My Epiphany

FirefightnRick · November 30, 2005

Just make sure that letter has a large check attached to it.
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Define large?

Rick

MootPoint · November 30, 2005

Define large?
Rick
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8'' x 10'' ??

emmitt01 · November 30, 2005

bump

Cerebus · November 30, 2005

Define large?
Rick
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Exceeding most other things of like kind especially in quantity or size?

PlummMeanGreen · December 1, 2005

I'll wear a DD "L & A" t-shirt if that's what this post leads many of you to assume about me (cough, UNTSig, cough, ganggrene, cough) but I don't think I am one.
I don't blame DD for this season, honestly. I blame those above him. Mediocrity isn't a sin around here. I don't think RV, Bobby Ray, or even Lee Jackson sits back and says to themselves "I wish UNT had the laughing stock of all 1A football programs" but I think it's the culture we have come to expect. Let me explain:
For as long as I have followed NT athletics (born in Denton in '78) there has been a prevailing notion that there were the UT's, aTm's, USC's, Michigan's of the world and then there were the NT's, ULL's, New Mexico State's of the world. NT never tried to reach for the stratosphere because we've always had so many stumbling blocks laid out ahead of us. Bad facilities. Bad fan support. Miniscule athletic endowment. People won't take us seriously. Every excuse in the book to feel and, as a byproduct, act like second class citizens. Even as a high school student in Denton NT was looked at as the "in case" institution. We've been told so long that we can't compete with the big boys that we believe it.
When our administration has looked at our athletic programs they have seen one of a few things over the years...a necessary evil, a distraction, a pet project, or an opportunity to do the "most with the least." It's this last phrase that I think haunts us. We often brag about how our teams rank "among the best in the Sun Belt conference across the board" or how we are "conference champions or runners up in X amount of sports." We have a serious case of big fish in a small pond syndrome. Hell, we even advertise that our school is the "leading university of the metroplex." It is as if we cannot come out and proclaim ourselves to be exemplary bar none at anything because we expect the requisite backlash. We are truly afraid to act and be great!!!
We can bitch, piss and moan about how DD has run this program into the ground all we want but let's not lose sight of the big picture. From what great heights has he run us into the ground from? When were we on top of the proverbial mountain to have fallen off?
What is lacking, I think, is a bold mission statement or a proclomation of where we want, expect and will not accept not reaching. Does everyone remember when RV first got here? We had quarterly meetings where he would talk of his plans to resurrect NT athletics, bring us up on the food chain and make us all proud. Then those meeting went the way of the dinosaur when the politics and reality of North Texas stared him in the face. That's not his fault. It's ours. We need to make it abundantly clear that we expect to one day go toe to toe with UT or Oklahoma and smack them in the mouth. We need to be unwavering when we say that we expect kids to list NT as their first choice when they apply for college.
But the answer isn't on this or any other message board. I can type the words "unacceptable, unacceptable, unacceptable....higher expectations, higher expectations, higher expectations" until I'm blue in the face and some of you have. I'll even print up the t-shirts if you want. We can all wear them to our same old decrepit stadium to watch our team lose by 50 for the next few years.
We need to communicate to our leadership that we are tied, nay married, to this university because we don't view our alma mater as the runt brother...and make it clear that if they treat it like one we will not be silent. My suggestion would be to write RV, Bobby Ray, Norval, Lee Jackson, whomever you can and tell them we want to hear and see a clear vision for where we are headed. Make it clear that hearing about things like our new logos after the fact will not be stood for anymore. Let them know that we don't consider OOC games "body bag", "canned hunt", or "paycheck" games...we look at them as stepping stones on our way up the ladder and that they had better do the same. Most of all, though, we need to be able to say in one unified voice that if they will give us the vision we will give them the means. That means our money, our time, our attendance through the growing pains. No jumping ship at the first sight of bad seas.
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