Back in the day...Flashback 1977.....High hopes...

[DeepGreen]

Good stuff untjim1995. Great post.

[wardly]

We had no real alumni base because President J.C. Matthews was against having a strong association.On another subject,I served on the UNT Foundation Board for 3 years in the mid 90's , whose job it was to try and consolidate non designated donations as well as deicide if we wanted them at all. A number of people were just trying to give us junk that had no real value but that they could write off. I was told that J.C.Nolen barely escaped a prison sentence for misapprociation of designated alumni donations which he was diverting to the Athletic Department during the Hayden Fry era.Regardless, after Nolen was forced out, his successor Dr. Frank Vandiver{sic?} was no friend of athletics. I attended a meeting in late 70's where a group of us offered to hire Abner Haynes as fundraiser for the athletic department,paying all his expenses, with 100% of contributions going to the university. We were told that the university would not give us official status allowing contributions to be written off as a tax deduction. This is to me the greatest opportunity that was lost. The rest is history.

[SilverEagle]

We had no real alumni base because President J.C. Matthews was against having a strong association.On another subject,I served on the UNT Foundation Board for 3 years in the mid 90's , whose job it was to try and consolidate non designated donations as well as deicide if we wanted them at all. A number of people were just trying to give us junk that had no real value but that they could write off. I was told that J.C.Nolen barely escaped a prison sentence for misapprociation of designated alumni donations which he was diverting to the Athletic Department during the Hayden Fry era.

Not long after I transferred to Fort Worth I had a conversation about football with a colleague (around 1980 or 81) who was new to the department and who was a TCU graduate. When she found out that I was a North Texas graduate she said "why in hell did the North Texas officials run Jitter Nolan off for doing the very thing that they hired him to do......which was.....raise money for the school any way that he could?"

My answer? "Because the old nesters up there are a bunch of academic little old ladys...that's why!.

"Regardless, after Nolen was forced out, his successor Dr. Frank Vandiver{sic?} was no friend of athletics. I attended a meeting in late 70's where a group of us offered to hire Abner Haynes as fundraiser for the athletic department,paying all his expenses, with 100% of contributions going to the university. We were told that the university would not give us official status allowing contributions to be written off as a tax deduction. This is to me the greatest opportunity that was lost. The rest is history."

See my comments above. AND I'll add another anecdote regarding Mr. Haynes and our inept administration. I also worked with a woman, who was the wife of Sherrill Hedrick. She came to work for the state agency for whom I worked because they needed good insurance coverage. Since her husband was an alumni of the Kansas City Chiefs she occasionally told me stories that her husband had told her about Abner Haynes, as well as stories about meeting and talking with Abner Haynes at Kansas City Chief reunions. One day she said "you know, North Texas should have hired him years ago to be a fund raiser for the athletic department, because that guy can really spin a yarn and he would make a great salesman for the athletic department".

(Heavy sigh) Administratively speaking, we have always been our own worst enemy regarding athletics.

Edited July 18, 2012 by SilverEagle

[DeepGreen]

Dr. Vandiver left UNT to become president of TAMU. Doesn't seem that he got in the way of Aggie football back then. Maybe it was the UNT Board of Regents that got in the way of athletics. Wasn't it a year or two in his tenure that we dropped down to D1AA? Just saying.

[SCREAMING EAGLE-66]

---I graduated in 1966 and 1975... Lots of good info here...some wrong.. the coliseum was here well before Fry appeared.... The Pac-8 had just gone to ten members in the 70's adding the Arizona teams from the WAC and the Big-10 existed. Most people felt that the SWC would go to 10 especially after Houston became #9... NTSU and Fry seemed certain it would happen and we were doing well in football and basketball winning 20+ games and playing about 26-28 games.. The problems... college football did not play 12 games then, only eleven and had just moved up from 10. Playing nine opponents would only allow two non-conference games. So some did not really want a 10 team conference.

---In late 70's SMU opposed us and convinced TCU and Baylor to agree with them...... no official vote was ever taken I have heard... it took 7 of 9 to approve us. SMU did not want us to infringe on their Dallas base or recruiting and convinced the other two having a large state school near them would not be good for them. Having said that.. I have heard Royal (UT) and Broyle (Arkansas) wanted us in.. the rest did not seem to object.. We were playing Arkansas and UT once in awhile. We got caught in early 80's without a conference and not doing well.... we were forced to drop to I-AA.

--- During the 60's only one SWC school played us in football... Arkansas.... When at NTSU we kept hearing at times that was because we were integrated and they were all white. Baylor and SMU each played one black in 1966... and I think the state schools had none until after 1970...Roosevelt Leaks at UT (1972), Mosley at Tech (1971) ... That may have not the reason they never played us in the 60's but that was the rumor. Our team with Joe "Mean" Green was very good and partially because they were not allowed to attend SWC schools when coming out of HS... we got them...

---Jitter Nolan .. good for North Texas (good at fund raising and shaking hands) but some scandal happened and not too public ... I remember no details.

..

Edited July 28, 2012 by SCREAMING EAGLE-66