PlummMeanGreen
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Posts posted by PlummMeanGreen
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To get into the MWC we need:
1)32000+ attendance
2)new football stadium
3)top 25 team in something OTHER than football.
4)15k of 32k in stands to be incredibly attractice women.(to boost attendance of dudes to 70k)
We need to do all the things on that list just for us; that is, never minding a possble future in the MWC.
IMHO, "IF" the MWC expanded in Texas, I'd see them wanting the Houston TV market and that would be UH, of course. Just don't think UH will have near as good as facilities as NORTH TEXAS once the entire Mean Green Athletic Village is completed. And if NT hasn't learned anything in recent years, haven't we learned where facilities do make a difference sometimes in getting in conferences? Even having good overall facilities over some schools who regularly go to bowl games in some cases?
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Not a shot back but rather an informational message.
We have good people in the academic center. It is easy to point the finger there, but the numbers say otherwise. Graduation rates are up to 60 % and our APR was the highest for public institutions in the state. We had eight teams with a 2.8 or better this past semester and only 1 student outside of football is not eligible for next year. It is not the job of anyone to sit in class with a student-athlete and make sure he goes to school. That is a responsibility of that young man or woman. We do check classes but this is not a baby sitting service. Plenty of football players are doing great and handling that responsibility.
There are any number of proposed cures including sitting in class. At Middle Tennessee they recently adopted a department-wide policy that equates missed classes with missed playing time. East Carolina has a similar program. Others teams use different approaches to promote and enforce class attendance. We have confidence that our coaches can handle their teams and currently allow them to determine their own processes, which they have done with much success in the last four years. I have consistently heard Coach Dickey as well as all of our other head coaches demand that players meet their responsibility of going to class, making the grade and getting a degree. Many student-athletes heed the words, but there is a small minority that never will.
Our kids today have better facilities, more computers, more summer school and 5th year funding, and a new academic center set to open in August. People in the academic department can only do so much and I think they do a great job. The proof is in the total numbers and not just this isolated case of 5 athletes. If more money and more people were the cure, then our the Big 12 friends would have better numbers than ours.
This is a case of a small group of individuals provided with opportunities failing to take advantage of the benefits available. They have been given plenty of attention, encouragement and even prodding from the academic center to take care of business. We may be forced to change the system in the future but for now we will entrust our coaches to solve the challenges within their teams. Let's hope that these young people, as well as others, learn from this situation. They hurt not only themselves, but their teammates, their coaches and everyone who love Mean Green Athletics.
GO MEAN GREEN!
For you newbies or visitors to GMG.com, "Glad to be Green" is the Director of Athletics at the University of North Texas, one Mr. Rick Villarreal.
Like Reagan once stared into a TV camera and asked Americans this question in a presidential debate: "Are you better off now than you were 4 years ago?" (As one who voted for Carter the first time I would have to admit that we were not better off).
Well, in Mean Green Country, we know we are better off than we were 4-5 years ago which was about the time our AD started rolling up his sleeves in Mean Green Country. This 1976 NT grad offers a Texas-sized----Thank You, Rick V, and I know many others on this forum feel as strongly and will state such on this forum or in a personal email to you.
Anyone else needing further proof of this progress only has to look out between those 2 interstates at the 200 acres of an olympic-type village at our Eagle Point Campus. Just look out and see facilities already completed and others rising up on the rolling Texas prairie like the Phoenix off the desert sands with every bit of this under the watch of University of North Texas Athletic Director Rick Villarreal.
GMG!
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I'm assuming that you're referring to this video:
New North Texas Stadium and Mean Green Athletic Village
and to these illustrations:
Facilities Under Construction and Planned Facilities
Follow the Wedesday updates on the Mean Green Athletics Site to keep up with construction updates on all the new facilities.
Wednesday Facility Construction Updates
This site has additional links to planned facilities:
Mean Green Athletics Facilities
and I had to throw in these drawings of the North Texas Ballpark slated for completion this upcoming spring.
Bump, bump.....
I know a CUSA poster who wants to see these links.
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If NT ever wanted to make a jump to the MWC, in which I feel we would fit right in and be competitive.......we need to have at least 30,000 at all of the home games. Any conference would love to see us travel with at least 15,000 fans.
At the Univ of Arkansas, there football stadium was crap when they joined the SEC, however, the SEC wanted the hogs because of their traveling fans.
Everything in higher ed and the world, hinges on $$$$....if we could get our attendance up, any conference would come flirting.
GO MEAN GREEN....BEAT LSU
Back while in high school, I once took the HS sweetheart to Rice Stadium to see the Owls and Arkansas Razorbacks and the Hogs literally had more fans than the home team. Not so unusual at Rice, of course.
Maybe the SEC wanted those visiting Hog fans back when they first brought Arkansas into their league, but there has (somewhat) been an evolution take place with the Big Boys it seems in recent years and that is: Just how many of the Texas', TAMU's, Tennessee's and the like even have the luxury of allotting large numbers of tickets (with a view) to visiting fans anymore?
Back in the day, NT could buy as many ticket to go down and play the Longhorns as we wanted, but now look what tickets they are giving NT.
I have not been back to UT since. So my new take on all this now is: What the heck, save gas, hotel expenses and just give that money to the MG Club or buy an additional season ticket or 2 because we all know that NT athletics needs the money (and additional butts at Fouts) a helluva lot more than UT does.
The Big Boys are all mostly filling their stadiums with their own fans now. It really does seem like a whole new era because of that, too. We still have some work ahead at NT before we can tell our visiting teams that they can only have 500 tickets because that is all we can spare. What a happy day when that time in our future does arrive and hopefully sooner than later.
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Steven Head was the golfer's name that played for UNT. He has passed away recently:
http://www.rctimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artic.../307200118/1306
KAjunRaider, thanks for this info albeit sad.
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He's tall.
He can leap tall buildings on a single bounce.
Seriously.....
NT QB's for 2005:
(1) Daniel Meager (Watch out SBC if this guy stays injury-free).
(2) Special "K" aka Korey Washington (I like your nickname for him, Harry).
(3) ?????
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It's much more than theory. Granted you have to move ahead of the Conference ahead of you but just ask the Big East if it is theory.
My .02 is the eastern sports writers will not be wanting to cover the Big East as much if they are suddenly dropped out of the elite BCS group.
Anyone want to know the power and influence of the eastern sports-writing crowd? Just ask a boat load of Dallas Cowboys who cannot get into the NFL Hall of Fame because of their influence. If Big East Commish' Tranghese were smart, he would be mobilizing that entire bloc of eastern sports writers to help his cause.
Hopefully, in due time, the NCAA will make all this a non-issue for the Big East, MWC, WAC, MAC and the Sun Belt. That might be a pipe dream, but stranger things have happened within the NCAA.
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I've come to agree with PMG that the MWC is going to be a BCS league very soon, possibly by 2008, and it would be huge if we could join. Just imagine if UNT was a BCS school. We could go toe-to-toe with UT and A&M in recruiting and we'd have enough money for the new stadium. We could also afford to pay our people enough that we'd never have to worry about another school coming in and luring 'em away. I know we are facing some stiff competition. Fresno State, Boise State, Hawaii, UTEP, and Nevada are ahead of us at the moment so we would have to beat out at least 3 of those schools. Am I just dreaming or do we have a realistic chance?
I think the MWC is a worthy dream for NT, but we have to do some fairly dramatic (NT alumnus-based) moves in order to put ourselves ahead of other schools who are probably a few steps ahead of us.
TOO LONG A READ?
Yes, I do think that TCU made a good decision by removing themselves from the CUSA (specifically its West Division) because IMO they create a perception with some potential recruits that they are a half step or more ahead of the schools they left behind one of which was their DFW twin and fellow private school, Southern Methodist University.
I think one upmanship is what the non BCS is all about these days. That is why completing ALL venues at our Eagle Point Campus is so important for our own future and even in the Sun Belt where other schools are making noises of moving ahead of us by getting involved in all this athletic venue's arms race. NT is even moreso the bulls-eye target for about 7 other SBC football schools. Last year with all our close SBC football games was a pretty big indicator that they are closing the gap.
In the decades I've followed our alma mater, I've observed that we have a tendency of taking a big step (or 2) forward and then 3 back. I hope Pohl's resignation doesn't put us in that mode again and trust Bobby Ray and our Board of Regents will not allow any one person or campus group to have such influence as to put us in that tailspin, yet I don't think NT moves forward, continues our dominance in the SBC or get our football program to where beating a Top 25 school is not such a surprise until these 3 things happen:
(1) when we build a major college football stadium to finish out the Mean Green Athletic Village
(2) when we significantly build our season ticket base which would eventually produce better attendance
(3) when we build our Mean Green Club to such a level that it produces million$ (like U of Memphis' does at $5 million plus) because when that happens that allows NT to get its athletic budget to about $18-20 million where it would need to be to be competitive in the Mountain West Conference.
All this happening in Mean Green Country is not about Norval Pohl or his successor, its not about NT Athletic Director Rick Villarreal, its not about Coach Darrell Dickey and its not about NT Board of Regent chairman Bobby Ray, yet all this happening is about-------us.
Some NT alums: LET GEORGE DO IT!
None of us can coat-tail with all this and take the attitude of "let George do our part" (so to speak) but each of us in whatever way we can work it into our budgets, have to be the investors in all this because if its not us of GoMeanGreen.com who are our school's most vocal, the ones of the NT constituency who very loudly make our opinions and ideas known or if its not us who makes most of our dreams that have come from this message board come to fruition--then just who is it who will make our dreams come true?
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WHERE DOES ONE START? The ones who answer this number on campus: 1-800-UNT-2366 are NT Ticket Mgr. Gabe Kirkpatrick or one of his staff members..................Ask em' first how you can join the $250 level for less than $1.00 a day?
They can help you toward the purchase of 2005 MG FB season tickets and/or explain to you how one can budget the Mean Green Club in most anyone's household budget. Can your budget afford less than $1 per day? If so, then that would get you that exclusive $250 annual MG Club membership (with close parking decal) and the opportunity to buy 2005 MG FB season ticket to even sit in "prime seating" Section E (between both 40 yard lines I think)
So..........you are an out-of-town alum or fan and can't make all or any of the games? Gabe and staff can tell you how you can buy season tickets and make some (or all) of your season tickets available to others in or near Denton who may have a problem attending any Mean Green football game this Fall.
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I'm going to have to disagree with you on the point that we are the minority--or at least get clarification on who you mean by "we" being the minority.
Probably took some of this out of context, but athletics seems to pull in larger numbers of alums and fans than the NT Winds Ensemble over at the NT College of Music.
Now I appreciate good music as much as the next guy and play a bit of it myself, but no soloist or ensemble at the NT College of Music is ever going to get NT Exes out of the woodwork from all over the Lone Star State to show up for any concert while a good college football match-up at Fouts Field will.
We really do seem to have those on campus who do not like all this athletic emphasis and I'd bet everytime many of that group drive by the Mean Green Athletic Village and see all the facilities that are now finished and others being built about half a century later than the should have, that when driving by those 200 acres between the 2 Texas interstates some of them probably utter a few choice words.
It sometimes baffles some of us that Denton is even located in Texas where football is supposed to be king. To be honest about this, though, I think this is the last remnants of the the old "NTSU" campus crowd's last attempt to try to see that things would somehow return to the way things were done up there in the 1950's, 1960's and the 1970's. I think it's too late for that whether Norval Pohl is in Denton or not and if they think his leaving will enhance their agendas, I think NT Board of Regent chairman Bobby Ray and the rest of the NT Board of Regents have a big surprise waiting.
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Why doesn't someone make a website dedicated to researching alums,contacting alums,providing info on how to donate, pics of everything planned,and also a database for sun belt/UNT football.
I just don't see anyone who would be willing to donate 30 mil to a sun belt team.
I don't see many wanting to donate $30 million, either, but all we are looking for is one.
This is Texas and stranger things have happened among Texas colleges and universities when it comes to some fat cat Texan with a bit of ego and proud of his family name/heritage wanting to tackle such a project.
The names which many on this board are sworn to secrecy that NT fund-raisers have been cultivating is a most impressive list. Even more impressive is that most have a UNT association of some kind.
I defer back to Troy U, folks. They aimed high, shot low and got a nice football stadium because of it. NT Exes need to leave our past behind because its NT's future that Mr. Big Donor will mostly be interested in.
GMG!
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I'm assuming that you're referring to this video:
New North Texas Stadium and Mean Green Athletic Village
and to these illustrations:
Facilities Under Construction and Planned Facilities
Follow the Wedesday updates on the Mean Green Athletics Site to keep up with construction updates on all the new facilities.
Wednesday Facility Construction Updates
This site has additional links to planned facilities:
Mean Green Athletics Facilities
and I had to throw in these drawings of the North Texas Ballpark slated for completion this upcoming spring.
Bump...
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That's a good looking sweatshirt.
I saw a Mean Green cap on the Boliver Ferry near galveston last week.
Boy, does that trip across the bay on the Bolivar Ferry ever bring back memories of my youth. Was a great place to take a girl friend all you young gun alums down in Galveston/Houston; but of course, yall probably knew that already:) Was sorta' neat to look down in the water as the ferry cruised and see the porpoises swimming alongside it.
Used to be a place near Bolivar Ferry Landing (as I recall) called the San Jacinto Inn which had some pretty darn good food, especially fried chicken. Any of you down there remember that place?
Is Gaido's Seafood Restraunt still open near the Galveston seawall? How about the old Jack Tar Hotel?
"Memories pressed between the pages of our minds." (As sung by Elvis Presley)
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Pleeze PMG, don't do a poll
And I felt one coming on, too.
OK, I'll refrain....
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Wrong Nwigwe. Tobe Nwigwe, the linebacker, runs more like a 4.7. Joel, the wide receiver, runs a 4.5.
Jack, who is the fastest LB we have now?
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http://www.detroitlions.com/bio.cfm?bio_id...id=280&season=7
Detroit finally posted his pic in his BIO. That tells me that 350lbs can't be a typo!
Good lord Booger!
A most welcome smile for all of us in light of the last 24 hours very bleak news from our alma mater's main campus.
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I refrain from completely giving my feelings on LJ, but I had one person tell me today what he believes LJ is doing. He put it this way..."LJ is treating the university as he did his court room. He has to have complete control of everyone and everything in it." There is no doubt he will give his input for a yes man just like he bullied those around him regarding the branding issue.
I believe a few of us on this board may have been at one of LJ's first public appearances when he showed up for the now infamous Denia Neighborhood Pow Wow at the Gateway Center 2 or so years ago the same night we hosted TCU in the Super Pit.
You can tell a whole lot about some by simply observing their body language and facial responses and I have to say that in the case of Lee Jackson and at that particular meeting, I could read neither. Wouldn't want to play poker with that man in other words. I guess the "no facial expression" comes from his days as a judge.
I am sorry we are having this happen to all of us because we had such momentum going up there.
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On a much smaller scale, I recently worked for a school for 6 1/2 years that was purchased by some investors in California. I started floating my resume' immediately because I've seen this song sung before; that is, when a new group comes in they are either angelicly tolerant or hostile.
Well, the school corporation I had worked for all those years became part of a hostile take-over and all the new officials from California started throwing their newfound weight around and started trying to fix things that were absolutely not broken to make an impression. I call it "wee-wee'in" their territory.
I was the first who bailed months ago getting another job at a tech school I had worked previously, but about 30 of my other former collegues in the DFW part of this tech school corporation stuck around and have been fired or re-assigned to lesser positions. Now some of the lawyers will get rich because lawsuits have been filed left and right by some who got kicked out are kicked down. They probably don't have a case when all the fallout clears because this is the way much business in America is done, unfortunately.
I think Dr. Pohl was at the right place at the wrong time when Lee Jackson came aboard and I think LJ has very subtlely created a hostile take-over at the main campus in Denton. He is a former politician and most all their dirty work is done under the table and/or behind closed doors. Don't know how that will ever succeed in the academic setting long-term.
This thing with Dr. Pohl has probably been on Jackson's agenda since he began his job as Chancellor (or soon after) is my guess. It's all very unfortunate and we probably haven't heard the last of all this yet. The unfortunate part in this is if all this festors to a boiling point that becomes public, it could discourage a Big Donor to give toward a facility that will do more for NT than many on our alma mater's campus seem to have a vision to comprehend.
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The coaches coach!
Why should they also be held accountable for filling the stands. Are professors paid according to how many students come to thier class? The athletic director and his staff along with university operations should be responsible for filling the stands.
Actually, I have heard of this being done at other schools.
Sort of an encouragement for all athletic staffers (not just the coaches) to collectively as a department be pro-active in their community involvement as to sell more tickets to the general public.
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Today's print edition of the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram had a story on Dr. Pohl leaving North Texas at the end of the 2005-06 academic year. A statement and quote from Chancellor Lee Jackson caused my jaws to clench. In the article it said ....."UNT chancellor Lee Jackson praised Pohl and wished him well but declined to say whether he would have offered Pohl an extension next month when his contract was up for renewal. "I'm not engaging in any hypotheticals" Jackson said. "It is not appropriate to be speculating about things".
I know some of you guys got really upset with Chancellor Jackson over the branding deal. That one was just one more in a long series of changes to school colors, logos, and names at North Texas over the last 35 years so it didn't bother me as much as it did some others. Hayden Fry changed from Kelly green to apple green. He changed the name of the teams from Eagles to Mean Green. He brought in a new logo - the flying worm. A few years later Fred McCain became athletic director and the Kelly green came back. We became the Eagles again. A few years later during the Hurley/Helwig years a lot of money was spent to develop new logos for the school (The term "branding" had not been invented in those days".) That is when we came up with the Forest green color, the full Eagle with extended claws, the Eagle head that was on the football field, and the star with UNT going accross and up. A few years later Rick V came in. We changed from Mean Green Eagles to simply Mean Green. We were no longer UNT we were just North Texas. The logo on the helmets changed. To the best of my knowledge none of these people surveyed fans or conducted any polls before making these changes. So, when Chancellor Jackson led the charge to change the color and logo of the school it was just one more in the continuing list of changes at the school.
In my opinion Dr. Pohl is the best thing that has happened to North Texas in a very long time. He did lots of things to involve more people in the decision making process at the school Several new buildings were constructed and some great progress was made in several academic areas. He is one of only two presidents at North Texas during my years of involvement with the school that has recognized the value of a quality athletic program to a University (Jitter Nolan was the other one). He is the only President of the school that I have seen at a football practice. When the Chancellor of The University of North Texas says that he is not willing to comment on the wisdom of offering this man a new contract it was the straw that broke this old camel's back.
Lee Jackson is an idiot.
WHOA!
I totally concur, Don. I don't like the vibes and the karma I have felt since the man took the chancellor's job. I am sure he is an OK person, good family man and was a good Texas legislator representing part of Dallas, but I just don't think he is "The Man" for our constituency. He took his own big personal set back when the Texas Legislature did not approve our UNT Law School for (where else?) downtown Dallas. I thought we hired him because he had connections down in Austin that would help us--not hinder us.
He made a very poor choice of words concerning Dr. Pohl with the Star-Telegram of which I am getting ready to read at lunch. Stebo posted it elsewhere, but I'll be damned if I, too, wouldn't mind a draft Norval Pohl for Chancellor movement.
His approval rating with NT professors was low because he is still trying to take this school out of the J.C. Matthews era for one and some of those old timers on campus are fightin', kicking and screeching over that as they have for the last 2 or so decades; Pohl was trying to take us out of the the "rubber stamp" every NT professor who wanted tenureship and a comfy' life "freakin" long job in Denton. We've had too many tenured in the past on the NT payroll who retired 10 years before they were actually take off the NT payroll--others were good choices for tenureship.
He has also taken some flack for being too pro-athetics. Good gosh! Look at how little had really been spent at NORTH TEXAS on football related facilities since Fouts Field opened up in 1951 (when I think you also told me your dad was a referee at some NT games during that era). Outside of the $500,000 endzone expansion (it was never $1 million as previously advertised) what did we mostly get at Fouts Field the previous 40 plus years except----new shades of green paint?
I think the NT Board of Regents need to do some checkin' on other bad PR moves made by this Chancellor and try to determine if they really might have made a mistake in hiring this man for the UNT System.
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Sounds like an AD and coach that we want to keep around for a while longer.
Well then grad88 we've got to get the message out and to quote greenjoe again:
Join the Mean Green Club
Buy Season Tickets
In due time, a new NT president may need to see better numbers with both.
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In for season tix and my MGC membership again.
Even better, I got 2 buddies to join for the first time this year and my father in law (3 new MGC members, 8 new season tix)!
8 season tickets?!?! Super!
If 1,000 new season ticket buyers came from the almost 1,700 registered on GoMeanGreen.com with each buying 4 season tickets, that would be around 4,000 additional season tickets to add to whatever last year's totals were. Anyone know how many season tickets we sold in 2004?
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On another note, just read on the CUSAbbs board that UTEP's Miner Athletic Club now has 1,600 members and they have a goal of selling 15,000 season tickets.
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There are 2 kinds of NT Mean Green fans/alums I admire the most:
(1) Those who have been following all this since the 1940's and
(2) Those of you who drive 2 or more hours to come to most (or all ) Fouts Field games.
Good luck in the Texas Hill Country, GangGreen.
PS Of course, those who give to the Mean Green Club and buy season tickets are close to the top, too, right, greenjoe?
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ESPN.com had a poll for the best running back in college football. Reggie Bush, Adrian Peterson, DeAngelo Williams, Mike Hart. If Williams is on there Jamario shoudl be in my opinion. Maybe one day he'll get some pub.....one day.
He has received good pub in other publications, just not this one, yet. Who was it that put Super JaMo on their All American team in only his true freshmen year; but I agree with you, he should have been placed in this poll, too.
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Nah. If he had low ratings from teachers, it was due to the tenure scandal. I didn't follow that real closely (or I would have died of boredom), but I get the sense that he was largely blamed for either mishandling the issue or for profs being denied tenure - perhaps unfairly.
Again, I don't know the specifics on that....
And yeah, LJ is clearly behind the Branding Fiasco, but to say he is the main reason we're not getting a new stadium right now is a stretch. I think the lack of $50 million to spend is the main reason.
Regardless of whatever it was that happened regarding tenure, I think Dr. Pohl was a great prez for UNT and I hate to see him go. I hope RV doesn't follow him out.
Understand what you are saying, but Lee Jackson has much say on who athletics can and cannot talk to for that $50 million, and someone with that kind of money may be subtlely steered to spend it elsewhere in the UNT System besides Eagle Point. UNT Athletics has faced that scenario with other NT adminstrators in the past other than Lee Jackson (of which I wish we could have put a "Dr." in front of any UNT System chancellor's name BTW).
<>*<> I'm with stebo inasmuch as I also wish "DOCTOR" Norval Pohl were the Chancellor of the UNT System. Lee Jackson failed in his atttempt to NT get a law school on his first go around with the Texas legislature and I haven't heard of any significant donations that were supposed to be raised under this watch, either; BUT for sure, we do have different university brandings and a new shade of green since he took the over.
Are U For Harry/Cerebus Pinning Virtual Video
in Mean Green Football
Posted · Edited by PlummMeanGreen
Of course, you'd know that former TI plant is now the NT College of Engineering which outgoing NT president Norval Pohl brilliantly negotiated its purchase for dear ol' alma mater.
I remember reading in some DFW real estate publication how that TI plant purchase by NT really got the attention of the regional real estate industry because it was such a steal of a deal. PLUS.....we got a facility that "only" has 550,000 square feet!
One Fine Day.........we will all wake up to read that NORTH TEXAS has landed its Big Donor(s) for our future new stadium @ Eagle Point Campus and I believe that will happen sooner than later. Its going to happen, we just have to be a little more patient.
There are just too many Texas egos of which one out there (and "one" is all we need, folks) will want their family's (or business) name on such a highly visible facility as that new football stadium will be out there between Interstate35-E and Interstate35-W. Can anyone only imagine how many cars pass by that property on a daily basis?