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MeanGreenWithEnvy

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Everything posted by MeanGreenWithEnvy

  1. Don't know if this has been asked and/or answered before, but can anyone share with us if the Athletic Department does any alumni outreach beyond the Mean Green Club? I don't think I'm taking too much of a liberty by thinking that MGC and season ticket holders are nearly always the same. Does Athletics do microtargeting of alumni beyond MGC? Is there anything along the lines of prospect identification of alumni outside of MGC? Surely the university has that kind of data. I've written before here that targeting isn't rocket science. We can do this and do a good-to-great job of it. I really want to believe this is being done, because if it's not and if all the AD is counting on is MGC and students, that should be a firing offense.
  2. Now that I'm off the clock, I'm going to chime in with a different take on this situation. This is GMG. It's all Mean Green Athletics, all the time. In focusing on the Regents and focusing on the President and what they're doing or not doing about athletics, I believe you're missing the bigger picture of the university as an institution, of which athletics is one part. It's natural to focus only on the athletics piece here on GMG because that's what this community is focused on. For the Regents and the President, though, the focus is much broader. For the President, it's the whole institution. For the Regents, it's UNT, UNT Dallas, UNT HSC, and, coming soon, the UNT College of Law. These are not good times in higher education. The current budget is crap, projections for budgets in the immediate future are crap, and yet we are asked to do more with less to somehow not just make it all work, but to make it all a completely awesome learning experience. Departments can't replace faculty who retire because there's no money to do it. The library has to curtail the acquisition of new research resources and cut current research resources because, for a university of our size, we have the dumbest funding model for our libraries that you could possibly have in higher ed, and the cartel pricing of these resources should be a felony. This isn't an exhaustive list, but rather the highlights (lowlights?) of some of our issues. It all goes back to not having the money to properly do things, including athletics. If you want to look to the source of that problem, you have to look at enrollment. Yes, our enrollment numbers are higher than ever. They're also under the forecasted numbers. Like most public universities in Texas not named UT and A&M, most of our budget comes from tuition and fees. My belief is that tuition and fees are already at such a level that it is impacting our potential enrollment. Basically, tuition and fees are so high that prospective students that we could and should be enrolling are choosing community colleges or online alternatives. Student loans being tightened and, at this point, being not terribly different from sharecropping, is also a big factor. These are by no means problems unique to UNT, but they are among our biggest challenges. With all of the issues the Regents and the President have to deal with that are more central to the mission of the university, I don't see the athletics fee being increased any time soon. We're not going to help our enrollment numbers by making the cost of a UNT education more expensive. I do think that the Regents are an empirically minded group, hence the goals they set out. In my estimation, those are the benchmarks they're going to look toward to green light fee increases. We need to do the best we can with what we have, and we haven't done that yet. If we start doing better, I think you'll see approval for increasing the athletics fee.
  3. Awesome! Breakfast at Galaviz, walk across the parking lot to the Boozer. Sounds like a plan!
  4. On a merch related note, has anyone ever seen or purchased a UNT fitted cap? I happened to see some in the Union Book Store right before they closed to move to their temporary facilities, and they had a couple of really great designs. I have a huge battering ram of a head, so none of the ones on hand came close to fitting me. I noted the manufacturer of both (New Era, in their 59/50 line), and hopped online to see if I could buy one. Short answer: yes, but not exactly what I want. http://shop.neweracap.com/style/59FIFTY-NCAA-2-Tone-Graphite-and-Team-Color/20326110 The design I hope to find in a size 8 is the all green fitted cap with the logo. That was exactly what I've been looking for and, of course, no mas on the sizing. I plan on visiting the bookstore's new temporary facilities tomorrow to check out the cap selection that MeanGreener mentions above. I've been looking for a UNT fitted cap for years and never found one, so I hope that my sasquatch sighting turns out to be a thing and not a one time run that I missed out on.
  5. I think the recipe for upping attendance that has the best chance at succeeding is something like this: 1) More local engagement. What jdennis82 proposes above is a great example. 2) Do some microtargeting* on our alumni base who live in the region and send them free tickets to one home game. 3) Win. *I hope to God someone at UNT has the kind of data to do this, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if we don't have it. We're still in the 1970s when it comes to alumni engagement. It's pitiful.
  6. This is a great idea. It's exactly the kind of low cost/low risk/high reward move that we ought to be looking into.
  7. I'm of two minds on this topic: first, I don't think anyone, least of all the UNT System, needs to be pouring money into opening a law school. We have a historic glut of lawyers at the present time, and I feel that it is an inefficient allocation of scarce resources to invest in opening a law school. We already have a legal education system on our hands that has drastically overproduced lawyers; even if UNT Dallas Law School does it differently, we will still be spending money to educate people who will graduate into a historic glut. I simply don't think that's a wise investment for the UNT System. In my opinion, opening a law school is part of the system-wide push to get serious about alumni engagement and about building an alumni base that will support the university with gifts and donations. To really get serious about that, historically, you need to produce a lot potential high wage earners, which means lots of MBAs, M.D.s, and J.D.s. Produce lots of them, hope a handful make it big, and hope that you'll find a Joe Jamail somewhere in the pile. That's the historic model; whether or not the J.D. plank of that model holds true anymore is anyone's guess. Second, you have hit upon something very important here, Harry. It's not just the law school that is going about doing things in a different way; my impression from here inside UNT in Denton is that we're all starting to re-orient ourselves in a different way. From talking with people higher up the food chain than myself and from hearing and reading lots of inside baseball stuff, I would characterize what's going on here like this: We're not going to compete with the UTs and the A&Ms of the state, but the territory we do want to stake out is that we're a competitive third best option in the state, shoulder-to-shoulder with UH. UH has the Houston metro area; we want to stake out the D/FW metro area. We're not going to hang our hats on National Merit Scholars or how many top tier HS students we recruit; we want to be the school of first choice for the second tier HS students and for the hard cases, first-in-the-family students and single parents and whatnot. We're not going to try to be something we can't; we're going to try to be the best that we can be, which is to say the dominant public higher education and post-graduate professional education (M.D.s and J.D.s) destination in the Metroplex. I wasn't on board with this plan when I first got the idea that this was our future. You know something, though? We're in the biggest period of disruption for higher education right now that we've ever faced since the first public universities opened. I think cutting state support for public education, including public higher education, is buying our towns, cities, and state a delayed disaster, but continuing declining support is the reality. Our support levels aren't going to go back up, so we have to figure out how to make the most out of what we have and how to fund what we are currently doing and all we want to do in the future. Being realistic about our future student base, getting them Mean Green'd while they are here, getting them graduated with non-soul-crushing levels of debt and the skills and education they need for good jobs and productive citizenship is the plan. Happy, engaged alumni then give to their alma mater, we lasso enough grant money to keep research hopping, and everyone rides off into the sunset. At least that's my opinion of where we're headed.
  8. Build houses on university land, play by university rules. The university can ban alcohol at Greek functions and it's not going to do a damned thing to curb binge drinking or Greeks partying. The activity will simply move off-campus to a less controlled environment. I'm not a fan of the university telling adults that they can't smoke on university property and I'm not a fan of the university telling Greeks they can't have alcohol at their parties. That's a little too nanny-ish for my tastes. We've got plenty of problems figuring out how to better educate our students and how to deal with declining state support for higher education while growing as a university without delving into micromanaging young adults' behavior outside of the classroom.
  9. Agree 110%. Surveying the lay of the land, we have the pieces in place now and the mighty Mean Green assembly line is starting to warm up with our current undergrads. Can't say enough good things about what folks like micahgb are doing to build a long-term sustainable Mean Green culture in our student body, a culture that they will carry with them whether they up and leave or stay and graduate. I only wish someone would have had the sense to do this a long time ago and that this someone would have had the institutional support to keep it going through the years.
  10. I know what you mean, DeepGreen. We have a hell of a problem in that we need to convince our alums that things really have turned a corner and that it really is different this time, but it's damn near impossible to do that when we're making slow progress on the gridiron and have fallen apart in what was supposed to be our best year ever in men's basketball. On a related note, this fetish we have with re-inventing ourselves hasn't helped our cause, either. I've heard some of the development people who are trying to bolster the alumni network from the college level (a brilliant and long-overdue move, in my opinion) talk about how when they meet with older alums, those alums are scratching their heads over who the "Mean Green" are and "what's a Scrappy? Where's Eppy?" We've so schizophrenically tacked this way and that way to try to find a modern identity that we're disconnected from decades of alums who are entering the years of their lives where they have more potential to give back to the university than ever, but are left wondering what university they're giving to. No easy answers, just lots of hard work.
  11. I had a whole jeremiad scrawled down about ranking this one above that one and so forth, and then I realized I'd just spent half an hour of my life writing about the Sun Belt 2.0. I deleted it. None of the musical chairs of realignment are chiseled in stone right now, so I'm not going to mourn everyone we were all so excited about being conference mates with fleeing the conference until it actually happens. It does make me feel like we're the stinky new kid in the room who doesn't realize he stinks and is a little baffled as to why the other kids are running away. Whatever happens, I hope we can at least make our peace with the hand we're dealt. Simply put, we need to start proving we belong at the levels we all feel we belong. We prove that by winning on the gridiron, winning on the basketball court, winning on the soccer pitch, winning on the softball diamond, and winning on the tennis courts.
  12. Church schools and cow colleges produce well-connected alums who, occasionally, make a ton of money in professions like business, oil, law (see: SMU), and agriculture (for all the prior three plus ag, see: A&M). Teacher's college predominantly produce teachers and other solidly middle class alums. Teachers don't make a lot of money. We don't have billionaire angel alums plowing millions of their fortunes back into the academic and athletic programs. There's no UNT version of Joe Jamail. There's no UNT version of T. Boone Pickens. We have had alums who have done well for themselves who have given back to the university in both athletics and academics: look at many of the Geazles, guys like Zeke Martin and Ken Bahnsen. When you have those outliers among your alums, people like Jamail (UT) and Pickens (OSU) and the Dedman family (SMU) can make a huge difference in moving things along in a positive direction.
  13. The least sexy thing about football is also the most important: the lines. Without an offensive line that can maintain a running game, you can't get by with an average or below average QB. Without a defensive line that can stop the run and put some pressure on the opposing QB without having to resort to run blitzes and passing blitzes, you'll never stop anyone with any regularity. I am absolutely in favor of going the JUCO route for the defensive line. Promising high school defensive lineman are some of the rarest of recruits, and very few of them end up available and/or interested in programs like ours. I'll be happier than anyone else around here if we can convert possible recruits like Romar, Vaenuku, and Thurman into actual Mean Green players, but these kids are usually the ones who end up going elsewhere. Even when you get promising HS d-linemen, they usually take a couple of years to develop into regulars. For the d-line, the JUCO route makes a whole lot of sense. On a related note, we've seen the blueprint Mac is going to use on the offensive side of the ball: Run it. Regardless of whether or not we like this, regardless of how much of a waste of Chico's play calling it might be, this is the offensive system the Mean Green will win and lose by as long as Mac is here. I'm excited to see what the combination of Pegram and Jimerson can do behind an offensive line who will have another year of experience under their belts except for Fortenberry, who will graduate. I'll be even more excited if Berglund turns out to be even an average passing QB, someone who can make opposing defenses at least occasionally honor the play action instead of laugh themselves silly at it. A decent passing threat + an experienced line + exciting backs = an offense that can do some damage.
  14. In all fairness to Mac and Chico, who own the plays being called on the field, who in the hell are you going to throw to down field? Between a QB who can't hit open receivers on 10 yard routes and no receiver over 5'9 who can actually get down field fast enough to be in the vicinity of a long throw, how is throwing down field even an option?
  15. Any coaching change when the coach in question is replacing a disaster takes time. I'll give Mac four years before I start to harden my opinions on him.
  16. The reason the engagement puzzle never gets solved is because any time this topic comes up a significant number of folks around here trot out their favorite whipping post (apathetic students, disengaged alums, lazy administration, Denton, frats, etc.) instead of taking a sober, empirical look at the numbers and starting the conversation from there. Let's take a quick jaunt through this list: Apathetic students: Dude, if you think student participation is bad now, you should have been here, oh, I don't know, any time in the last 20 years. I've been around for most of that time period and if you don't want to believe that students will turn out to watch a good team, then I don't know what to tell you. Student school spirit is getting better because it's become a bigger part of recruitment and orientation and dorm life in the last few years. Change doesn't happen overnight. Disengaged alums: If you aren't already a football fan before you come to college and you don't become a football fan in college, why would you come back and go to football games 5, 10, 15, 20 years later? Expecting alums who rarely (if ever) attended games while they were here to suddenly show up now simply isn't realistic. On the plus side, do what I've done: be the change you want. We all know alums who fit this category. Offer to buy them a ticket to a game as a way of catching up. I'm bringing one of these folks to ULL, two to Homecoming, and another to South Alabama. Reach out to these folks and bring 'em in! Lazy administration: I've been critical of the lack of official outreach in the past, but the admin is taking steps in the right direction. For example, check out http://meangreenprid...t.edu/discounts and the other parts of the Mean Green Pride initiative. Also check out what micahgb and her group are doing; these are the kinds of smart moves that the administration can make that will help us build the community of Mean Green fans we want. Denton: Of all the whipping posts, I have the least understanding for Denton bashing, probably because I grew up here, in a NTSU/UNT family, and I now live here and work here. Yes, Denton and UNT have had plenty of issues through the years, and both sides deserve some blame. The attitude of some here on GMG that the city government and every resident of Denton should be collectively kissing the boots of the university's athletic program is silly, equally as silly as the attitude of some here who will blame everything from to Darrell Dickey's freak out to Todd Dodge's defense on Denton. If you think Denton sucks, show me a similar community with a comparable situation who you think is the tits, then we can talk. Frats: They'll come around. Trying to herd them or anyone else who would rather tailgate than come in for the game into the stadium is not good PR. The saying is "if you build it, they will come," not "force them into it while you build it." There ought to be room for all of us on game day, those of us who want to go in and yell for our home team, and those who want to stay outside and tailgate. Those who are tailgaters now will start coming inside when "it" gets "built"; running them off before that happens seems to me to be a luxury we can't afford. Oh, and what CurveItAround wrote! GMG!
  17. Can he? Sure. I don't have any doubt about Coach Mac's recruiting chops. Will it happen? Not likely. 4-star kids rarely end up at schools outside of the big name conferences. Last year was flukey for 4-stars in that one ended up at Texas State and another ended up at WKU. That usually doesn't happen, but every now and then it will. I'd wager the better question to ask is can we consistently get 2-stars and build them into 3-stars and then occasionally get some 3-stars straight out of high school and either maintain them at 3-stars or develop them into 4-stars. In the 2013 recruiting class, here's what our future C-USA opponents have committed right now: Houston: 11 3-star, 0 4-star East Carolina: 9 3-star, 0 4-star UCF: 8 3-star, 1 4-star SMU: 7 3-star, 0 4-star Tulsa: 7 3-star, 0 4-star Rice: 6 3-star, 0 4-star Marshall: 3 3-star, 0 4-star Southern Miss: 3 3-star, 0 4-star Tulane: 3 s-star, 1 4-star Memphis: 3 3-star, 0 4-star UNT: 1 3-star, 0 4-star UAB: 0 3-star, 0 4-star UTEP: 0 3-star, 0 4-star
  18. In the midst of all this excitement for us, the demise of the WAC is amazing. To think that we might be seeing the last week of its existence...wow.
  19. I am definitely interested. I know one other person who would be in as well. I think at least once a week would be necessary; if there's some kind of take away where we have a routine to follow in between meetings, once every couple of weeks or could also work. Mornings would work best for me, but I can make evenings work, too. On point #2, I'd bet my bottom dollar that if this became some kind of boot camp advertised to alums and students, you could make it well worth Coach Wintrich's time. For those of y'all who aren't in the UNT community (as far as working here or being a student), the Rec Center offers classes like this for a fee and the "boot camp" style courses (Cross Fit, Fit Camp, Kettlebells) are very popular. I know the Cross Fit course sells out pretty quickly each semester its offered.
  20. THIS! THIS! SO MUCH OF THIS! We've got the stadium. The product on the field is moving in the right direction. We've got the coach. Now we need to get butts in seats. Hell, if I can come up with three or four decent-sounding do-able ideas while laying on my couch, we ought to be able to hire one or two people who can do the idea-dreaming and making it happen full time!
  21. Here we are, hopefully on the precipice of moving out of the Sun Belt, in a thread that lead off with one of the most righteously positive posts I've ever read on GMG, and someone still finds a way to turn all that sunshine into an opportunity to dump on Denton. That's ridiculous. Can't sell out Apogee consistently in its first year? Denton sucks. Students attendance at games isn't what we wanted in Year One? Obviously Denton's fault. Denton high school players go to FCS schools instead of UNT? Totally a product of the community. I'm a townie. I've lived here most of my life. I work at UNT and I'm an alum. I'm a Mean Green Club member. My dad is a retired professor from UNT. My parents were sponsors for the Geazles many, many years ago, and I grew up with stories about Bill Bishop, Ray Renfro, Hayden Fry, and "the good old days" of Mean Green football when we sent as many guys to the NFL as today's perennial Top 25 schools do today. I put all this out here because I want y'all to understand that I'm not a carpetbagger who doesn't know the lay of the land around here. I know Denton and I know UNT's history with Denton. What puzzles me about all the beating up on Denton and its residents is that I don't see what y'all are complaining about when you say the town in "ungrateful" and "non-supportive." I say "y'all" because this attitude towards Denton is well-represented on this board. The collective mindset seems to be that every single resident of Denton owes fealty to UNT simply because we're here. That's silly. Considering that UNT does damn near ZERO outreach to the Denton community, we're lucky we get what support we do. Many of y'all seem to think that Denton should be Lawrence, Kansas, a town that bleeds blue and red for hometown KU. I've got news for you: Lawrence isn't Jayhawk territory because KU happens to be there and Lawrence residents "owe" it their loyalty; it's partisan KU territory because KU is engaged in that community in ways where UNT is absent from the Denton community. Lawrence doesn't love the Jayhawks out of necessity; that town loves the Jayhawks because whether it's athletics, academics, or community service, the town and the university are intertwined. Here in Denton, I can draw you a pretty darn accurate demarcation line between Town and Gown with my eyes closed. Not only are we not intertwined, but Denton and UNT have not had the best of relationships. For example, ask any of the small business owners on West Prairie who the University tried to screw a few years ago using eminent domain if they'll hang a green and white flag during home games. I saw plenty of Denton residents who have no formal connection to UNT in the west stands at Apogee last season. I also saw plenty of my friends who are UNT alums who live in the area in those stands. I saw current staff and retired staff who live in Denton in the stands last year. None of those folks appeared ungrateful or unsupportive to me. The kicker is that Denton and North Texas can be like Lawrence and KU. This town could be partisan Mean Green territory. It's not going to happen by blaming our past failures on the very people you want buying the merchandise and going crazy on 3rd down in Apogee and hollering in the Super Pit. It's sure as hell not going to happen by calling the business owners you want buying ad space and flying green and white flags ingrates. In general, making blanket statements about ~120,000 people is pretty much the last thing you ought to be doing to change the situation, unless all you want to do is moan about it instead of fixing it.
  22. http://www.meangreensports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=1800&ATCLID=205389086 South Alabama replaced FIU!
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