oldguystudent

Baseball is a series of minute strategies played out in front of an ADD world. It takes patience to watch, but it's what I grew up with. I'll watch any baseball I can get to. I watch collegiate summer league, college ball, minor league ball, major league ball. Hell, we've even been to a couple games for this reallllly crappy league here called the Continental League. My daughter and I went in May, and I swear there were less than thirty people in the stands. We got about 6 balls from that game! Contrarily, I can't stand basketball. To me, if you had the 1998 Chicago Bulls playing against Denton ISD elementary school, the score would be tied with two minutes left, and the game would be decided in a never ending series of intentional fouls leading to a free throw contest. I know that's not the reality of the game, but I wasn't brought up watching basketball, so it bores me more than watching the paint dry on a set of chess pieces. However, if you like basketball, more power to you. To each their own in their sporting tastes, and I think it's a bit low class to insult the taste of others Rick. Please note that I otherwise greatly respect your posts and efforts towards UNT athletics.

Hmm.. UNT is 40 games over .500 all time. 7 games left this year, so the way things are going, game #9 in 2011 will be our break even point. Also just shy of 500 points on the plus side of PF/PA. Average loss margin of around 35 this year, so game 7 or 8 next year we should have that one taken care of. Nah. It can't be that bad, can it?

Unless the Good Lord sees fit to transform me into a young good looking stud and renders me single without financial penalty, all I can do is look, and there's no better place on a Saturday afternoon to do so than the UNT parking lot.

Your brand new BMW and stockpile of Ralph Lauren shirts is ready for delivery. Your trophy wife is still on hold until we can get her diamond up from 5 carats to 12. If you have any questions, please call our student relations concierge at 1-800-GOT-CASH

Here's where we differ. I just can't see it that way. I look forward to every game, and I've enjoyed my time at each game much more than any alternative time spending opportunities available. Then again, if you lined up 22 cockroaches on a ping pong table with a BB and handed me a brat and a beer, I'd pretty much drop anything else I might be doing.

I've been trying to upload my photo of the girls gone wild bus on A street, but my phone's not cooperating with me. The presence of that vehicle would, in my estimation, serve as a valuable recruiting tool.

Now that's what I call a spread formation!

0-12 team, shoddy stadium for the next couple years, mediocre fan support. How would you sell this school to a high school prospect? I'm thinking: A) A new stadium when you're a junior and starting B ) Tangible increase in alumni contributions showing growing support for the football community C) An opportunity to build something from the ground up instead of riding on established coattails D) More playing time opportunity I think I'd really focus on C. Find the kids that want to start something and take pride in what they've built. Just as you can't teach size, you can't teach heart either. Heart breeds leadership and leadership breeds success. What would you do?

As a greek alumnus, I'm going to give you some advice. When arguing for your organization or the Greek community at large, you may want to present yourself in a more civil manner. Being combative with critics isn't going to gain you any converts; it will only serve to enforce their "assumptions and ignorance". Lead by example, be upstanding, and be the guy who can give coherent answers when people ask about the benefits of joining a Greek organization. Oldguystudent P.S. You might want to advise your sig brothers to stop coming to marketing class hungover and wreaking of booze while wearing letters. That doesn't do much for public perception either.

There's your answer.

Balderdash! It happens every Monday on KNTU. When it comes to the players, as someone once said, you can't teach size. I hear that we're giving up an average of 40 lbs per person on the front line. You can't blame those guys for getting worn out no matter how hard they play. Now that I'm here, regardless of how the team performs, I'll be there for the games. A couple students in class this morning were lamenting the passage of the vote, and I tore them a new set of orifices for their ignorant stances. Either I'm a hell of a debater (one might say married life has turned me into a master debater!) or I'm a flat out scary guy, because they agreed with me when all was said and done.

Irvine restarted its program in 2002 after a ten year absence. It made the tourney in 2004 and 2006. It made the College World Series in 2007 and the Super Regionals in 2008.

Baseball is indeed an entirely different dynamic. Unlike basketball, being in a BCS football conference isn't necessarily an indicator of baseball success. The Big 10 in particular pretty much sucks at baseball. Other conferences, like the Big West, focus almost entirely on baseball and have success year after year. We're a 1 bid second rate basketball conference, but we sent 4 teams to the tourney last year in baseball. You've also got your Rice, Wichita State, Tulane, Fresno State, San Diego, Oral Roberts, Pepperdine, Dallas Baptist and others that are perpetual post season players from otherwise crappy conferences. Bottom line, the more I research it, the more the reality hits that baseball is not a money maker. Not even LSU makes money (depending how you read the accounting). The top baseball coaches make quiet a bit of money (Mike Gillespie at UC Irvine is making $250,000 plus endorsements and incentives). I can only guess what someone of the caliber of an Augie Guerrido makes (living legend status). Best case scenario for a program like UNT is that it would cost a couple million a year to run the program after stadium construction expenses. Baseball has been great for Irvine, Long Beach and Fullerton because we've got nothing else to get our name out there to the general public. But if we could field a successful football or basketball team, the rewards for that would be incomparable to the exposure we get from baseball. As an extreme example, Irvine has multiple national championships in men's water polo, sailing, and men's volleyball. We had Greg Louganis in diving and Mike Powell in track. Anybody ever hear about those? Nope? Didn't think so. Only the die hards like me noticed Coach Sprewell on the floor at the Beijing Olympics for volleyball. I would love to have a baseball team here. I would be at every game I could physically get myself to. I would know the players and coaches personally. I would travel to the post season sites (as I've done for Irvine). But I have to concede that it wouldn't do much overall for recognition or income for our athletic program overall.

One of the acknowledged forces to be reckoned with when it comes to knowledge about college baseball is Boyd Nation. He's a Mississippi State alum who runs www.boydsworld.com He has his own system of rating teams, and has a formula that nails RPI more accurately than anybody. I emailed him about revenues in college baseball, and this is what he had to say.

Did the NCAA implement a new rule that teams playing UNT only get 3 points for a touchdown?

Here's some good information on college baseball money dug up by the Portland newspaper in regards to Oregon's revival of baseball. It doesn't look like anybody makes money in baseball, but it also looks like it can be very nearly self sustaining. link

I'm off to the Big West boards to inquire. I don't really know off hand.

The TCL almost folded entirely at the conclusion of the 2007 season. Depending on who you asked the league was trying to screw the owners or the owners were trying to screw the league. It wasn't much related to actual community support. From wiki: Nonetheless, the kid and I have gone to quite a few McKinney Marshalls games. The field they play in is a municipal park surrounded by youth softball fields. It seats just over 1,000. For a D1 team, that would be marginal at best. Collegiate summer ball is fun to watch though. I hope the league gets its act together again. The players went from top D1 programs to mostly D2 and D3 this past summer. It was sad.

Heh heh! When all else fails, increase the name recognition of your alma mater yourself! It's all going according to plan. In all seriousness, when the Big West dropped football, baseball became its priority sport. You can't join the conference anymore without a baseball team. I'm not sure, but it may even have more emphasis than basketball. ETA -- I should add that Irvine's baseball coach makes more money than UNT's football coach. You gotta' pay to play just like in any other sport.

According to Sagarin this week, amongst all 245 Division 1 teams (That's FBS and FCS) UNT is #195. So in reality, we're even worse than the bottom ten. On the bright side, we can only go up from here!

More of the same.

Your cookies are evil. 12 dozen please.

How about letting the stadium design company name it after themselves in exchange for a discount on the architecture and a little kick in on construction costs. We get our new stadium, and they get a show piece for future clients.

It all sounds well and good, but is there gonna' be any beer there?

Be careful what you put in print fine sir.