Nealie Sanchez | Staff Writer

@NealieSanchez

Standing at the end of the lap pool at the Pohl Recreational center with a handful of eager swimmers’ eyes on him, kinesiology junior Zach Munro pauses the beat of the latest Justin Bieber song, leaving only the sound of large, whirring fans. He barks out orders to the swimmers, and off they go in a fierce breast stroke.

Munro is not affiliated with the North Texas swim team. Instead, he is the vice president of the UNT Swim Club.

“We just like to have fun and swim. We’re not NCAA,” Munro said. “We’re for everyone.”

The club is for swimmers of all levels who have an interest in swimming regularly and competing in swim meets. This year, the club includes everyone from members who have no swimming experience prior to joining, to expert swimmers.

The all-encompassing acceptance policy invites freshman students who want to join a club to be a part of the team.

“I wanted to join a club, and [my roommate and I] thought it would be fun,” art sophomore Brea Lovelace, a second-year swim club member, said. “I love it.”

The club holds regular practices three days per week from 7-9 p.m. to work on swimming and prepare for upcoming meets. While attending every practice is not mandatory, Munroe said members are encouraged to come as often as they can.

There are between 35 and 40 members on the UNT Swim Club this year, which is six to eight members more than last year, Munro said. 

“The team has doubled in size the past two years, which has given our team incredible depth as far as talent goes,” kinesiology junior and club president Alex Blue said.

Many of the swimmers brought into the team said they have gained a family and strive for success in meets to help the team.

“I’m here for the team to be an encouragement and to get the most points,” kinesiology freshman Sydney Cooper said.

The number of members this year is considered an advantage for the team in the meets they attend in the fall and spring seasons, Munro said. The UNT Swim Club competes through the Southwest Swim League with eight other intramural teams, including the University of Texas at Dallas, Baylor University and Texas State University.

The Southwest Swim League uses a point system to score teams. The swim meets have up to 20 categories, with 10 for men and 10 for women. In every category, the five fastest times are given points, with first place taking nine points, second place earning seven, third winning five, fourth receiving three and fifth place taking one point.

The points are then totaled for each school to determine the winner for the meet. At the end of the season, the points from each meet are totaled to determine the overall standings of the teams within the league.

The team is currently gearing up for the Southwest Swim League Championship that will take place on Saturday, April 23. To prepare, the team is nearly doubling the amount of swimming done in practices.

“Usually we swim 3,000 to 4,000 yards in practice,” Munro said. “And now, we’re swimming 5,000 to 6,000 to get ready for the meet.”

Each swimmer is also taking steps individually to contribute to the overall success of the swim team, such as swimming independently and eating healthy.

“I’m swimming four to five times a week and going to two to three practices a week,” mathematics freshman Trent Pope said. “No more McDonald’s for two to three weeks.”

For two years running, the team has taken third place at the championship meet. This year, the UNT swimmers are even more hopeful.

“I hope we get first,” Munro said. “I think we have a good shot at top two.”

Reece Waddell | Senior Staff Writer

@ReeceWaddell15

In a day and age where Stephen Curry drains 40-foot three pointers on a regular basis and college football offenses have converted to high-octane attacks, it’s easy to see how the mantra “defense wins championships” has gotten lost.

That is not the case for North Texas softball or head coach Tracey Kee.

Last season, the Mean Green had the best fielding percentage in Conference USA at .978 percent, a trend that carried over into 2016. Through 34 games, North Texas continues to flash the leather with a fielding percentage of .980 while committing just 17 errors, the fewest in C-USA.

“[Defense] has always been something I’ve prided myself in – building teams that are defensively strong,” Kee said. “We spend a lot of time on it. We teach a system that’s very black and white.”

To build those teams, Kee stresses the importance of fielding, throwing and catching to ensure her players are fundamentally sound. During a practice last week, junior pitchers Jessica Elder and Stacey Underwood, and freshman pitcher Lauren Craine spent well over 30 minutes working on the same drill.

After fielding a ground ball from the circle, each would fire a throw to first, second or third base, where another pitcher would catch it and occasionally apply a tag to an imaginary runner.

“We come out and work really hard on defense,” junior infielder Kelli Schkade said. “It’s always been our strong suit. You can’t win games if you don’t have good defense. It’s as simple as that.”

But in order for the defense to have a chance to make plays, pitchers must keep the ball in the yard and not give up hits.

Junior infielder Kelli Schkade (9) cocks her arm back to throw a ball to first base to try and throw a Marshall runner out. Dylan Nadwodny | Staff Photographer

For the game plan to work, Kee teaches her pitchers to “pitch to the defense.” Instead of focusing on striking every batter out, Kee prefers for pitchers to hit their spots and let the defense make the necessary plays behind them.

So far, the strategy has worked. Along with having multiple web gems to its credit, North Texas has also turned eight double plays this season and ranks sixth in C-USA.

“It gives us a lot of confidence,” Schkade said. “The pitchers believe in us, too. They’re comfortable on the mound because we’re comfortable behind them.”

A shortstop who patrols the middle of the infield, Schkade is responsible for fielding ground balls in the hole, covering second base and reining in throws from senior catcher Bryana Wade – something that is not always an easy task.

Wade has thrown out 59 percent of runners attempting to swipe a bag this year, gunning down 13-of-22 opposing baserunners before they’re able to slide in safely.

“[Wade] is hard to catch,” Kee said. “She gets rid of it so quickly. I think her timing this year with [Schkade] is a lot better than it was last year. Together, those two are doing a great job of shutting down running games.”

Senior catcher Bryana Wade (23) fields a ball right in front of home plate and gets ready to throw it to first base against Nicholls State. Dylan Nadwodny | Staff Photographer

Schkade and Wade are no strangers to Kee’s defense-first approach, having spent multiple years in her program. But according to Kee, even the Mean Green’s newcomers have bought into Kee’s tutelage, which was crucial considering the high volume of newcomers.

“We have a lot of freshmen and junior college kids that have really bought into the system, and we’ve played some tough teams,” Kee said. “So I’m pleased with our defense all the way around.”

Featured Image: Freshman infielder Rhylie Makawe (21) fields a ball between home plate and the pitchers mound and prepares to throw it to first base against Marshall. Dylan Nadwodny | Staff Photographer

Reece Waddell | Senior Staff Writer

@ReeceWaddell15

Calvin Minor

North Texas junior linebacker Calvin Minor was arrested Wednesday for possession of marijuana less than 2 oz., according to the Denton County jail records.

According to the arrest affidavit, Minor was pulled over by UNT Police Department Cpl. Terrance Harris on North Texas Boulevard for running a stop sign. Upon approaching Minor’s vehicle, Harris noticed the vehicle smelled heavily of cologne, which he noted is sometimes used to mask the smell of illegal narcotics.

Minor then told Harris the vehicle possibly contained marijuana and denied it belonged to him, according to the affidavit. Harris did a probable cause search of Minor’s vehicle and found 1.2 grams of marijuana, a metal grinder and a multi-colored glass pipe with burnt marijuana. The pipe was also warm to the touch, according to the affidavit.

“We have never tolerated behavior by any student-athlete that is improper and not part of the culture we teach here at the University of North Texas,” athletic director Rick Villarreal said. “Each case has in the past, and will in the future, be handled in the proper manner with all of the proper authorities being involved.”

Minor was detained and transported to the Denton County jail, where he then posted $500 bond. Mean Green head coach Seth Littrell issued the following statement on Minor’s arrest.

“I am aware of the arrest of one of our football players, Calvin Minor, earlier today,” Littrell said. “I have not had the opportunity to talk with Calvin yet and I’m still in the process of collecting information. I take these matters very serious and will handle the situation appropriately when all the details become available.”

UNT spokeswoman Margarita Venegas said Minor’s incident will likely be investigated by UNT for a violation of the student code of conduct.

“There is a code of conduct students have to follow,” Venegas said. “When they have violations of the code of conduct, those are investigated through the Dean of Students office.”

Possession of 2 oz. or less of marijuana in Texas is a Class B misdemeanor punishable by a maximum fine of $2,000 or 180 days in jail. According to the UNT student code of conduct, Minor violated section F, No. 4 under the subhead “categories of misconduct,” which reads “illegal use, possession, sale, manufacture, distribution or effective control of chemical precursors, controlled substance analogues or dangerous or illegal drugs.”

Minor is from Lewisville and had 23 tackles in 2014 for North Texas, but was limited to mainly special teams work last season.

He’s the fourth Mean Green football player to be arrested in 2016. Junior wide receiver Darvin Kidsy and senior defensive back Jamal Marshall were arrested in January in connection with a hit and run that occurred in December and left one person in critical condition. Walk-on fullback Cannon Maki was arrested in February for outstanding warrants in Flower Mound for disregarding a traffic control device and violating a written promise to appear in court.

Men’s basketball guard Keith Frazier was also arrested last month for failure to maintain financial responsibility for outstanding warrants in Irving.

“I can assure you [these arrests] are not reflective on what is being told and what is being taught by the new staff that has come in,” Villarreal said. “We monitor our student athletes as any other college does. In very unique circumstances, we may not be aware of an incident based on the nature of the violation. But, I can assure you once we become aware we will address and handle it in the proper manner.”

North Texas Daily Sports Editor Scott Sidway also contributed to this report.

Reece Waddell | Senior Staff Writer

@ReeceWaddell15

Student athletic fees at UNT have more than doubled in the last seven years, according to the NCAA Membership Financial Reporting System. In 2015, student fees and institutional support combined to equal $20,043,786.

If this amount was subtracted from the athletic department’s expenses, UNT would have been just over $20 million in debt last year.

Since 2008, the North Texas football team has had one winning season and has been under the direction of three different head coaches. Men’s basketball has failed to finish above .500 since hiring head coach Tony Benford in 2012 and had the third-lowest average home attendance in Conference USA in 2015.

As a result of the subpar performances in the higher revenue sports, UNT has steadily raised student fees and institutional support to fund athletics.

“I don’t look at [student fees] as a loss,” athletic director Rick Villarreal said. “I look at that as an investment in the university. I don’t try to justify anything. For me, it’s a program the university feels is valuable, so that’s why it has an athletics department. It’s why they have an athletic director.”

The NCAA report showed UNT collected $4,641,911 in student fees in 2008 compared to $10,723,272 in 2015. In 2008, UNT received $14,081 in institutional support. That figure grew nearly 662 percent in 2015 to total $9,319,514.

When tallied together, UNT’s student athletic fees and institutional support make up roughly two thirds of the athletic department’s revenue.

At a Board of Regents meeting in September 2015, Villarreal asked for permission to increase the student athletic fee by $1 per semester credit hour – a motion that was approved. Villarreal said despite the recent rise, North Texas still has the lowest fees both in C-USA and across the state.

“There’s a certain group that wants to take North Texas and make us somebody else,” Villarreal said. “Our own people want to make us different than everybody else. I’ve never really in my entire career been around this kind of situation where we always want to look at the negative. If the university decided tomorrow that it didn’t want an athletic program, then that would be their decision.”

This issue is not only plaguing UNT, though.

In a report by the Texas Tribune, it was documented that all but two public universities in Texas lost money on their athletic programs in 2015. According to the report, the only two public schools to make a profit were Texas A&M University and the University of Texas at Austin.

However, this was not exactly the case. Texas Tribune staff writer and lead reporter on the aforementioned report Matthew Watkins said his publication chose to intentionally subtract student fees and institutional support from each school’s bottom line in order to paint a clearer picture of the money universities generated from things like ticket and merchandise sales.

Erica Wieting | Staff Graphic Artist

“It would be inaccurate to say the athletic department is in debt or failing to cover their expenses, because they do have that money,” Watkins said. “It’s just we felt that money […] there’s a difference between what we would call earned revenue and what we could call a subsidy, which is being used to basically keep the athletic department financially solvent.”

In actuality, UNT made a $43,557 profit in 2015 when student fees and institutional support were accounted for. Watkins did not feel he skewed or misrepresented the data, though.

Instead, he said that by introducing the figures without student fees and institutional support, he provided transparency as to what was going on within athletic programs in Texas.

“I would be surprised if schools stopped doing this,” Watkins said. “People care so much in Texas about [athletics] that it’s hard to imagine this ending anytime soon.”

After learning of the increases to finance the athletic department, some UNT students and alumni are questioning whether the hike in student fees is justifiable.

Vlad Otvos graduated from UNT last December and was an avid supporter of North Texas athletics. He said he has attended between three and five football games per year, as well as various swimming and diving events. Additionally, he said the rate at which UNT funds athletics compared to other things on campus seems unbalanced.

“You have a school of 40,000, and maybe 500 are on a sports team. That’s not a high percentage,” Otvos said. “We’re pouring all this money into 500 students. What about all these graduate students who are TAs in biology labs who aren’t getting paid enough because our money goes to sports?”

Other students did not take as much of an issue with the increase in fees.

Finance senior Robert Watson said he did not think UNT receiving roughly $20 million from the university in student fees and institutional support was too much money. Rather, he saw it as a necessary investment in the athletic department.

“You want to be able to take pride in saying ‘I went there,’” Watson said. “We may see it now that they drove the student fees pretty high in the past five, six, seven years, but five years from now we may look back and say ‘UNT is now a University of Houston, or whatever.’ And it started because we decided we cared about being good at sports.”

For Villarreal, the goal remains to improve UNT’s infrastructure and put winning teams on the court and field. But unlike others, he does not necessarily see winning as an immediate fix to the revenue problem.

“When we were winning 20 games a year six years in a row in basketball, our season ticket numbers didn’t triple or quadruple or whatever,” Villarreal said. “A lot of places it would. Why does it not here? I’m not sure. It’s not because we’re not out there pursuing it or trying to make it happen.”

Featured Image: The University of North Texas’ institutional support grew nearly 662% from 2008 to 2015. Dylan Nadwodny | Staff Photographer

Austin Jackson | Staff Writer

@a_jack17

Alex Lessard | Associate Sports Editor

@alexjlessard

Andrew Randich studies the fairway of Lake Park Golf Course that sprawls before him. With the wind at his back, Randich sets his ball down, takes five measured steps back and exhales for just a moment.

He then leans forward and bounds towards the ball like Happy Gilmore. But instead of swinging a golf club, Randich plants one leg down and swings his foot through a synthetic leather soccer ball.

This is FootGolf, and Randich hopes it can help save the game he loves.

“It’s just a matter of getting people out on a golf course,” Randich said. “I think a lot of people are hesitant just because they feel uncomfortable.”

Randich, the interim general manager of Lake Park Golf Club in Lewisville, is one of hundreds of golf course managers around the United States who have embraced FootGolf as a way to grow the game of golf.

Randich brought FootGolf to Lake Park in 2014 and hasn’t looked back. Lake Park is just a 20 minute drive from the UNT campus, and all one needs to play is a soccer ball and $10.

Although some are much more competitive than others, FootGolf is streamlined. No need for expensive golf clubs, lessons, collared shirts and pleated pants.

“Pretty much the only requirement that we have down there is that you have a shirt with sleeves on it,” Randich said. “We don’t allow cut-off shirts. Other than that, you can wear pretty much whatever you want.”

Andrew Randich is the general manager of Lake Park Golf Course in Lewisville, Texas. One of many courses across the country to impliment foot golf. Dylan Nadwodny | Staff Photographer

Golf and soccer on the surface are contradictory concepts, with one consisting of constant running and physicality, and the other made up of long breaks between swings. But together, the polar opposites harmonize to create a lifeline for a dying sport.

FIFA estimated in a big count done in 2006 that there are 265 million people playing soccer worldwide. Meanwhile, according to a National Golf Foundation study, 24.1 million people played golf once a year in 2105, which is down from 30.6 million in 2003.

“[We’re] trying to focus on the crowd that’s curious about golf but doesn’t want to come out and play and feel the pressure of golfers who are out there all the time,” Randich said.

As for the rules of the game, the concept is simple – put the ball in the hole in as few kicks as possible.

Wayne Pickett, a pro shop attendant at Lake Park, said soccer players initially will have the upper hand in FootGolf, but added the putting greens are the great neutralizer.

“The putting aspect of it, that’s what really changes for a soccer player compared to a non-player,” Pickett said. “That’s where the non-player will catch up a lot. That part of it has nothing to do with soccer at all.”

Pickett said since its addition at Lake Park, FootGolf has been most attractive to former soccer players. One casual soccer player, Behavior Analysis freshman Nathan Roberts, said he always liked the idea of golf but was never very good.

When his friends told him about FootGolf, it was a perfect opportunity to explore golf and showcase his soccer skills. Roberts said anyone can play FootGolf, regardless of age, skill or experience, and the sport is a great way to compete with friends.

“My friend got stuck in the bunker, and he kicked it out on his first try. And he doesn’t play sports,” Roberts said. “I feel like if he could manage it, most anybody else can.”

People have been kicking balls around grass for thousands of years, but FootGolf became an official organized sport in 2006 with the creation of the United States FootGolf Association.

Randich plans on hosting league events and fundraisers on a monthly basis in hope that FootGolf will take off at Lake Park. He said the only thing holding it back is the lack of public awareness.

“We’ve still got people calling and asking about it,” Randich said. “That’s our biggest hurdle, trying to figure out what demographic we’re trying to send this information out to about FootGolf and how to get the word out.”

Randich said North Texas students make up a good portion of Lake Park’s late afternoon golf crowd, but not enough students know about FootGolf. However, with more time and resources designated to promote the sport on local college campuses, students like Roberts may help Lake Park get the growth it’s looking for.

“I played disc golf a little while back, and very slowly, word spread around and people started going and playing it a lot more,” Roberts said. “I feel like it is going to be like that. Just give it a little time and people are going to go out and play.”

Featured Image: Lake Park Golf Course general manager Andrew Randich said that over the summer, they would try to get to UNT and Texas Women’s University to promote Lake Park and foot golf. Dylan Nadwodny | Staff Photographer

Austin Jackson | Staff Writer

@a_jack17

After a celebratory stanky-leg-dab combo, sweat pours into blue eyes as they beam through the skinny mesh sliver in Scrappy’s bright yellow beak. The anonymous celebrity spreads an invisible smile and drapes their wing across the shoulder of a young Mean Green fan to pose for a selfie at the North Texas spring football game.

Scrappy is a celebrity and a showstopper. But behind the furrowed brow and cocksure bravado of the North Texas mascot is a business student, sweating off up to seven pounds per game.

In keeping with mascot code, the student in the suit requested to be kept anonymous.  But anonymity, the student said, propels them to be the best mascot they can be.

“Outside the suit, I don’t like a lot of attention. But inside the suit I’ll do whatever,” they said. “It’s kind of like Spider-Man. He’s this nerdy type of guy during the day and then [by night] he’s Spider-Man. That’s how I think of Scrappy—Scrappy is like Spider-Man to me.”

There are two students who play the role of Scrappy, but one of them dons the suit for a majority of events.  For the primary student in the Scrappy suit, their spidey-sense began tingling in the summer of 2008 just before entering the 8th grade.

“I seriously remember just laying there in my bed and waking up and thinking, ‘Man, I want to be the mascot next year,” they said.

The student said once they donned the get-up, the experience of being a mascot allowed them to come out of their shell and become a more outgoing person.

They remained the school mascot through high school, but hung up their Coppell Cowboy hat when they graduated and headed off to Lubbock to attend Texas Tech University.

Scrappy poses with a fan in the stands for a photo at the spring game. Colin Mitchell | Senior Staff Photographer

But after on year in Lubbock, the student felt something was amiss.

“I didn’t want to be Raider Red,” Scrappy said. “Actually, Scrappy is the reason why I transferred here. I was thinking about transferring, and I found out about the Scrappy thing and I looked into it.”

The student reached out to Kayla Spears, the coordinator for marketing and promotions, and was offered a tryout.  After sporting the Scrappy suit and embodying the feisty mascot, they received the job, sealing their decision to attend UNT.

“I’m so grateful because I love UNT,” Scrappy said.

Jamie Adams, assistant director of marketing and promotions for North Texas athletics, said the feeling from the school is mutual.

“It’s great being Scrappy in that they transform when they’re in the suit,” Adams said. “They become Scrappy. That is the sign of a good mascot.”

The student said Scrappy is different from the run-of-the-mill mascot.

“Scrappy is a huge flirt,” they said. “He beats to his own drum and he’s got an ego, but he’s friendly. A friendly ego.”

But being friendly with UNT faithful is sometimes not as practical is it may seem.

“[I see] nothing. That’s one of the biggest struggles,” Scrappy said. “People are like, ‘High five!,’ and I’m like, ‘Where are you!?’”

Another challenge, according to Scrappy, is watching out for children.

“There’s multiple types of kids. Kids that are sweet and like ‘You’re cool, take a picture with me, you’re sweet, you’re nice, peace out,’” Scrappy said. “And then there’s the one’s that are abusive. Kid’s can be so mean to mascots.”

But one kid is among Scrappy’s biggest fans. Pierson Hale, a 7-year-old second grader who has battled a congenital heart defect since birth met Scrappy at L.A. Nelson Elementary in Denton. Alongside the cheer and dance teams, Scrappy announced that Hale’s Make-A-Wish hopes to attend the Monster Jam World Finals in Las Vegas had been granted.

While Scrappy said experiences like meeting Pierson have been fulfilling, the mascot makes an impact on game day as well.

Human resources junior Trevor Connole, who is also a member of TALONS, said Scrappy sets the tone at sporting events.

Scrappy interacts with fans throughout football games during the season. Colin Mitchell | Senior Staff Photographer

“Scrappy ignites a sense of pride and excitement wherever he or she is seen,” Connole said.

With two people playing Scrappy, the student said another challenge they face is embodying Scrappy similarly to avoid confusion for the fans.

“Some of the cheerleaders can tell who is who,” the student said. “For the most part we keep it consistent. You can be a good mascot but a bad scrappy, you just might not fit the personality.”

The student who plays Scrappy the majority of the time is returning next year, but there will be auditions for an assistant.

If a UNT student wants to don the green and white eagle costume, however, he or she will need to fulfill a certain set of qualifications.

“We look for someone who has been a mascot in high school and has experience being in a full mascot suit,” Adams said. “Someone who has a passion for athletics.”

The student said the key to being a good Scrappy is exaggeration, hydration and swagger. They are in graduate school, but beyond business they said they have entertained the idea of taking their mascot skills to the next level.

“There was talk about [being Captain, the Texas Rangers Mascot] for a while, and Victor E. Green is wanting an assistant,” Scrappy said.

But for now, the student is content being Scrappy. Either out of habit or joy, they can’t help but smile underneath the mask.

“After seven years of being a mascot,” Scrappy said. “I still catch myself smiling for pictures.”

Featured Image: The most recent redesign of the Scrappy costume debuted in the fall of 2013 at the Homecoming bonfire. Dylan Nadwodny | Staff Photographer

Nealie Sanchez | Staff Writer

@NealieSanchez

Pay inequality between men and women is a prevalent issue, and the trend has made its way into collegiate athletics as well.

According to the NCAA financial report released on January 25, 2016, approximately $5.1 million was paid to coaches in salaries, bonuses and benefits for the 2014-2015 year.

At UNT there are four men’s NCAA teams and eight women’s NCAA teams. Of the four men’s teams, three share a women’s team counterpart: basketball, golf and track & field.

The report shows the four men’s teams’ head coaches and 16 men’s teams’ assistant coaches were paid $3,402,670, while eight women’s teams’ head coaches and 15 women’s teams’ assistant coaches were paid $1,747,127. These numbers create a more than $1.5 million pay discrepancy, despite employing more women’s coaches than men’s.

According to athletic director Rick Villarreal, a coach’s pay is based on more than the gender they are coaching.

“Coaches’ salaries are based on experience but also based on the market for coaches,” Villarreal said. “You can look at our list and see that that’s pretty much the case.”

Striving for equality

While salary is not exactly the same across the board for men’s and women’s sports,  UNT has taken several steps towards making other elements on their budgets equal.

“One of the first things we did when we came here and this administration took over was make sure that all sports were the same,” Villarreal said. “You have a women’s golf team and a men’s golf team and everything in their budgets, except salary, were the same. Salary was based on experience, numbers of years of experience, those kinds of things.”

The report also shows the only coaches that receive an equal salary are the men’s and women’s track & field and cross country coaches. But this is because these teams have the same head coach, and he receives equal compensation for each position.

“Men’s and women’s track is exactly the same except for the accommodations that they have more scholarships in women’s track then they have in men’s track,” Villarreal said. “[Carl Sheffield Jr.] coaches both teams and that’s not uncommon. That’s not an abnormal situation to have just one track coach.”

Biology senior and student athlete Ngozi Nweke said the pay differences are disappointing, but she understands why there’s a gap.

“Even though it’s not fair, it’s how it is,” Nweke said. “I think it’s so easy to be judgmental, but I don’t think it’s based on gender or type of sport. Women’s teams just aren’t as popular. When we’re watching teams, they’re men’s, not women’s.”

North Texas men’s basketball head coach Tony Benford talks to his team during a timeout in a game against Southern Methodist University. Dylan Nadwodny | Staff Photographer

Ticket revenue low for women’s sports

Nweke’s claims are supported by ticket revenue numbers. Out of the approximately $1.6 million in ticket sales that were reported for the 2014-15 school year, $1.4 million came from men’s team ticket sales, with football accounting for about $1.2 million and men’s basketball accounting for $139,259.

Women’s team ticket sales only accounted for $40,054 in ticket sales across basketball, softball, soccer and volleyball.

The ticket sales could be the biggest factor in pay difference, but both the men’s and women’s golf teams reported zero dollars in ticket sales, and there was still a $23,111 difference in pay for the men’s head coach and the women’s interim head coach.

“I don’t think you can base a lot of coaches’ contracts on ticket sales because we don’t normally host a home track meet, we might only have one, we don’t host a home golf deal, [and] we don’t charge for people to come watch tennis,” Villarreal said. “So tickets aren’t usually a part of coaches’ contracts. I think we do have clauses in our men’s and women’s basketball contracts on tickets, and those would be exactly the same.”

Football skews the numbers

Without the inclusion of football in this report, men’s teams’ coaches would actually make $614,398 less than women’s teams’ coaches across five sports. According to American Association of University Women’s Senior Researcher Kevin Miller, the problem is that there’s not an equally celebrated women’s sport in the NCAA.

“At most schools football programs are a major selling point on a lot of levels and can be good for schools financially, so I’m sure that’s an argument that can be made in favor of paying those staffs so well,” Miller said. “But I am sure that there isn’t an equivalent women’s sport at the collegiate level, and I think that’s a problem.”

Although the sports are not comparable in revenue, the North Texas football staff is paid relatively reasonably when compared to other schools. The $2.3 million in salaries paid to North Texas football coaches is far less than the salary of the head coach alone at other universities, such as Nick Saban at the University of Alabama.

“That’s the reality of the sport that those numbers are going to tend to be larger than they are in other sports,” Villarreal said. “Today I’m trying to make sure that I’m in the same position to hire the same level coach that other people in our conference would be hiring.”

Even so, the football staff, comprised of one head coach and nine assistant coaches, makes a combined $522,814 more than the eight women’s head coaches and 15 assistant coaches combined.

“It’s a different animal in a lot of ways because of the number of people that are involved [and] the number of dollars that are generated by football,” Villarreal said. “But again, we don’t really look at that part of it when I hire a football coach.”

Offensive coordinator Graham Harrell said that depth could be an issue for North Texas. Colin Mitchell | Senior Staff Photographer

The verdict

While the raw numbers indicate a wide margin between men’s and women’s coaches, many elements factor into the equation.

According to Miller, the pay gap has less to do with high level decisions and more to do with biases held by spectators.

“I’m thinking that in sports, part of the bias is that people tend to think of women’s sports as not as exciting or not as real as men’s sports,” Miller said. “I think there is a bias happening there on a lower level that may be part of the picture.”

The conclusion then seems to be there isn’t much that can be done – unless the playing field was leveled in popularity of sports, or if females ever ended up in the men’s coaching realm on the collegiate level.

“Football is the god. I don’t think women’s sports are ever going to get on that level, so it’s comparing apples to oranges,” Nweke said. “If we ever had a woman coaching a men’s team, then we could look at it fairly. I think it’s a different spectrum of judgment.”

For Villarreal and UNT, the main objective moving forward is for the university to remain as fair as possible.

“I think it’s important for us to be competitive in all of our coaches’ salaries within our conference and to be as balanced as possible,” Villarreal said. “That’s probably the case just about anywhere you would go at the D-1 FBS level.”

Featured Image: Before the beginning of the first overtime, North Texas head coach Jalie Mitchell gives the team a game plan. Colin Mitchell | Senior Staff Photographer

Editor’s Note: The North Texas Daily sports staff steps back and takes a look at the entire academic year for North Texas athletics, spanning from August 2015 to May 2016. Between the soccer team making the NCAA tournament and the football team making a mid-season coaching change the night of Homecoming, the year definitely had its highs and lows. But through the good times and the bad, we as a staff have been thrilled to be a part of the ride and provide news reports, analysis, opinion and fun every step of the way. Without further adieu, the North Texas Daily sports staff puts a cap on a captivating year of Mean Green athletics.

Our staff: Scott Sidway (SS), Reece Waddell (RW), Alex Lessard (AL), Clay Massey (CM), Brady Keane (BK)

1. Give a letter grade to UNT athletics this year, and explain how it was earned.

SS: D+. It’s somewhat of a contradictory grade, when you think about it. Congratulations, you didn’t quite fail, but you just barely skated by really well! Still, D+ sums up the year perfectly. Attendance was poorer than poor, the wins were few and far between for the many of the more recognizable sports and coaches were either getting fired midseason, fired by the fans and media, or blasted by their own players. If it wasn’t for the brilliance of John Hedlund, the dominance of Carnae Dillard or the homecoming for Jalie Mitchell, the sad-Jordan meme would be an acceptable substitute for Scrappy’s head.

RW: D. It’s hard to earn a passing grade when your three major revenue sports all post losing seasons, and it’s really hard to earn a passing grade when your head football coach is fired after a 66-7 route by an FCS school on Homecoming. Men’s basketball was below average and softball has completely fallen apart over the past month. However, women’s basketball improved under first-year head coach Jalie Mitchell and soccer won Conference-USA. So I mean, those are two bright spots.

AL:  C. Football’s self-combustion weighs the grade down a ton, but men’s basketball and softball were surprisingly dreadful as well. Yet, there were still plenty of positives to take away from 2015-16. Soccer racked up the most wins in the nation, tennis came one match away from a shot at the C-USA championship and Carnae Dillard had arguably the best individual year in Mean Green volleyball history. But at the end of the day, earning just one C-USA title in 12 sports is a major disappointment.

CM: D. Tennis and women’s basketball made the conference tournaments, and men’s golf and soccer made the national tournament. Those successes created a curve for the F-worthy performances of football, men’s basketball and softball.

BK: C+. I’m basing my grade on the three major revenue sports (football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball), but the success of other sports helped to bring the grade up a little bit. The men’s and women’s basketball teams were both wildly inconsistent, but I think both of them have a lot to look forward to for next season. Football was awful, but they made a solid hire in Seth Littrell. So there is actually some excitement back in the air, which is good for the program.

2. What’s your fondest memory this year in athletics?

SS: The way Dan McCarney handled his abrupt firing was the classiest moment I’ve ever been a part of in my short sports career. How many people in this world would, after abruptly receiving the pink slip 10 minutes after your most humiliating moment on the job, willingly walk out to a pool of reporters and colleagues and talk about it in the heat of the moment? The firing needed to happen, don’t get me wrong, though I still stand it was poor timing on Rick Villarreal’s part. But it was extracurricular for McCarney to go out of his way and tell us he wanted to give us one final press conference, shake our hands, and thank us – even after some of us questioned the direction of his program. Class personified.

North Texas interm coach Mike Canales celebrates with the team after a 30­-23 victory over UTSA. Colin Mitchell | Senior Staff Photographer

RW: It’s hard to choose because there were so, so few. Mike Canales getting carried off the field in the football team’s lone win of the season was laughable, but my favorite moment of the year was Darvin Kidsy hauling in a Hail Mary pass as time expired during the first half of a game against Western Kentucky. Why? Because I predicted it seconds before it happened.

Honorable mention: Carlos Harris getting ejected for targeting and posting a photo on Snapchat before he even made it into the locker room. What a guy.

AL: Soccer’s first round NCAA Tournament game versus Texas Tech. Jackie Kerestine got injured in warmups and wasn’t able to play, forcing freshman Brooke Bradley into her first career start with the team hoping to win its first tournament game in school history. It was almost like watching someone grill the most perfect steak anyone’s ever seen and then dropping it on the ground. Life really is unfair.

CM: Softball head coach Tracey Kee was tossed from a game against Louisiana Tech for arguing balls and strikes. To be fair, she did it very calmly, but the ump still gave her the boot. But she was still always watching – Kee went out past the left field fence and pulled up a folding chair to watch the rest of the game. Always. Watching.

Honorable mention: Sunday’s softball season finale against UAB. Lauren Miller had a 2-2 count with the bases loaded and two outs, and she squared around to bunt. The pitch ended up being a ball, but I was screaming on the inside and shaking my head on the outside.

BK: Without a doubt, it was the football team’s lone win over UTSA. Seeing the passion and excitement on Mike Canales’ face and the “roaring” student section was a good moment for the football team. The only good moment, actually.

3. Which senior UNT athlete will be missed the most?

SS: Jackie Kerestine is going to be missed for more than just her dominance in net. The amount of leadership goalkeepers have to exhibit is often unnoticed by casual soccer fans, and even though Hedlund is entering the fall with a couple of talented keepers, I wonder if either of them will be able to organize her defense as seamlessly as Kerestine did. They played a huge role in padding her sometimes mind-boggling stats, but she played just as much a role in helping her defenders as they did keeping balls out of her net. Can’t wait to see your North Texas Hall of Fame induction someday, Jackie.

RW: Either Jackie Kerestine or Carnae Dillard. Dillard holds the UNT all-time kills record for volleyball and Kerestine was a brick wall in net for soccer. Both were vital to the success of both teams, and it’ll be tough to match their production when they’re gone.

Redshirt senior soccer goalkeeper Jackie Kerestine and senior volleyball outside hitter Carnae Dillard are two of the top athletes in their respective sports. Dylan Nadwodny | Staff Photographer

AL: Carnae Dillard. She essentially did everything and more for Mean Green volleyball, racking up over 700 points and almost 400 digs. She set all sorts of career school records and provided the leadership and experience needed as the team’s lone senior. There’s no way North Texas can replace her with just one person, so it’ll take a complete team effort to match or exceed last season’s 20-13 record.

CM: Definitely Carnae Dillard. Dillard led the team in kills her senior season with 687, and the next most was junior Alexis Wright with 199. I’m not sure where those 488 kills are going to come from next season.

BK: Carnae Dillard. Nobody was more important to their team, and she holds so many records with the volleyball program that I think the team is going to be a little shell-shocked when they can’t lean on her to carry them anymore. The volleyball team has a young roster, but Dillard will be the most missed senior by far.

4. Which team is going to have the most success in 2016-2017, and why?

SS: I would not be shocked to see the women’s basketball team make a deep run in the Conference USA tournament next season. The work Jalie Mitchell did with one of the most shallow teams in the history of basketball was almost Rick Carlisle-esque in terms of turning what looked like nothing into something. Other than John Hedlund, there isn’t a coach better than her at North Texas. It should be fun to watch a Jalie-led team compete after a full recruiting cycle and with another year of experience under Kelsey Criner and Candice Adams’ belts.

RW: I’m inclined to say men’s basketball because of the supposed “talent” they have returning and coming in. Plus, it’s a contract year for head coach Tony Benford, and he knows another sub .500 record and first-round exit from the C-USA tournament will get him a one-way ticket out of Denton. Sure, people are going to want to talk about football and new head coach Seth Littrell, but even the offensive guru himself does not have a magic wand that will cure all that ails the football program. It will be a slow, arduous process to even get Mean Green football back in the bowl conversation.

AL: Men’s and women’s basketball are under pressure to take a leap next year, but tennis should be expected to make the biggest stride. Head coach Sujay Lama struck gold with the freshman duo of Maria Kononova and Tamuna Kutubidze, with each earning C-USA First and Second Team honors as a doubles pair. The squad is saying goodbye to three seniors, but added growth from its best doubles team and a strong incoming freshman class should give the Mean Green a great shot at a C-USA title.

Junior guard Kelsey Criner (3) drives the baseline against Louisiana Tech. Colin Mitchell | Senior Staff Photographer

CM: Softball is primed for a run next season, assuming the pitching staff gets a little deeper. It seems like this season’s struggles were partially due to a young team who wasn’t ready for the grind of a long season. After only losing two players and bringing back eight talented freshmen who were major contributors toward the team’s hot start, watch out for North Texas softball next season.

BK: I’d like to be optimistic and say the men’s basketball team is going to have a breakout season. They have talent, especially with Jeremy Combs continuing to improve, and they added a lot of transfers that could make an immediate impact. Tony Benford is going to have to get the guard heavy roster to mesh together, and I think it’s obvious that if this team under preforms, he won’t be returning again.

Final editor’s note: This sports section has made incredible strides in the last year, and in my personal opinion, has become a go-to source for North Texas sports news. The reporters working their way up this publication don’t treat this like a college newspaper – we treat it like it’s our full-time job. I hope and trust the sports staff in future years will build on the reputation we’ve established in the last year, and I hope you, the reader, continues to visit North Texas Daily for Mean Green Athletics news. We will continue to be the absolute first source to publish game stories after North Texas games, and we will also continue to keep improving on breaking news and providing quality content. Thank you, readers and writers, for helping us grow this enterprise and joining me on this wild ride that has been North Texas athletics in 2015-2016. Also, I still have the transcript. – SS

Featured Image: Senior Jackie Kerestine clears the ball with her fists following a free kick in the final minutes of the game on Sunday. Colin Mitchell | Senior Staff Photographer

Scott Sidway | News & Sports Editor

@ScottyWK

Editor’s Note: I contacted Rick Villarreal minutes after it was announced he and UNT mutually decided to part ways. Here is the transcript of the exclusive interview between myself and Villarreal. For the original story, click here.

From your point of view, what played into the decision to step down?

RV: I think a lot of things. The time I’ve been here and the amount of things we’ve done, all those were great. But at the end of the day, you have to do everything, and we struggled in football, we struggled in basketball, and those are the sports we have to win. Somebody’s held accountable for that, and I think that along with the fact I had been contemplating how much longer I was going to do this. With conversations between the president and myself, we came to this decision and felt like it was best.

You mentioned to me off the record awhile back you had considered retiring sometime in the next couple of years. Is this sooner than you were planning, or did this feel like the right time?

RV: It just felt like the right time. I think with a new football coach coming in, with basketball in a situation where there may have to be a decision made, and then Jalie [Mitchell], I believe she’s going to be an unbelievable coach in only her second year – I think the time was right now because of all of those things. Somebody who’s going to be here for an extended time needs to step in and help Seth [Littrell] through his first season and consecutive seasons, and make those decisions that may have to be made during this year.

Is this retirement for you, or are you thinking about staying in the field and fielding offers? Or are you ready to just sit down and spend time with the family?

RV: Scott I can tell you, I don’t think I can sit around in a house, and anybody that’s been around me for any length of time knows I go 100 miles per hour. I don’t know that I can just sit around and play with the grandkids every day. I am going to do a lot of that, but I’m going to take a little bit of time off here, decompress, lose a little more weight, and get myself in good shape. Then, this may sound crazy, but I believe all of us are led somewhere to do certain things. So I’m going to take my time and kind of see what comes my way, because that’ll be what I’m supposed to do.

How long has this thought process been going on? Did you approach President Smatresk, or did he approach you? When did this become a decision in either your head or his?

RV: It was kind of a mutual decision. I had commented to him earlier about my length of time I was interested in staying, and we had another conversation about continuity in the program. So again, it was really a back-and-forth conversation, and at the end of the day, this week felt like the best decision.

At the end of the day, how much of a better position do you think you left UNT in than it was when you first arrived 15 years ago?

RV: I think if you’d ask anybody, they could answer the question for you. But the one thing that has happened, I’ve been through four and a half presidents here – four and a half administrations. So you don’t have somebody who kind of knows what things were like at this time or that time. But I can tell you, it’s night and day. From facilities, from fundraising, from academics, from the culture – I think one of the things, whether people agree with this or not, we changed the culture. When we got here, there was no pride. We were losing games left and right, and you didn’t hear a word. I think today, people take great pride, and I’m excited about that. Even when people aren’t happy with it, I get why they’re not happy with it because I wasn’t happy losing. Nobody is happy losing. But we’ve changed the culture to where people care. And hopefully, and I mean this, I hope that part of this situation is that those who have been away from the program will come back to the program, and that more and more and more people that are North Texas grads will come back and find out what we have here today and help grow this program the way it needs to grow.

UNT Athletic Director, Rick Villarreal, said in an emailed university news release today he was stepping down from his current position. File Photo. Reece Waddell | Senior Staff Writer

So what’s on the agenda then between now and June 20th?

RV: Just going to tie up some loose ends, make sure projects that are in process, that people will need to take over the completion of those if they’re not completed by then. To make sure that we get everybody up to date on what’s going on with so many things going on in the NCAA and those kinds of things – making sure everybody knows who’s going to take what piece of the pie to make sure we stay on track until an interim is named. And again, when the new person comes in, I want to make sure they come into the very best possible situation.

You said restoring pride back in North Texas athletics is one of your biggest accomplishments. If you have any, what would you say is your biggest regret or thing you wish you had accomplished in your 15 years at North Texas?

RV: I wish we won more games. I look around and see our facilities; I look around and see the academic progress. This past fall, we raised $6 million or so. I regret that we didn’t win more games and thereby attract more people back to the program. I’m not sure that winning solves everything, because after four straight bowl games 2001-2005, even though we were out there, we couldn’t get 10,000-12,000 to buy season tickets when we’d been to four straight bowl games. But I wish we would have won more games.

If you have one thing you could say to fans or North Texas students before you step down, what would that be?

RV: That it’s been an honor to be the athletic director here and that I poured 24 hours a day into this job. And sometimes things have been really great, and sometimes they haven’t been so good. I hope that students, fans and everybody involved will stay green, regardless of wins or losses. Regardless of who’s in what place, this is still their institution. I hope they will learn to love it in a way they will support it day in and day out.

Featured Image: New football coach Seth Littrell, middle, and athletic director Rick Villarreal dance during the UNT fight song. December 8,  2015. File Photo. Evan McAlister | Staff Photographer

The Editorial Board

In November, a plane circled over campus towing a message for the Hurley Administration Building: “Fire Rick Villarreal.” Seven months later, that plane landed.

Villarreal told the university community Monday that he was leaving his post as athletic director. Good for UNT. At a time when the university is sailing full steam to be Dallas-Fort Worth’s choice school, the three money making sports have routinely come up short.

In an interview, Villarreal said he and UNT President Neal Smatresk “came to this decision and felt like it was best.” Publicly, Smatresk has been grateful for Villarreal’s service. But Villarreal’s departure is a clear reminder that Smatresk and other leaders are serious about turning North Texas athletics into more, shall we say, tier-one programs.

Head coach Seth Littrell looks on as the offense runs through drills. Colin Mitchell | Senior Staff Photographer

Villarreal will be the athletic director until June 20, but the effects of his 15 years here will linger. The football program, a sore thumb, has a new coach, Seth Littrell. Villarreal hired him. New head women’s basketball coach Jalie Mitchell: hired by Villarreal.

For a long time now, Villarreal has built a kitchen without a cook. Smatresk and others must quickly hire a new athletic director who can press these new coaches and enforce excellence.

We need an athletic director who will not be defensive about their flaws. In some interviews, some Daily reporters and editors say, Villarreal’s attempts to spin questions about substandard game attendance were almost laughable. In one interview, Villarreal told a reporter “I hope I’m not disappointed” with the ensuing article.

That’s not how this works.

North Texas women’s basketball head coach Jalie Mitchell talks with Steven Bartolotta on the Coach’s Show at Rudy’s BBQ. Dylan Nadwodny | Staff Photographer

On forums like GoMeanGreen.com, alumni, donors and fans roast Villarreal for the school’s poor athletic performance. They yelled about Villarreal’s empty promises of a baseball program. People stopped buying season tickets; they stopped showing up to games.

Online posts turned into bricks, thrown at UNT’s Mean-Green facade, shattering it like glass. Good for UNT, for listening to its people. It’s clear that banner over campus hit its target.

For Smatresk and his team, growing a quality athletic program is a challenge. We know he and his team have done well to position UNT as a vital institution for DFW and for Texas. We’ll see how athletics turn out.

And stop quietly raising our athletic fees while you field losing teams.

Find UNT an athletic director who can get us excited about going to games. There are people here and abroad who love North Texas sports and want to see UNT’s athletes thrive. Give the community a reason to celebrate.

Featured Image: File Photo. Colin Mitchell

Nealie Sanchez | Staff Writer

@NealieSanchez

Despite many subpar performances on the field, UNT athletics found success in the classroom, finishing 2014-2015 with high APR scores, according to an NCAA report.

A team’s APR score is comprised of both student athlete GPA and retention of athletes. Each student athlete can receive two points for his or her team: one for passing, and one for staying with the team.

UNT had multiple sports with perfect scores: men’s golf, women’s cross country, tennis, women’s track & field and volleyball, while various other sports ranked among the top in the NCAA. The football team finished with an APR of 993, which is the top 10 percent of all NCAA football teams. Men’s and women’s basketball finished with an APR score of 938 and 939 respectively, placing them in the bottom 20 percent in the NCAA.

Super Pit / Coliseum – 600 Avenue D. Tomas Gonzalez | Visuals Editor

Outgoing UNT athletic director Rick Villarreal said these types of improvements are possible because the athletics department prioritizes academics.

“My philosophy is that there’s some kids that we have that are good enough to go to the next level. But out of the 25,000 student athletes in the last four years, we’ve got five of them making a living [in sports], and the rest of them are out working in the real world,” Villarreal said. “I’ve always made it clear to our entire staff that the degree has got to come first.”

For cross-country head coach Stefanie Slekis, the improvement is something that doesn’t go unnoticed. 

“This year we had our highest semester GPA ever, a 3.64,” Slekis said. “My first semester coaching here it was a 3.04. It’s great to see how much they brought up their GPA.”

Upgrading academic spaces

UNT was docked scholarships in 2009 for poor academic performance, but it has made strides in ensuring student athlete success since then.

One step Villarreal took during his tenure was improving the student athlete academic center.

“When we came here in 2001, we worked in a room that was probably 20 feet by 16 feet, and it had two tables and eight chairs with no computers. That was kind of our study hall for student athletes,” Villarreal said. “Unfortunately, at that time graduation rates were about 32 percent for student athletes, and so that to me has always been one of my main focuses.”

UNT athletic director, Rick Villarreal. File Photo

The improvements included a larger space, technological upgrades, staff members and an entire program dedicated to coaching freshman into a successful first year at college.

Track & field senior Connor Bey is one of many student-athletes who has used the center since the beginning of his college career and said it’s clear how UNT prioritizes academics.

“Freshman year, all student athletes have eight hours of mandatory study hall,” Bey said. “So it really sets the tone for how important it is.”

The study hall remains mandatory for any athlete with a GPA under a 3.0, but students with higher GPAs can still utilize the space.

Student athletes also have the added pressure of doing homework while they travel with their teams for away games.

“It’s important to get our schedules so that they can do work while they’re on the road or before they’re on the road, or make arrangements if they’re going to miss a particular test while they’re out of town for three days,” Villarreal said.

With many classes emphasizing online coursework and the use of blackboard to turn in assignments, getting homework done on the road has become easier, Bey said.

“Online helps a lot and everything is sort of online now. I’ve taken my laptop with me out of town for homework,” Bey said. “I was at conference last year on a Wednesday and Thursday, and I had an assignment turned in on Thursday night.”

From classroom to field

Each Mean Green team seeks the same thing: students who excel in classes so their dedication originates outside of their uniform and carries over while wearing it.

“A lot of the same work ethic translates [to classwork], and we try to find good students to join our program,” Slekis said. “They’re working really hard to finish what they started here at UNT, and it shows the dedication levels of the athletes in our program.”

While every university is competing to win on the field, Villarreal insisted UNT would never sacrifice the academic success for a few wins here and there.

“We want to win as much as anybody, and so we’re not excited that we don’t win,” Villarreal said. “But the fact that we know that our students here are doing what they came here to do – they have made academics a priority, and it’s been a priority across the board for everybody involved in our program.”

Student-athlete success in the classroom was one of Villarreal’s biggest points of pride before stepping down as athletic director last month.

“When somebody asked me what my greatest accomplishment is, was it building a stadium? Was it moving us from noncompliance Title IX to compliance Title XI? For me, it’s that we have set up a system that our kids academically have graduated and stayed in school at numbers that compare with the best in the country,” Villarreal said. “That’s the biggest thing that I can ever hope students do.”

Featured Image: Apogee Stadium – 1251 S Bonnie Brae St. Tomas Gonzalez | Visuals Editor

Austin Jackson | Staff Writer

@a_jack17

With intentions of mending a weary fan base, UNT consultants Trip Kuehne and Michael Sicuro hosted a forum Monday, June 27, bringing together prominent North Texas coaches and over 100 alumni to discuss the current and future state of North Texas athletics.

In his address to the crowd, Kuehne said the event was the “first step” towards uniting a passionate, but divided, fan base.

“Things around this institution haven’t been really great, but they haven’t been going bad,” Kuehne said. “We have some phenomenal facilities, but we have a fan base that is fractured. We have a fan base, alumni base and boosters that need to be brought together.”

Kuehne and Sicuro were hired two weeks after former athletic director Rick Villarreal resigned on May 23 to evaluate the program’s resources, staff and facilities as “special consultants” to University President Neal Smatresk, according to a UNT press release.

After Kuehne addressed the crowd, UNT head football coach Seth Littrell and men’s basketball coach Tony Benford took the podium, outlining their expectations for the upcoming season and the state of their respective programs.

Littrell began his address by saying the alumni’s passion and desire to be great is mutual and later explained his irritation with the question, “Why North Texas?” Citing the facilities, student body, local recruiting hotbed, alumni, fan base and administration, Littrell posed his own question, emphatically asking, “Why not North Texas?”

“It’ll come down to all of us together – all of us together,” Littrell said. “We all have to get on the same page and pull the rope in the same direction, and that’s why I appreciate you being here tonight.”

When asked if more players could be added to the current recruiting class, Littrell replied directly, explaining the possibility of “blue-shirting” future recruits for the next class. He later noted the team’s current challenges with depth and said having 68 scholarship players on the roster was more comparable to an FCS program rather than FBS, which have up to 85.

But Littrell said he’s not backing down from the challenge, citing his tendency to coach and play with a chip on his shoulder and his unique insight into playing football during a regime change.

Littrell played football at Oklahoma University when Bob Stoops took over the program midway through his college career. In his senior year, Stoops lead Littrell and the Sooners to a 13-0 record and a national championship.

“Trust me – at the end of the day, if I didn’t’ think this was a gold mine, I would never have accepted the job,” Littrell said. “I didn’t want to be a head coach bad enough to just go to a place. I wanted to have everything that we needed to be successful and win championships.”

Benford, who doesn’t have luxury of a fresh start like Littrell, explained why next season would be an improvement in men’s basketball. Benford outlined his team’s improving culture and veteran leadership, praising the team’s work ethic on and off the court. He credited his upperclassmen, specifically junior forward Jeremy Combs and senior guard J-Mychal Reese for being “culture creators” who have both helped the team’s current roster and attracted recruits.

Benford said the culture he’s established over the past four years is starting to pay dividends, saying it will “translate to wins this year.”

In addition to highlighting his team’s progress, he asked fans to come and watch the team not just on game day, but also at their practices and workouts. Afterwards, Benford said his goal for the forum was to have fans see the team firsthand before making assumptions.

“There’s some apathy out there, but give us a chance. Give the kids a chance,” Benford said. “Come watch Jeremy Combs. Come watch J-Mychal Reese. Watch the new guys, and then make a decision.”

After the event, Benford said he didn’t know if he changed any minds, but thought establishing the dialogue with fans was important.

“Communication – that’s what you always want is communication,” Benford said. “I think you gotta have that transparency.”

After Benford and Littrell fielded questions from the crowd, Kuehne closed out the first half of the forum, praising the candor of the coaches and the progress their transparency represented for North Texas Athletics.

“I also think that everyone in this room has missed in the past is there hadn’t been a whole lot of openness and transparency about what’s gone on,” Kuehne said over the applause.

Media members were then instructed to leave the premises for the fan feedback portion of the forum. Kuehne and Sicuro said removing reporters would allow the fans and alumni to feel safe expressing their opinions.

At 11 p.m., five hours after arriving, Kuehne and Sicuro left the stadium. They each declined to comment on the forum, citing hunger and a duty to report their findings and opinions to President Smatresk first.

Among the notable North Texas alumni present was former Mean Green broadcaster and current radio host George Dunham. Going into the event, Dunham said the people in the room could be part of the solution for UNT athletics and said negativity, while warranted, doesn’t seem to be working.

“One thing we seem to be really good at [at] North Texas is complaining,” Dunham said, also saying he planned to listen for the most part but would speak up if needed.

After the forum, Dunham said he did speak up, lending his support for interim athletic director Hank Dickenson.

“The AD job is about building relationships, and Hank has spent 21 years building relationships with Denton businesses, corporate sponsors, media members and service organizations,” Dunham said. “He has worked tirelessly for North Texas. He loves this place and deserves a shot”

Thomas Coe, UNT alumnus from the class of ’00, said the athletic department, alumni and boosters also discussed attendance, culture change, connectivity within the city of Denton and customer service. Coe said UNT has a lot of issues, but he was encouraged Kuehne and Sicuro admitted those issues existed.

“What’s great is both of them did say, ‘Yeah, we’ve got a lot damn issues,’” Coe said. “North Texas has a s*** ton of issues.”

Coe said he left the meeting feeling “52 or 53 percent confident” that the meeting was evidence the university was heading in the right direction. He said a portion of his skepticism was due to the “pathetic” amount of donors present compared to the school’s alumni base, saying the turnout was evidence North Texas wasn’t ready to compete with bigger programs.

Overall he said he was just happy to be heard.

“It was a good event. We certainly needed it,” Coe said. “Us as fans and boosters, we need to have a voice. We’ve never had this before.”

Featured Image: Seth Littrell, UNT head football coach, addresses fans, alumni, and coaches in an open meeting June 27 in Apogee Stadium. The staff later closed the meeting. Sanchez Murray | Staff Photographer 

North Texas added another member to its athletic board on Thursday.

Jared Mosley, 39, former CEO and president of the Texas Sports Hall of Fame has joined as Associate Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. Mosley will assist new athletic director Wren Baker with financial, operational and administrative issues, according to a press release.

Mosley began his career in athletics administration in 2003 at his alma mater, Abilene Christian University. Mosley also oversaw more than $30 million in facilities construction and renovations from 2003-2013. In addition, Mosley was instrumental in helping raise the athletic student GPA at ACU from 2.74 to 3.0 by the time he resigned.

Mosley graduated from ACU with a bachelor’s degree in science in 2000 and Master’s in education administration in 2003. He played basketball for the Wildcats and was inducted into the ACU hall of fame in 2015.

During North Texas’ win over Bethune-Cookman University this past Saturday, freshman quarterback Mason Fine did his best Harry Houdini impression. After avoiding the rush and scrambling for his life, Fine hurled a pass downfield that was caught in double coverage for more than a 30-yard gain.

The play not only invigorated the Apogee crowd, but new athletic director Wren Baker, as well.

“Yeah!” Baker said, pumping his fist. “Just how they drew it up.”

After spending the last five years in athletics administration positions in Missouri and Tennessee, Baker was named UNT’s athletic director and vice president on July 29 – and his comfort level is at an all-time high.

“This is home,” Baker said. “I grew up about 150 miles from here. Being close to where I grew up and where my wife grew up was intriguing. It just feels like your favorite pair of shoes you haven’t had on in a while.”

Originally from Valliant, Oklahoma, Baker graduated with his bachelor’s degree from Southeastern Oklahoma State University in 2001. He obtained his master’s in education leadership from Oklahoma State University, where he worked as a basketball operations assistant.

While with the Cowboys, the men’s basketball team held a record of 102-30, and went to the Final Four in 2004.

Baker shifted career paths in 2006, however, opting for the administrative side of athletics. His first job was Director of Athletics at Rogers State University, where Baker became the youngest athletic director in the country at any four-year university.

Over the next 10 years, Baker made stops at Northwest Missouri State, the University of Memphis and most recently, the University of Missouri. His array of skills is what made him such an attractive candidate for UNT President Neal Smatresk during the hiring process.

“On paper, I loved his experience because he’s done it all from soup to nuts,” Smatresk said. “He’s worked small programs. He’s shown a strong progression of responsibility in all the places he’s been. And he’s been, from what I can tell, uniformly successful.”

Baker’s arrival in Denton comes during a time of rebuilding, as he will now be tasked with orchestrating a complete athletic turnaround.

Last year, Mean Green football went 1-11, a mark that tied for the worst record in school history. Head coach Seth Littrell was hired last December to replace former head coach Dan McCarney, who was fired in the middle of the 2015 season.

On the basketball side, the men’s team has not posted a winning record since head coach Tony Benford was hired in 2012. Softball has struggled the last two seasons, going a combined 41-64, and even missed the Conference USA tournament that was held in Denton last year.

Despite the recent disarray, Baker is adamant he has plans to get things turned around

“We’re going to build on the student-athlete experience,” Baker said. “I think if you focus your athletic department on [that], they’ll want to come. It’s going to be comparable to anywhere in the country. When they come here, they’re going to get coached by some of the best coaches in the country.”

No stranger to revitalizing athletic programs, Baker led the charge at Memphis and Northwest Missouri State, and was a key cog in the success each school experienced. At both locations, he secured the largest donation in university history.

.@SethLittrell on working with new #UNT athletic director @WrenBaker: pic.twitter.com/L95oyCd4g7

— Reece Waddell (@ReeceWaddell15) September 14, 2016

“I’m pumped,” head football coach Seth Littrell said of working with Baker. “I think he’s a great leader. I think he’ll do an unbelievable job. He’s very passionate. I’m excited about our relationship and getting a chance to move forward and build something special here.”

But Baker also has experience overcoming adversity.

Last year, Baker served as the interim director of athletics at Missouri during protests directed at former president Tim Wolfe. Students and football players alike banded together over racial incidents they believed Wolfe did not properly address.

Some football players even threatened to not suit up until Wolfe was gone, and a short time later, Wolfe resigned.

“I learned so much about the importance of open and honest dialogue and communication when we have differences,” Baker said. “I learned a lot about that at Missouri and will certainly carry that forward.”

Even though it feels like home, there are still adjustments Baker will have to make. One of them is operating on a budget that, according to Baker, is three times less than what he worked with at Missouri.

“We’re still kind of sorting through the books in athletics,” Smatresk said. “The first and most critical move for [Baker] has been what kind of leadership is he bringing in, and I think he’s made some good early calls.”

One of Baker’s early calls was the hire of new athletic COO and associate vice president Jared Mosley, who will serve on the leadership team for Baker. Formerly the CEO and President of the Texas Sports Hall of Fame and Director of Athletics at Abilene Christian University, Mosley has over a decade of athletic administration knowledge under his belt.

“I think it’s a great hire,” Smatresk said. “Having someone with that level of experience, a senior hand who has been there and done that to support Wren is a strong move. It’s an indication of the kind of decision making you’re going to see from this athletic director. I think he’ll build a winning team.”

For Baker, things have come full circle in a short amount of time. Despite having the opportunity to interview and be chosen as the permanent athletic director at Missouri, a Power Five school, Baker had his eyes fixed upon North Texas and the challenge that awaited.

And now, he is the one UNT will turn to to right the ship.

“I always felt like this was the place for me to be,” Baker said. “I felt like I could come here and be a part of something special.”

Featured Image: Wren Baker is the University of North Texas’s athletic director. Baker transferred as athletic director from the University of Missouri. Hannah Breland

A report issued by Dallas-Fort Worth consultants Trip Kuehne and Michael Sicuro revealed the North Texas athletic department is underperforming and lackluster in nearly every area of operation, according to documents obtained by the Denton Record-Chronicle.

The evaluation was commissioned by UNT President Neal Smatresk and identifies major flaws such as revenue generation, communication within the department and budget pitfalls. Overall, the duo believes “the [athletic department] is under-performing at virtually every level resulting from a lack of leadership, inadequate funding, outdated and/or poorly maintained facilities and in many cases, non-existent internal processes.”

In terms of revenue, UNT ranked 85th out of 231 collegiate athletic programs in 2014, good enough for fifth in Conference USA. The two main sports on campus, football and men’s basketball, are both floundering for revenue, and rank sixth and 10th, respectively, in C-USA. One of the biggest problems cited in the report was customer service and communication, highlighted by an anecdote of a fan who “wanted to give money to the [athletic department], but nobody ever answered the phone.”

North Texas also has the lowest recruiting budget in C-USA and is second to last in total scholarship expenditures. Additionally, across all sports, there was found to be “dysfunctional and not cohesive” scheduling methods, which has led to fan dissatisfaction and lower attendance.

Finally, there was the glaring problem of facilities. Aside from Apogee Stadium, the report indicates a majority of fields, the athletic village and locker rooms are “below standards and need improvement.” Within the report were several pictures of problems ranging from water damage on the track to unsanitary drinking fountains in locker rooms.

Despite the main negatives of the report, Kuehne and Sicuro were encouraged by the hiring of new athletic director Wren Baker and believe he will be a strong leader capable of fixing the aforementioned issues. Baker was brought on in late July to replace former A.D. Rick Villarreal, who announced his resignation in May.

To complete their investigation, the tandem toured nearly every athletic facility and the entire UNT campus. The process took over 350 hours to complete, and all coaches, staff and UNT personnel were cooperative, according to the report. Kuehne and Sicuro said, for the most part, they found “an overwhelming desire for the [athletic department] to be successful and a strong passion and commitment from the department.”

During the fourth game of the season for the North Texas men’s basketball team, freshman guard A.J. Lawson was not himself. Going against Rutgers, he scored two points on a woeful 1-of-3 shooting while grabbing just one rebound in ten minutes.

Coming into the game, he averaged 10 points per contest.

There was only one logical explanation for this peculiar performance.

“I didn’t have [my headband],” Lawson said. “It was a freshman mistake. I have to have a headband. When I have it on, it clears my mind.”

Aside from the one game he forgot it, Lawson has worn a headband in 27 games this season and averages a team-high 11.5 points per game while shooting 44 percent.

Coincidence? He doesn’t think so.

Similar superstitions saturate the minds of athletes in nearly every sport. In the spring semester, athletes take things a step further as their seasons come closer to the end of the school year.

The women’s basketball team is currently 8-8 in conference play and is having their best season at home since 2012. The Mean Green has several individual ways to prepare for games, but at home especially, there is a routine that sets the tone.

“We turn up the music and play our favorites [in the locker room],” senior guard Candice Adams said with a small laugh. “A lot of Migos. A little bit of Future.”

A key cog for North Texas, Adams has a fairly consistent pre-game routine which includes finding the rhythm for her shot and getting some rest before taking the court by taking a nap around two hours before tip-off.

On the more abnormal side of routines for basketball players, sophomore guard for the women’s team Orianna Shillow shares a superstition with Lawson involving socks.

In practices and games, Lawson wears two of the same side Nike socks, so two lefts or two rights instead of the usual left-right combo. Shillow is sure to put on her left sock, left ankle brace, and left shoe before her right sock, ankle brace and shoe. It’s always in that order.

But basketball players aren’t the only ones with judicious routines.

Across campus, the North Texas tennis team has superstitions of its own. They even have their own pre-match breakfast spot.

“We usually have a really good breakfast [at Seven Mile Café] the day before our match, so we feel encouragement from each other and support,” sophomore Maria Kononova said. “I think we start the next day with the same mood and it really affects our game.”

While Kononova herself does not need a routine to get ready, her teammates are unique in their preparation for matches.

Sophomore Tamuna Kutubidze usually plays as the two seed for the team in singles and pairs with Kononova in the No. 1 doubles slot. Despite being over six thousand miles from her home country of Georgia, Kutubidze is sure to make herself at home before matches.

“First of all, I call my mom because before I came here she was always with me,” Kutubidze said. “[Then] I always wear this [bracelet] and touch this cross [on my necklace]. Then I imagine that my mom is standing there all the time [during the match] and it calms me down.”

Two seasons ago, senior Alexis Thoma won the team strength and conditioning award. She has always been a fitness enthusiast, which apparently helps her on the tennis court as the No. 3 singles player.

“The night before [a match] I always have straight protein, [which is] just chicken, chicken and more chicken,” Thoma said. “In the morning, I have to have all my specific drinks [and vitamins] ready. I do Herbalife24, then I always have to wear the necklace my mom gave me.”

A hundred or so yards away at Lovelace Stadium, the North Texas softball team’s season is now under way, and they have wasted no time getting their superstitions in order. Whenever the team is walking or entering somewhere together with something dividing two entry ways, they all have to go in on the same side, or else their game could be compromised.

Seriously.

“If you split the pole it’s bad luck,” sophomore Harley Perella said. “We make everyone go on the same side of the pole. Any pole that you walk by, so if there’s a pole or a chair or something we all have to walk on the same side of it.”

The team clearly will be tough to beat if they do not split a pole, or chair, the entire season. They also eat breakfast at Old West Café before home games, and several players on the team are determined to drink coffee in the mornings, as well as a few hours before the first pitch is thrown.

Sophomore outfielder Bailey Thompson is peculiar in her superstitions, especially since some of them can span 24 hours.

“If I have a good day then I’ll do everything the exact same [the next day],” Thompson said. “My hair has to be the exact same [in games], and if I have a good day, I eat the same thing and park in the same spot [the next day].”

With both basketball seasons wrapping up and the tennis and softball teams in full swing, these athletes are willing to try any and every superstition if they think it will help them win.

No matter how ridiculous it may sound.

“I never really understood why I did it, I just make sure I do it,” Shillow said.

Featured Image: Freshman sophomore A.J. Lawson holds out his headband in the Super Pit. Colin Mitchell

For the first time in school history, UNT will outsource its comprehensive multimedia rights.

Wren Baker, UNT vice president and director of athletics announced in a press release Friday the university will partner with Learfield for the next 10 years. North Texas is the ninth collegiate property in Texas to be represented by Learfield.

The partnership is effective immediately.

“We are excited to partner with Learfield,” Baker said in the release. “Greg Brown and his team are industry leaders. This partnership begins immediately and will generate in excess of $5 million in new revenue over a 10-year period. Our relationship with Learfield will also open up many other opportunities to incorporate new elements and technologies into our game-day experience.”

The university and Learfield will form and staff a new “Mean Green Sport Properties” team that will be dedicated to the university and manage all aspects of rights agreements that includes signage, digital, corporate sponsorships, television and radio play-by-play and coaches’ shows, according to the release.

Learfield named Joe Domingos as general manager to lead Mean Green Sport Properties. Domngos has nearly 25 years of sales, sports marketing and sponsorships experience and most recently worked with the University of Louisiana Monroe.

Learfield has been an industry leader in collegiate athletics for more than four decades. CEO Greg Brown said that the university was a natural fit for the company, whose office is located just 30 miles away in Plano. Learfield is also partnered with the University of Missouri and the University of Memphis, two of Baker’s former schools.

“We look forward to the opportunity to work with [Baker] again,” Brown said in the release. “We will engage sponsors with innovative concepts…to maximize the potential of UNT athletics over the next decade.”

Featured image: Wren Baker is the University of North Texas’s athletic director. Baker transferred as athletic director from the University of Missouri. File

Jaz’man Hampton | Staff Writer

The field of sports medicine is often a wild one. Since college and professional sports are played at such a fast pace, many injuries occur in the blink of an eye.

When an athlete goes down, the athletic trainers are always the first ones on the field or court, tending to the injured, and it’s no different at UNT.

The North Texas sports medicine staff consists of four full-time athletic trainers, four graduate assistants and more than a dozen student athletic trainers. The department also has medical consultants on staff in optometry, neurology and cardiology. Athletic trainers are at every game and practice and are there not only to treat injuries but to prevent them as well.

“The easiest way of describing [an athletic trainer] is a health professional dealing with people who are athletic in some way,” assistant athletic trainer Elizabeth Winland said. “Even if that’s just Grandma Sue walking for thirty minutes.”

Sports medicine is a large, diverse field many students want to pursue during college. Unfortunately, many jobs within the field often get confused with other positions.

Athletic trainers, for instance, are often misconstrued for physical therapists. Although the two may have a similar knowledge of the body – as it pertains to movement in athletics – they come from two totally different educational backgrounds.

Winland has been a certified athletic trainer since 2009 and began her career as a volunteer student athletic trainer in high school.

In this never-panic career, Winland tries to keep a poker face, no matter what injury she is dealing with. From a small sprain to a broken finger to even a football player going into shock after realizing he just tore his ACL, Winland has seen almost everything.

But there is one injury so violent she will never forget it.

“I had a football player who landed on the end of a football,” Winland said. “Once the game was over he came to me and said that he was peeing blood. [We went to the hospital] and found out that he had actually lacerated his kidney by falling on the ball. He spent several days in the hospital but he’s fine now, and his kidney healed on its own.”

Better known as Liza to Mean Green athletes, Winland joined the North Texas sports medicine staff in 2015 and is the main trainer for the women’s basketball team. On occasion, she assists other teams as well.

Receiving the opportunity to work as a collegiate athletic trainer at a Division I university like North Texas was always the goal for Winland.

“I kind of worked my way up,” Winland said. “I went to a DIII private liberal arts school, worked for a high school, a DI junior college, then came here. I knew I wanted to work for a DI [college] in some capacity.” Winland said.

As an athletic trainer, Winland often has to multi-task. At one point in her career, Windland oversaw 250 athletes at once, which required her to get organized and learn time management skills. Now at North Texas, Winland only oversees the graduate assistants, specifically track and field trainer Jazmine Wilson and swimming/tennis trainer Francesaca Lavezzoli-Nelson.

Lavezzoli-Nelson is new to North Texas and is in a graduate program for reaction events and sports management. Although she has been in the program since August 2016, this is her first time working with and treating collegiate athletes.

“It’s pretty difficult having two teams,” Lavezzoli-Nelson said. “The most stressful part of it is never being out of season. Swim is a fall sport, which goes into the spring, and tennis starts in January and goes until May.”

While she is still learning the ropes, Lavezzoli-Nelson said there is one thing in particular she has noticed treating athletes.

“They’re normal students,” Lavezzoli-Nelson said. “They just have this extra stress – sports – so when you approach them you have to be careful because sometimes they can be on edge.”

Along with being a graduate assistant student trainer, Lavezzoli-Nelson attends classes three days a week in addition to working. She said that she learns both in the classroom and on the job at games and during practice. Because they are always around, many players, like women’s basketball freshman forward Jada Poland, have developed close relationships with the trainers.

Poland regularly sees Winland for treatment for her Achilles and has gotten close with Winland.

“Usually in practice when my Achilles starts hurting really bad I go to the side and Liza stretches them or gives me some [medicine] and that helps,” Poland said.

While athletic trainers are rarely the stars of the show, they are almost always there behind the scenes waiting and watching. In a moment’s notice, they could be called into action — no matter the circumstance.

“Athletic trainers are employed at Disney World, NASCAR, the rodeo, in professional sports, in Hollywood and on Broadway,” Winland said. “Athletic trainers are everywhere.”

Featured Image: North Texas senior guard Candice Adams (14) drives toward the basket before passing against Southern Mississippi. Adams finished 4-8 behind the arc with 16 points. Colin Mitchell

Matt Brune | Staff Writer

I’m from San Antonio and an avid sports fanatic. I watch more than my fair share of college football, basketball and baseball, and am familiar with most Texas universities.

Two years ago, when it was time to choose a school, I chose North Texas — a school almost no one, including myself, knew anything about. Most people associate large, powerful schools with having grandiose sports teams. With that in mind, it’s painfully obvious why a majority of people, like my 16-year-old self, had not heard of UNT.

In general, athletics at North Texas has historically sucked, especially the revenue generating powerhouses of football and men’s basketball.

But that’s all changing.

The Mean Green are a few years from no longer being cellar dwellers and a few years from being a top-four program in Conference USA.  I say this with confidence, because first-year Athletic Director Wren Baker has shown a vision, a plan and a concise approach for making North Texas better now.

Not later.

While he did not make the decisions to hire women’s basketball head coach Jalie Mitchell or football head coach Seth Littrell, Baker has given them the resources to succeed and had their backs throughout these growing times.

North Texas has six core sports in football, volleyball, men’s and women’s basketball, women’s soccer and softball. The 2016-17 average winning percentage in Conference USA play across those six sports is 46.5, up exactly five percent from the 41.5 percent average in 2015-16.

That’s including the dumpster fire that was men’s basketball.

Excluding men’s basketball, the other five sports had an average C-USA win percentage of 53.5 — an 11.5 percent increase from the 2015-16 year.

Volleyball had to rebuild from losing Carnae Dillard, women’s soccer had to come back after arguably the best team in program history in 2015, while football and women’s basketball both had young coaches at the helm. All of these teams, including the revamped men’s basketball program, appear to be trending upward in the near future.

If they don’t, Baker has made it clear he has little patience for lackluster programs.

Ask Tony Benford.

Baker has also stepped outside of Denton in an effort to grow the Mean Green brand. Recently, he outsourced all media in a partnership with Learfield. He also made his first hire in men’s basketball, coach Grant McCasland from Arkansas State University. Doing so, he showed his willingness to spend what it takes to make a team competitive.

UNT President Neal Smatresk hired Baker with aspirations to see improvement in the near future and so far, Baker has upheld his end of the bargain.

Now it’s up to the players and coaches.

They have all the tools to succeed. Men’s basketball and women’s basketball should take significant strides next season while soccer, under head coach John Hedlund, will work towards maintaining their prowess in conference.

The 2016-17 school year displayed several talented players across all sports and showed fans, students and recruits that North Texas has taken the proper steps to becoming a prominent school for athletics sooner rather than later.

Soon, more than just Texans will know the Mean Green name.

On Monday, radio and television host Colin Cowherd sat in his studio with Joel Klatt, a college football commentator and analyst for Fox Sports 1. Cowherd mocked Iowa University’s football program — as he has for the last few years, because of their nonconference schedule — and in doing so, also summarized a school in Denton fairly accurately when it comes to their national perception.

“[Iowa] is facing, Wyoming, Iowa state, and something called North Texas,” Cowherd said emphatically.

Cowherd said what I asked myself when I first saw the name North Texas on a computer screen three years ago.

What is North Texas?

That is what Wren Baker has been tasked with changing. He’s on the right track.

Featured Image: Wren Baker is the University of North Texas’s athletic director. Baker transferred as athletic director from the University of Missouri. File