drex

It is sobering how 'down' this board has become. I do not blame the members, it's just a reflection of the frustration of the 'statue quo' that has settled in at UNT athletics. I remember when playing the 'Horns got people excited. Even in the I-AA days we expected to put up a fight. I do not sense that this year.

To me UTA has never provided much of a college experience. In fact, I always think of it as just a large seminar.

To answer SilverEagle's question, I would invest a lot more money in coaching and athletic administration salaries. Don't forget....when this university wants to do something they find a way to do it....they always find the money. Apparently upgrading of athletics is still on the back burner. Our next hire fb and bb coaches and ad should be current successful people from established programs. To hire these people we must pay much more than we currently do. We cannot keep hiring assistants and pray that they work out. We need proven established coaches and administrators in the future. Big time coaches and ad's bring money and allow the fans to dream again. Dreamers donate and dreamers attend games. Status quo, poor attitude coaches cannot fill any seats in the stadium. We also need to understand that athletics is entertainment. We should be in the entertainment business. We are competing with a lot of Saturday activities.

I agree with NT80...guys on the take will do a lot of shopping around for the best offer....above or below board.

The main reason that the university does not progress relative to athletics is that the university is not willing to invest the money it takes to really get the situation off dead center. The university tells its students ( who become alumni ) that it is a first rate institution academically and that the university's degree holders have a good product when they graduate. Then, in the real world of corporate America, they discover how really obscure the university really is. Few people really have heard of UNT and fewer have any idea how big it is. The average graduate is faced with the laughter and general distain by the real world when they enter the work place. The main reason for this? It is the perception that the general public has of UNT due to its feeble athletic programs. Few alumni are interested in athletics given the fact that we play on such a small stage compared to the other large state universities. To conclude, UNT needs to invest as heavily in athletics as it does in music, engineering, business, etc. I am also suspicious of the fact so few North Texas alumni are employed by the university. They need administrators who bleed green, who go home at night dreaming of how to make the university better, etc. Once this is done we can attract our alumni back to the school just like others do. We are, after all, the same people who go to other large state universities. We simply want to gravitate to excellence and be just as proud of our university as the others are. Until we join the fraternity of major universities we will never make it . By the way, having said all this, I am a $1000 donor to the university with half the money designated for intercollegiate athletics.

I question whether Army will cover the spread against ASU since the game is at Jonesboro. Army is not much....ask Navy.

I visited with Dick Enberg in Dallas in the late 80's and when he found out where I worked, he asked " How's the Mean Green doing?" He was a heck of a nice guy.

If properly marketed, there is a market for 30,000 to show up for the SMU game. Again, I reiterate, properly marketed.

I assume that you mean the men's schedule. I don't know when it will be out, but you can count on it being soft as a Dairy Queen cone in August.

While I am not a Dickey fan, you must remember that there is now a caste system in college football....the bigger conferences get the cream and then there is a trickle down effect to the lower conferences. Since we are at the bottom of the barrel, no matter how hard Dickey and the staff try, we will always get the leftovers. On the bright side, Dickey does seem to have the ability to get 'sleepers', who sometimes turn to greatness. Sometime the hot prospects peter out, too. So, until the SunBelt does better out of conference and the New Orleans Bowl, recruiting will remain fairly average for the 'Belt.

Here's the wild card...the new President and the Chancellor won't accept the 4-7 record and run Dickey off.

Isn't it interesting that everyone in the nation lists us as North Texas on their schedules and numbskull Jackson is still trying to cram UNT down everyone's throat here locally.

Hey Go UTA, I asked what ever happened to the new gym. What I meant to say was 'when will it appear?' The web site view is real nice, but, like the NT football stadium sketches it seems to be more of a dream than a reality. I saw no reference as to when it is scheduled for completion.

What ever happened to UTA's new gym? Seems to me that the series is a natural, but we should not do home and home until UTA has a division I venue.

I was proud to have been a part of the first and only sell out in school history. Here are few things that happened that the general public never knew about. First, I got in trouble with Doug Ray and Corky Nelson for a suggestion that I made to the Talons to stir up spirit during the game. I suggested that the Talons paint the SMU Mustang on the old urination wall located in the men's restroom...that way every guy would get a chance to urinate on the Mustangs....not very classy, but funny. They made me call the Talons and tell them not to do the 'wall.' Secondly, as I was down on the field about an hour before kickoff Steve Donnelly, the stadium manager, came over to me to advise me that they could not get the lights to come on...as you may remember this was a televised game on a local Dallas affiliate. Thirdly, as an error on someone's part, the SMU fan tickets were sold all throughout the West side of the stadium, not in a block...I wonder how that could have happened. Fourthly, the game might not have been a sellout without the promotional partners of Pizza Hut and Albertson's. We swapped general admission public tickets for huge ads by both companies in the Denton Record-Chronicle, plus radio spots. Anyway, it was fun and the good guys won and the seats that might have gone unsold probably bought Cokes and hot dogs and candy, etc.

I think that DallasGreen's 'ravings' are a carefully calculated shot at Dickey. Ole Darrell and the rest of the coaching staff hve never seemed to have a feel for the importance of out of conference games. DallasGreen has just given them a wake up call....we hope.

I run across Johnny every once in awhile at an eating establishment in Denton and I can tell you he is a real class act. Lots of 'yes sirs' and ' no sirs.' I am not a big fan of Dickey ball but I will be there to support Johnny and the others on the team.

I ran across some good NT products at the Cracker Barrel in Denton.

If Jackson is so interested in developing more money for faculty and research, why hasn't he done it? He has been here long enough to have made some strides in that direction. He has not done so, as far as I know. He was hired to do this and has been markedly absent in that regard.

Very interesting. More than meets the eye?

I thought we had the wonderful Mandy to do the solicitation of Mean Green Club memberships, etc. What will she do now? Maybe stay away from the public where she belongs. Another poor hire, as we once again, slap our own alma mater in the face and go elsewhere for another employee who will spend time building resume so he can go on somewhere else. Add this to Lee Jackson and you have a hard time getting out the wallet. What ever happened to the former NT soccer player who was supposed to be doing this job? However, if you think this is bad, just wait until you see who Jackson will hire as President....I shudder.

This question has rolled around in my head for some time. Why is the football team always asked to schedule suicide games for money but the men's and women's basketball teams never are required to do so? Any thoughts?

Doug Ray was sports information director and asst. ad in the 80's and 90's. He is now an executive with Texas Special Olympics in Dallas.

Ah, the hospitality deck....a lovely adventure in donations. First, when there is any kind of crowd for a game, you wait in the September heat while the lady finds your name on a printout (hoping hope against hope that you were actually correctly added to the list), then you approach the suppulent folding chairs and seven tables. You go over to check out the cuisine that is furnished for this game and are excited to see greasy bbq with all the trimmings which you pay for by showing tickets you purchased at the front table when you came in ( which took you another 15 minutes to buy) and then you go over to purchase beer, wine or cokes. If you buy a coke at the concession stand at the stadium it is $1 less than what you are now paying for a coke inside the 'hospitality' deck. Of course, if you happened to buy a coke at the concession stand and wanted to just bring it into the hospitality deck you could not....they don't allow it. Then you stroll over onto the deck itself remembering from this post that had you been on the deck two years ago there was a real possibility that the deck would collapse due to rotten support beams. Anyway, have a lovely time at the deck and toss down a greasy rib and upcharged coke for me. Oh, and enjoy the air conditioning and deck umbrellas installed just for you to offset the ravages of hot and rainy weather.

Can you spell L-A-Z-I-N-E-S-S ? That is the bottom line when it comes to all the elements previously mentioned by other posts. This athletic administration is really rolling the dice, since a new president who takes note of the laziness of the department could really do some damage to them. If I was awaiting a new president I sure as hell would do everything to show the new person all the department is doing, not show their ass by letting so many areas go neglected.