9 Years Ago This Week

[ADLER]

It was the first of the Mean Green Summer Kickoff parties and was held at Harry's house in Arlington. Since 1996 North Texas fans had by chance stumbled accross the North Texas Eagles forum on the old Paradise Message Boards and Harry's Mean Green Recruiting while surfing this new internet. It was the first opportunity for many of the posters from the several very early North Texas message boards to actually meet each other.

Darrell Dickey was unable to attend but he did send his popular new offensive coordinator Ramon Flanigan. Dickey's absence was easily overlooked as much of the excitement at the party surrounded dynamic basketball coach Vic Trilli who was coming off what would be the longest winning streak of his 4 year career at North Texas (back to bact wins against Nevada and Utah State to end the 2008 season).

I wonder how many of those old guys are still checking these message boards. I originally posted under the generic moniker GreenFan.

Sound off if you were around back then. If it was different than your current one, what was your original message board name.

[EagleD]

I was around, but not able to attend the function.

Has it been 9 years? wow.

GO MEAN GREEN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[keith]

I used to post as Coppell Green. I even found a couple posts that were in the screen shots Harry posted in the blog recently. Going back even further, does anyone remember the report that was sent out by fax? I used to get those.

Keith

[Guest GrayEagleOne]

Boy, you tax an old man's memory. I believe that's about the time that I found the old board and didn't attend that function.

The first party that I remember was held in the Mid-Cities at the home of one of the players. For the life of me I can't remember his name. His dad was the host and all of the coaches were there as I recall. I believe that it was the first time that I met Brad Kassell. I'd guess that the year was 2000, which would make it eight years ago. Can you help me out?

I was Gray Eagle then and was originally member#40 on the new board. I had to add the One when the heads crashed on my old computer and the new system wouldn't recognize my new IPL.

One whose posts that I enjoyed back in the early days was known as Soylent Green. His posts suddenly stopped and I never knew why.

[FirefightnRick]

I was there. Remember the next year, the one in Denton, while DD took questions from the fans and greenjoe asked him that if a true freshman was the best he had would he play him? And DD said yes. A few weeks later we saw what we had in Scott Hall, nearly pulling off the win at Texas Tech.

Rick

[letsgiveacheer]

I have been here as letsgiveacheer from the start. What a great way for those of us outside the Denton area to keep in touch. I do not post very often but can think of no better 200th (on this board) post than to say thanks to Harry for setting this up and maintaining it all these years.

What happened to all these guys...Rowlett Eagle, RebUT, and my personal favorite from the basketball board Whitman Mayo? He was particularly brutal on Trilly. They come and go but a loyal core is still here.

North Texas is very special to me. I received a full scholarship and any little success that I have enjoyed as an adult is due in no small part to our university.

Hope to see some of you in Denton this year and also at the Middle Tennessee game. I feel like we are old friends!

[Evan]

Adler, don't know if you saw this, but here is the blog entry we did last month on the old sites.

Blog Entry on old sites

[ADLER]

Adler, don't know if you saw this, but here is the blog entry we did last month on the old sites.

Blog Entry on old sites

Gawd, I didn't remember that I was the one that turned off the lights in the original old message board.

Yeah, we had Whitman Mayo that hated Trilli, and we had LoyalFan that loved Dickey.

And a motley crew that formed the original Mean Green Club, back when it was run by the fans, under the direction of Mean Rob. I still even have my original Mean Green Club polo shirt although I haven't worn it in years. I can't seem to part with it. They were certainly distictive. I still remember how so many people were wearing them at the 2000 game in Waco.

[Evan]

I still have mine too....

Of course the "Flying worm" t-shirts he had made were classic too... That had to be the first shirt that had the Worm on it in 20 years. I still have mine, but I'm afraid to wear it much...collectors item. It still says "Mean Green Club" on the back

[JesseMartin]

I went to the old board just a couple of times, so I have absolutely no remembrance of what my username was.

[stebo]

I was there and posted under the name dentontotg. I don't know if anyone remembers, but there were some players there, too. I just remember them not leaving the keg area in the back yard, lol. Also, I brought my copy of "Coach" - the Hayden Fry documentary and we watched it towards the end of the night. I just remember thinking - "wow, so I am not the only one that has a passion for Mean Green!"... It was at that party that many people brought their Mean Green memorabilia that eventually was framed and put up onto the smoke stained walls of the Tavern. What a great time. I also have that ugly striped Mean Green Club shirt that we made. I remember that we made them striped so that they would stand out in a crowd and people would take notice but they were really ugly, haha. I wore mine with my date wearing hers straight into Tiger Meat Alley in Baton Rouge - the LSU fans did not take kindly to that and I will never return to that school because of the way that we were treated that day. Ugh... the athletic department got me GREAT seats as far as location... I was a radio sponsor so one of those perks was calling up the AD and asking for tickets to away games. They obliged and put me and my date right in the middle of the Tigers Section on the 10 yard line but on the THURD row - as far away from the official Mean Green section as I could be but REALLY great seats. Too bad the game was ruined by idiotic LSU fans. At half time, I went out to the truck and got a couple of generic shirts and we put them on to stop getting as much crap. I was heckled and spit on by a 12 year old boy while his drunk, toothless father laughed it up as the funniest thing he had ever seen. Damn I hate that place!

[Evan]

LSU is definately a box I checked off and I have no plans on returning there. Miserable place with miserable fans. Usually you get some friendly banter at away games and the occasional drunk idiot, but at LSU, 95% of the fans never even attended LSU and most are drunk idiots.

The tickets they gave us that year had us stretched out from end zone to end zone on the first few rows. There really wasn't a "UNT" section. Worst away game experience by far.

[ADLER]

stebo said:

Too bad the game was ruined by idiotic LSU fans. At half time, I went out to the truck and got a couple of generic shirts and we put them on to stop getting as much crap. I was heckled and spit on by a 12 year old boy while his drunk, toothless father laughed it up as the funniest thing he had ever seen. Damn I hate that place!

That's an old LSU trick. They send their larva over to chant "Tiga Bait" and tell you how much your team sucks. When you try to run off the little assholes, their parents are "only doing the right thing" by violently defending their sweet little innocent angels.

My wife and I walked to the stadium with another couple who were carrying their baby daughter. A group of LSU drunks started yelling insults, and hurled a full beer can when they didn't get the reaction they were looking for. It bounced harmlessly off the sidewalk into the grass, but would certainly have been horrendous if it had hit the baby.

A person I know got in trouble when he was a student at LSU for throwing a bourbon bottle during a game. The bottle knocked one of the LSU female cheerleaders unconscious when she was struck in the head. The offending student was caught and brought before the university for discipline. His excuse was that he was drunk and had intended to hit the visiting team when they were emerging out of their tunnel. That made the incident somewhat justifiable for the LSU folks. He received no suspension, just a stern warning.

During the 2000 game LSU fans kept reaching over the rail and answering the sideline phone that the North Texas coaches up in the press box used to communicate with the quarterbacks on the sideline. Several of the little jackasses wanted to start trouble when a couple of the North Texas fans politely asked them to please stop.

Edited July 16, 2017 by ADLER

[JesseMartin]

$$$$$$$$$$$

[ADLER]

Does anybody remember Potty from the old Paradise board?

He had threatened to 'Poat' over on the TCU board as much as and whenever he wanted. The typing error in the threat led to some of the most humerous pages ever on Killerfrogs.

Potty last posted on the Mean Green board in August 26, 1999. We were notified by the UNLV guys that one of our guys was trapped on one of their older boards. He had started posting on the UNLV message board in anticipation of the opening game of that season and got stuck in a Runnin' Rebels board. Something was wrong with his computer, it had set that UNLV message board as his home page and would not let him leave for another web address. He was desparate to escape, rebooting his computer and unplugging his computer but nothing helped. He couldn't get out.

For weeks, maybe even months, after the game Potty was still stuck in there. If any North Texas fans ventured over there and answered one of his multitudes of lonely posts you would be bombarded with questions of what's happening on the Mean Green board.

After a while I guess we all just forgot about poor Potty.

I wonder if he's still out there, trapped, still carving messages in the walls of some obsolete UNLV chat room.

Edited August 29, 2008 by ADLER

[keith]

OMG, I had forgotten all about "poat"-gate. That was hilarious. Thanks for the memories.

Keith