ADLER

Hey, it worked for Troy Aikman.

Oh, just in case the Daily is as challenged at math as they are at research, the 2004-2005 per student athletics contribution at Houston is still 30% higher than the maximum in the proposed referendum for North Texas for the 2011-2012 school year. Oh, and another thing, the University of Houston didn't have to pay for it's stadium either, it was built with city taxes.

NT Daily OK, now for the facts: for the 2004-2005 the University of Houston provided $12,437,318.00 in institutional support to it's athletic programs. Of it's $22,648,933.00 budget that was reported to the NCAA, $8,900,000.00 was in direct institutional support through student service fees and $3,537,318 was through student athletic fees. For Houston's 32,000 students in 2004-2005, their contribution to athletics per student was an average of $388.66 for the year. And that was 2004-2005. Their budget has grown since then.

Well, if we have the right concessions, We'll Have Pizza In Our Time.

I believe the womens basketball team has twice been invited to the NIT where they were shipped off to be first round cannon fodder for one of the bigger name teams. Both games were lost in convincing fashion. I think the latest game (2002?) was at Washington. The women's basketball team has never once won a conference basketball tournament and advanced to the NCAA's.

Yeah, kind of. Dickey's most highly touted quarterback, Spencer Stack from Flower Mound Marcus had actually been signed to his Letter Of Intent before Dickey was hired. Although Spencer was given very little opportunity, remaining continuously benched in favor of other players, I never knew of him or his parents bitching like that.

Yeah, imagine that, the quarterback and his daddy badmouthing the coach to everybody after said quarterback hadn't produced results and had been replaced by a younger more highly recruited prospect. Gee, this sounds so much like pee-wee football.

Back in the 1980's North Texas was required by the Southland Conference to have a baseball program. North Texas had no facility, team, money for scholarships, and coach. A coach was hired who did a remarkable job with what he was provided. The little scholarship support was divided as best possible, and the team actually won a few, but very few, games. Since there wasn't a stadium, UNT played in a neighborhood park several miles away in east Denton. The baseball field at Mack Park Yeah, that bleacher was the home field stadium.

Great job ladies!

Greek, I have to say that I agree with Rick on this. Maybe he should have worded his response more carefully, but what he said in both his quote and in his explanation was accurate. "We keep saying our football program sucks. Well, it does. Okay?" It does, and overall, so do several of the other athletic programs at North Texas. One post-season victory in the past 60 years in all revenue sports combined (football, men's basketball, women's basketball, and baseball) indicates that the program has an established history of sucking. Alumni and the community haven't just been distancing themselves from North Texas for the past two seasons or for the past two decades, they've been keeping away for generations because nobody really believes that North Texas can really ever compete with the "big schools" of college athletics. North Texas is horribly underfunded and can't realistically be expected to compete. During the 1980's, Oklahoma State baseball fans laughed their asses off when the North Texas baseball coach ran the concession stand between innings. The men's basketball team has only been in postseason play twice during that 60 year span; the recent 2007 team and in 1988, winning a weak Southland Conference after going 3 and 10 in non-conference play. Both teams lost by double digits in their first round NCAA game. The women's basketball team has never qualified to play in the NCAA tournament. The 5 point football win against Cincinatti in the 2002 New Orleans Bowl remains the sole post-season victory in the past 60 years. That is a history of futility, and everyone knows it. And what makes it so sad is that it is happening at a school with so much potential to have excellent athletic programs. Like him or hate him, Rick is fighting like hell to finally get that fixed for this university. He's telling the truth and the truth hurts. Yet he's getting crucified by the student paper at every opportunity, a paper that is actively campaigning against what their own research indicates the students of the university desire, a respectable perception for their school.

I'm right there with ya'. That whole Rodge and Todge routine is played, sooo played. HivmmiUKEjw

Rush! Halftime! VIZZA!....Rush! Halftime! VIZZA!....Rush! Halftime! VIZZA!.... The message was clearly being conveyed to Giovanni's as he ran the clock in the waning moments of the first half. Problem was, the signal wasn't being sent in from the sideline at all, it was being telepathically sent from one of the spirit groups...and Vizza was just a misspelling.

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Although I admire your dedication, I certainly question your methods of celebration. If you're going to hire hookers, why don't you have one of them take care of your friend?

Holy Smokes! That was unbelievable! We get a gift in their end of the field with 24 seconds before half time, actually RUN two plays and have to burn a timeout after each, and then attempt a field goal with 8 seconds without first taking a shot at the end zone. Seriously, what the heck was that? I am still a Dodge supporter, but tonight was some of the worst playcalling I have ever seen. How many times on third down must we throw a completion short of the first down line before we decide to throw the ball long enough to actually gain the first down. There's a damn good reason they are all giving up that short pass to North Texas, it's because it rarely gets the first down.

Twice. North Texas led 3-0 and 10-7, then our special teams took over and insured that wouldn't happen again. Thank you Mr. Drake.

Will We Cover? No. Down by 18 early in the fourth quarter we'll kick a field goal on 4th and 2 at the 6. The lay down and die strategy will encourage the opponent to make the game look like a blowout.

Boy, golly, jeepers, guys. $10.00....$10.00....$10.00....$10.00.... It's amazing how a vote for a $7 increase is never presented as such. I guess that if you're only willing to view things from certain angles then you won't see what others believe is obvious.

But Stebo, we've got to play the best blah, blah, blah. A year ago Hawaii propelled itself to it's Miricle Season and a BCS Bowl by following the scheduling strategy that you described. They had blowout wins of 66-3 over Northern Colorado and 66-10 over College of Charleston. Other than that, they had a very ordinary success against Division 1-A competition: 45-44 over La Tech 42-35 over San Jose St 37-30 over Fresno St 28-26 over Nevada All nice wins, but within a touchdown of schools that had lower Sagarin ratings than the top few Sun Belt schools. A single comeback win against a BCS school in the season finale, at home, against a 4-9 Washington team, was all it then took to secure a BCS Bowl bid.

How does that $400 per year Western Kentucky student athletics fee compare with other schools? It's among the lowest. University of South Alabama ...... $506 per year, $253.00 per student per semester South Alabama Tuition and Fee schedule South Alabama increased the athletic fee effective this year with intents to participate in Sun Belt football in 2012. Florida International University......$455.30 per year, $227.65 per student per semester Florida International Fee Schedule The fee is based on $14.51 per credit hour (at 15 hours) plus a per semester $10 Intercollegiate Athletics Fee. There is a currently a proposal being reviewed by the FIU Board of Regents that would raise the fee $1.46 per credit hour which would raise the athletic fee to $15.97 per credit hour ($249.55 per student per semester, or $499.10 per year) Florida Atlantic University.....$412.50 per year, $206.25 per student per semester FAU Fee Increase In 2005 Florida Atlantic Trustees saw the need to raise the athletics fee from $11.75 to $13.75 per credit after a student referendum failed that would have made FAU's athletics fee higher than several other Florida university's. After 3 years in the Sun Belt and the subsequent success of the athletic programs, there is a likelihood that an additional increase will soon be passed. University of Texas-San Antonio.....$480 per year, $240.00 per student per semester UTSA Today on Athletics Fee increase The students at UTSA passed a referendum in September 2007 that will raise the athletics fee from $10 to $20 per credit hour for up to 12 hours (capped at a maximum $240 per semester). The increase has since been approved by the University of Texas regents. The increase is designed to enable UTSA to not only start football, but to field a competitive team. Texas State University.....$600.00 per year, $300.00 per student per semester by 2012 Athletics Fee Increase of February 2008 The Texas State fee is being raised to $20 per credit hour over the next 5 years. (the $300 figure shown above is based on 15 hour courseload) MTSU doesn't have a set Dedicated Student Athletics Fee. !t is a significant portion of the Program Services Fee which is a maximum of $1398.00 per year at a rate of $59.00 per credit hour, and a maximum of $699.00 per semester. MTSU Bursar's Office

WKU President Gary Ransdell is in his belief that football's upgrade is key to a master plan to expand the university's overall reach from regional to national. "It would take us several generations if we were to rely solely on our academic capacity," Ransdell says. "The athletic stage is one of the means through which that vision can be achieved." Ransdell and Athletics Director Wood Selig have tried to do their homework, incorporating what they've seen work elsewhere and avoiding what hasn't. "Western Kentucky enacted a $70 per semester hike in student athletic fees so that it can play with the upper echelon of the five non-automatic-qualifying leagues and we can get to bowl games, and we can play teams that our fans relish playing. We can have some magic and some energy in this program." Kentucky has a 6% state income tax. The school is putting $49 million that it received from the state into the stadium improvements. All this, and Western Kentucky is still only an NCAA Football Championship Subdivision school preparing to jump to 1-A in the Sun Belt Meanwhile, North Texas sits at a $3 per credit hour athletic fee, a fee which is supplying what is likely the smallest institutional investment of any Division 1 school in the nation. A modest increase of $7 per credit hour is being proposed that will help replace an obsolete facility, and even this may not pass. And people wonder what's wrong with UNT athletics.

Thank you for posting the articles.

I understand the point that Rick was trying to stress to the students and I hope his apology is accepted by his athletes. I believe he certainly meant no disrespect to them because I know Rick, I may not always agree with him on everything, but I know he has always spoken of our athletes with respect and has always had their best interest at heart.

People on this board get annoyed when the underlying problem with North Texas athletics is brought up. Facilities, coaches, players, logos, losses, merchandise, and uniform colors are more interesting topics, but some times you must ignore the individual pixels and look at the whole picture. The fundemental problem with North Texas is, and has always been, a lack of institutional investment. In the major sports, North Texas has only one postseason victory in the past 60 years. No other school in the nation can say that. I am not a student and have no business or interest in trying to sway their vote one way or the other. If somebody that is a student would like to present some of this, then feel free to. It's not really my opinion, it's just a display of how North Texas athletics have gotten to where they are today.

With all due respect, as I am grateful to every player that suits up for North Texas, but as far as players that could garner interest from the NFL, Dickey inherited a gold mine compared to what he left. Other than Jamario, those type of players stopped arriving at North Texas after the 2001 signing class. Was that due to coaching staff changes, changes in recruiting philosophy, complacency, time constraints brought on by the New Orleans Bowls, or possibly something else?