When this was discovered[i think after Nolan's departure] the Athletic Department had to repay the misappropriated monies. This was reason given to me for our drop to 1AA in football, and why the Foundation Board had installed procedures to prevent this abuse happening again.I am 70 and have slept since then, but this is my understanding of these events.

Edited January 24, 2014 by wardly

[PlummMeanGreen]

I served on the University Foundation Board for 3 years in the early 90's, and part of our job was to try and consolidate small donations into funds that Al Hurley could have access to for special speakers,events,etc. However,we made him jump thru hoops when he requested money.I asked why, and was told that when Hayden Fry left North Texas the athletic program was indeed broke. The only thing that had kept it afloat was President Nolan transferring funds to the athletic department that had been given to the University,some of which had been designated by the donor for a specific purpose other than athletics. When this was discovered ,Nolan avoided criminal charges but lost his job, and the Athletic Department had to repay the misappropriated monies. This was reason given to me for our drop to 1AA in football, and why the Foundation Board had installed procedures to prevent this abuse happening again.I am 70 and have slept since then, but this is my understanding of these events.

At least our powers that be in the "90's(?) didn't blame GHW Bush. (And they were actually still blaming Fry who had only left Denton 12 years earlier for the Big 10)? .......uh, how convenient.

According to the U of MIchigan A.D. only 22 FBS schools out of 126 are breaking even or making a profit with their athletic programs. Then the math tells me 104 schools have to come up with funds in other ways whether that be thru creative financing or auxilary funds for their athletic departments to function.

I think the Denton coffee club boys down at the courthouse square blamed Fry for many things because he wanted our school to be Big Time and most of that other "clueless about major college athletics" group wanted to stay Small Time.

Mostly what Hayden did for UNT with chewing gum, bailing wire and no existing alumnus group or list of names whatsoever was dramatically raise the bar for Mean Green football. In fact, I don't think Dan McCarney would have applied for the North Texas job without the Fry influence because most my adult life and post his Iowa mentor's years in Denton there really hasn't been that much going on that caught the attention of the national media or of a Top 25 ranked program basis but.............

................trying to keep a score card on all the mostly unqualified "hardly blessed with NCAA FBS level talent" employees which we've had go through the revolving doors at UNT has been quite the challenge. I'm still of the mindset that you award employees based on wins, increased ticket sales and impressive annual turnstiles numbers and "NOT" because they've merely been on the payroll for just about forever with results which has no one else knocking the doors down to hire them away from our school.

Will be interesting to see what new UNT president Smatresk lays down as goals for our entire university, but specifically what he thinks the annual football ticket sales and marketing goals should be for the department Dr. Alfred Frances Hurley used to call "the picture window of our university."

GMG!

Edited January 24, 2014 by PlummMeanGreen

[eulessismore]

Yes, as I remember, NT spent their own money to get on TV....Rex Cauble, local banker, also put quite a bit in the pot.

Understood by many, underrated by most.

[eulessismore]

Funny, foutroutes, Is he still in jail, or dead?

Rex Cauble is deceased, but his family is still carrying on a campaign to clear his name. His is a fascinating story to look up on the internet. I think one of the two most startling photographs I ever saw on the front page of the DRC was one of a handcuffed Rex Cauble being led away by the Feds. At the time, he was the local head (yes, pun intended) of Ross Perot's Texas War on Drugs. I think the most powerful politicians in Texas at that time were regulars at the parties he threw in Sanger. One reason I heard that there was little jail time out of the bust was how well organized his operations were, even having "planned charitable giving" to win support among the community. One line I heard from some observers was "Those cowboys didn't hurt anybody", in reference to his so called "Cowboy Mafia".

[VideoEagle]

And that was at one of only two Texas D1 colleges (Rice is the other) that have never been on NCAA probation. Our administration back then must have been a bunch of back-woods pedagogues who would have made Larry, Moe and Curly look downright brilliant.

So you did know them!

[VideoEagle]

I served on the University Foundation Board for 3 years in the early 90's, and part of our job was to try and consolidate small donations into funds that Al Hurley could have access to for special speakers,events,etc. However,we made him jump thru hoops when he requested money.I asked why, and was told that when Hayden Fry left North Texas the athletic program was indeed broke. The only thing that had kept it afloat was President Nolan transferring funds to the athletic department that had been given to the University,some of which had been designated by the donor for a specific purpose other than athletics. When this was discovered[i think after Nolan's departure] the Athletic Department had to repay the misappropriated monies. This was reason given to me for our drop to 1AA in football, and why the Foundation Board had installed procedures to prevent this abuse happening again.I am 70 and have slept since then, but this is my understanding of these events.

I think that had more effect on what was done to fight the drop to 1AA rather than what caused it. I was told back in 82 or 83 by someone in the athletic department we didn't file some form which caused the drop. There never was such a form that would have worked. Arkstfan has since pointed me to the actual NCAA rule, the only retroactive rule they ever passed, if we had not acted 18 to 24 months before the rule was ever passed there was no way to avoid the drop. Multiple schools filed an appeal and all lost. Cincy threatened court and was moved up but no one else did. Lack of funds and former President Matthews last followers blocked any drive to move back up quickly. Edited January 24, 2014 by VideoEagle

[SCREAMING EAGLE-66]

Had many years to think about this, but I'm not sure we really ever had chance to get in the late, great SWC. Granted, UT's Darrell Royal supported his friend Hayden Fy, but it would take more than even the late DKR to pull this one off.

One of many reasons Frank Broyles took his Arkansas Razorbacks program out of the SWC is because he said there were too many Texas schools in the conference and that the SWC private schools (who were said to have black-balled us) were not towing their part of the rope at the turnstiles. Looking at that pic of a near empty Amon Carter Stadium during the Foggies Big 12 Kansas game this last Fall maybe some still have not completely solved that problem?

Give North Texas 10K to 15K traveling Big 12 fans on Apogee Game Days and I'd like our chances to be successful at the turnstiles. Add such numbers as those to the 35K Mean Green fans who came from everywhere for the HoD Bowl game and we'd really need to do some serious stadium expansion talk.

GMG!

.

--- Good post ... I'm not so sure TCU made the right choice by joining the Big-12... They were successful where they were and considering the size of the school, they are are rather small, and once they are not winning very much, their attendance is likely to drop drastically (or already has). One of the BIG issues when the SWC came apart was the lack of attendance by SMU, Rice, TCU, and even Baylor fans somewhat at the time..... Often awful when they played each other... SMU had done fair when they were cheating and winning but that came to an end. .. The large state schools were filling the stands and basically underwriting those programs with THEIR fans attendance money. Winning those games also did little to help their rankings either. Some comments at the time by some also indicated they were tired of all the cheating by some [ hello SMU and some others ] that was taking place... and they wanted to get away from those schools..... it was known nationally.... As the Kenny Rodgers song says ..."Some times you need to walk way and sometimes you need to run". Baylor, the largest of the privates was the doormat of the Big-12 for years but recently has started doing well. I doubt TCU ever will.... Baylor has the advantage of a very large religious group that identifies with them and supports them pretty well, so they have as good sized fan base in addition to being larger than those other ones. .

---Long term, I think the BIG-12 would have been better off with Houston or even us over TCU. Their alumni and fan base is rather small. Ours and Houston's isn't. Short term we would have been a bad choice but a few years would have changed that quickly as name opponents would have been on our schedule and we are in an extremely large market..

---Those of us who have been around a long time see the past differently than some of the young people here... I think we played only one SWC opponent in football in the 1960's. Arkansas, a couple of times. We and UTEP (Texas Western) were the outsiders... We were the only really large Texas schools not in the SWC. [ West Texas, Lamar, and Arlington existed but have disappeared or declined in sports ].. There was a lot of speculation about why we didn't play SWC teams more.... 1. They did want to give us credibility, 2. We had black athletes..they didn't. 3. Football then only played 10 games and not a lot of room to schedule. In basketball I only remember us playing Baylor a time or two during the 60's.. again reason 1 and 2 applies.

--- I think Fry made some mistakes which hurt us long term.... but he was really trying to do what was best, join the SWC... So many conferences had gone to 10 teams and the SWC had 9. SMU, convinced the other north Texas privates that admitting us would be bad for them.. Had only SMU and TCU opposed us, we still would have gotten in with 7 of 9 approving us (the required number)...once Baylor agreed with them... we were doomed.

---Once the SWC disappeared ...[ a very good thing for us ] we were no longer THE outsider. A lot of them were no longer in THE conference either.. Slowly things are getting better. Oddly in the 60's we were in what then was the best basketball conference in America and got more national attention than attention in Texas. My senior year at Christmas 5 of the top ranked 10 basketball teams were MVC teams. UCLA was often the best team in America but their conference was no big power and the ACC, SEC, and SWC were still all-white and MVC was integrated and mostly on the edge of the South. It was an unbelievably good conference and had a lot of future NBA. players.

MVC in the 60's = Louisville, UNT, Cincinnati, Wichita, Drake, Tulsa, Memphis, Bradley, St. Louis, ... .. Many of which are still basketball powers..

Edited January 24, 2014 by SCREAMING EAGLE-66

[wardly]

MVC at the "The Pit" watching John Savage play are some of my favorite college memories. I later became friends with an SMU basketball who played against Savage in "The Pit". He said that he had a breakaway near the seats on the side and someone stuck their foot out and tripped him.For those of you too young to have seen a game there in the 60's missed some of the best basketball teams in the nation playing us in a high school gym. I wonder what ever happened to "Big John".

[MeanGreenTexan]

MVC at the "The Pit" watching John Savage play are some of my favorite college memories. I later became friends with an SMU basketball who played against Savage in "The Pit". He said that he had a breakaway near the seats on the side and someone stuck their foot out and tripped him.For those of you too young to have seen a game there in the 60's missed some of the best basketball teams in the nation playing us in a high school gym. I wonder what ever happened to "Big John".

like this?

[SCREAMING EAGLE-66]

MVC at the "The Pit" watching John Savage play are some of my favorite college memories. I later became friends with an SMU basketball who played against Savage in "The Pit". He said that he had a breakaway near the seats on the side and someone stuck their foot out and tripped him.For those of you too young to have seen a game there in the 60's missed some of the best basketball teams in the nation playing us in a high school gym. I wonder what ever happened to "Big John"..

.

---Best pit game I saw was one against Cincinnati (1965).... We won.... and they had been the two-time National Champ two years prior to that.. The cops threw the guy behind me out for throwing what was left of a bag of popcorn at the Cincinnati. coach and actually hit him from a very long distance..... the trouble was ... he didn't do it... the guy in front of me had. It was a wonder they hadn't gotten me instead. Wildest basketball game I have ever attended...

Often when the crowd disagreed with as call the floor was peppered with paper wads (every game) .... clean up time... Another... when I was there the cheerleaders sometimes would yell after a lousy call -- "Give the ref a big hand!" -- and the crowd would yell "hail" and give the ref a German salute.... It really is hard to explain unless you were there at those MVC games... absolutely nuts..... had to go early if you wanted a seat. I remember the crowd really getting on Wes Unseld of Lousiville and future NBA hall of fame player because of some pre-game comments he had made. The Snake-Pit games were really insane and fun times.

[FirefightnRick]

Good reads from all of y'all. I feel like I truly missed out on some amazing times. Thanks for sharing... So wished I had seen some of those MVC games at the Snake Pit.

Rick