(09-29-2016 11:37 AM)KAjunRaider Wrote:  What happened to 'ole Mattress Mack ?

He disappeared after we fired Dickey as head coach. He had threatened to take back a $1 million donation after that if we didn't rename the practice fields after Dickey. Not sure if he could have taken it back but we now have the Darrell Dickey practice fields. Not sure anyone actually uses that name, though.

I would say about half the report showed there were major issues with the way the AD did some things, but the other half was worse and showed a total lack if institutional accountability which is not surprising and really does not seem to be changing at a rapid pace or in a meaningful way

lets go through them (red overall university black bold AD issues)

1. the compliance issues where the academic administration does not get compliance reports directly from those in charge of compliance.....that is not a issue with the AD that is an issue with the university administration period they simply did not care

2. having a person in charge of the finances in the ADs office with no financial background or training at all....this is not UT or OU where the AD just says "I need a person" and hires one and lets the university know

plus there is the fact that the administration and the VP of Finance should have been aware of that and demanded it be correct and if that demand was ignored then something should have been done about it by the administration (the VP of Finance will come up again of course)

3. not knowing the number of sports played.....is that actually possible well if it is then damn someone does suck at their job and the whole spirit thing as well is something that an AD should have a handle on as far as sports

4. the facilities.....well the "track" facility is getting replaced and it was allowed to rot as part of Fouts about 30 years ago so do you expect the AD with a tight budget to pay good money to improve a track facility that is beyond repair when it is known it will be torn down and replaced.....eventually

I will place this on the administration of the university for not having a timely plan in place to actually get the facility replaced

5. weeds and grass not mowed.....does your AD have to be in charge of the grounds department?

6. newer and nicer athletics facilities with issues like the tennis courts that is on the AD you can't let newer get run down

7. issues with locker rooms, weight rooms, lockers, cleanliness of facilities

hell you have to be able to have enough lockers and you have to keep your stuff clean and while it should not be expected that the AD at a place like north Texas state just says "we need a locker room and showers" and boom $200,000 is spent.....it should have been taken care of somehow

8. water damage in locker room facility I will place this on the administration because you can pretend that the AD just ignored it, but at some point your facilities group should have caught it by the time it was actually inside the building and causing wet floors

and if they ask the AD "why did you not call us" and he just stared at them well it is on them for not reporting that to the administration and the administration not handling it because facilities are rotting and there should be an administrative procedure to inspect 100% of ALL university facilities to catch that and there CLEARLY is not

9. the issue with the pool this is 100% on the administration and it goes back to the above #8 as well

so you have not one, but TWO major departments in the university athletics and rec sports that are sharing a facility that has an issue that is stated as a "student and athlete health and welfare issue" and they are going back and forth over who should pay the cost to fix it and BOTH have stated they were well aware of it and the systems were said to be "installed improperly"

and yet one of three things happened NEITHER of the department heads went to their higher ups to solve the issue they both ignored it, there was actually no one higher up that cared to listen or solve it, or the higher ups said "deal with it" and ignored it

when you add up grounds issues, lack of procedures to inspect facilities annually (or more frequently) and the financial controls along with this well it tells you there are issues well above the ADs office period

10. revenue generation, ticket sales, donations to the AD, no master plan for the athletics.....100% on the AD

at some point as an AD you have to say F this I will make a master plan even if no one above me will listen and make one and then when something like this happens you can break it out and say how you tried to push it and were ignored

11. concessions....hell when no one above you cares take control of this they won't know or care and at least make it make money not pennies

12. expenses....this is actually on the administration 100% no matter what

and really the part about the debt service is nonsense and when they break down the actual numbers the administrative cost were only 10% above the CUSA average.....which for the performance in a number of areas is not good, but it is not like it was a massively bloated ADs office

13. branding is on the administration they are terrible at it for the university (they constantly hire consultants for new university cheesy tag lines) and the UNIVERSITY needs to make sure 100% of the departments are in line.....lack of university control period

there needs to be a stop put to the idea that the AD was just telling everyone to F off and the administration just let him keep his job.....they simply did not care and it shows

14. finances and budgeting to coaches....100% failure on the part of the AD

even though it says clearly that the VP of Finance simply never checked into ANYTHING financially dealing with athletics still as the AD you at least need to borrow a cocktail napkin from mike leach and write down the amount of money you will be getting and then make some effort to find out from coaches how much they need and then make a plan to get it to them

just like concessions if the university is not going to check up on things (much less actually do their jobs) hell don't let your coaches hang out to dry

15. scheduling...the AD...nuff said.....although that actually only applies to football it says Olympic sports are in excellent shape in scheduling

16. spirit groups the report says they should be under the university not the AD so that will be placed on the university

17. athletics tutoring and academic support.....this has to go on the AD even though I believe a lot of that is or should be a "cooperative" effort with student services/support

it says the facility was loud and hard to study the AD should have known this and hard to get tutors is probably more on student services, but the AD needs to find a way to solve that

the "life skills part" and the "tell graduate students hey grad school is hard".....well athletes can often be stupid and often don't listen well and have a habit of blaming others for their academic failures......but you as the AD can try and hold their hand a little

18. connecting with former athletes.....probably not as easy as they make it seem for the AD to do, but it is something you HAVE to do and take charge of even if there are road blocks

19. lack of continuity on training desires of the coaches Vs the training staff provided....100% on the AD....that is just poor communication with the coaches and goes back to the no regular meetings and no budgets

20. sports medicine it sounds like it was not a major issue

so of the 20 things listed 10 were on the administration, 9 were on the AD and 1 was not a major issue

the AD clearly was not getting some of the major functions of his job done which is meeting with coaches, connecting with coaches, ticket sales, football scheduling (I question if it will be as easy as the report makes that out to be), it did say the Olympic sports scheduling was very good and the inability to at least manage to take charge of the finances within the ADs office even though the university overall did not give a damn (which is why they had a $100 million dollar accounting issue with three different major unrelated aspects to it) is 100% on the AD

knowing the overall history and issues of the higher university administration I would imagine that many would have gone into "coast" as well in that job especially if they figured out they were not going to get hired away or did not want to get hired away.....but still you can't leave your coaches out to dry or your athletes you have to force it through

I would almost guarantee there was some attempts at forcing things and there was a lot of "well we understand, but this is the situation do what you can", but still there were things that could have been done....hell get a "book keeper" if you can't get someone with accounting experience

but CLEARLY if one has an honest evaluation of this report they should know that it will be extremely difficult to make major changes and the reality is there are still a lot of people at the university right now that are equally responsible for a number of MAJOR issues and they do not seem to be going anywhere unless the new AD simply starts making demands and throwing people under the bus left and right

and there is little chance that more significant university financial resources will be available and budget shell games are not going to get it done and will probably backfire dramatically if tried

(09-29-2016 12:04 PM)TodgeRodge Wrote:  I would say about half the report showed there were major issues with the way the AD did some things, but the other half was worse and showed a total lack if institutional accountability which is not surprising and really does not seem to be changing at a rapid pace or in a meaningful way

For the record, TodgeRodge has some kind of personal vendetta against UNT so you can take a lot of his complaints with a grain of salt. However, I don't see much here I'd disagree with other than some of your points that place blame on the Administration should be on the AD but the lack of oversight and accountability is damning. How can you let a department with such a large budget not have qualified staff to handle it? Ugh.

When Dr. Neal Smatresk was hired a few years ago he was immediately hit with a huge and expensive accounting problem where UNT basically got an extra $23 million dollars from the state because they were misreporting. That led to an immediate replacement of many senior staff in the Finance department and an overhaul of accounting practices and software. The problems were somewhat similar to what's happened with the AD office. It all highlights that while UNT has some great things going for it there was some real rot in administration not only in the AD office but in other departments as well.

Dr. Smatresk seems to be going about getting things fixed in the AD office as well. Many things in the report can be fixed quickly by simple fixes (such as cut the grass, buy some lockers, clean the carpet, and answer the phone). Some are much bigger and will require time and money. If we can take care of the the little things then it will help us get to the big things.

(09-29-2016 12:04 PM)TodgeRodge Wrote:  I would say about half the report showed there were major issues with the way the AD did some things, but the other half was worse and showed a total lack if institutional accountability which is not surprising and really does not seem to be changing at a rapid pace or in a meaningful way

lets go through them (red overall university black bold AD issues)

1. the compliance issues where the academic administration does not get compliance reports directly from those in charge of compliance.....that is not a issue with the AD that is an issue with the university administration period they simply did not care

2. having a person in charge of the finances in the ADs office with no financial background or training at all....this is not UT or OU where the AD just says "I need a person" and hires one and lets the university know

plus there is the fact that the administration and the VP of Finance should have been aware of that and demanded it be correct and if that demand was ignored then something should have been done about it by the administration (the VP of Finance will come up again of course)

3. not knowing the number of sports played.....is that actually possible well if it is then damn someone does suck at their job and the whole spirit thing as well is something that an AD should have a handle on as far as sports

4. the facilities.....well the "track" facility is getting replaced and it was allowed to rot as part of Fouts about 30 years ago so do you expect the AD with a tight budget to pay good money to improve a track facility that is beyond repair when it is known it will be torn down and replaced.....eventually

I will place this on the administration of the university for not having a timely plan in place to actually get the facility replaced

5. weeds and grass not mowed.....does your AD have to be in charge of the grounds department?

6. newer and nicer athletics facilities with issues like the tennis courts that is on the AD you can't let newer get run down

7. issues with locker rooms, weight rooms, lockers, cleanliness of facilities

hell you have to be able to have enough lockers and you have to keep your stuff clean and while it should not be expected that the AD at a place like north Texas state just says "we need a locker room and showers" and boom $200,000 is spent.....it should have been taken care of somehow

8. water damage in locker room facility I will place this on the administration because you can pretend that the AD just ignored it, but at some point your facilities group should have caught it by the time it was actually inside the building and causing wet floors

and if they ask the AD "why did you not call us" and he just stared at them well it is on them for not reporting that to the administration and the administration not handling it because facilities are rotting and there should be an administrative procedure to inspect 100% of ALL university facilities to catch that and there CLEARLY is not

9. the issue with the pool this is 100% on the administration and it goes back to the above #8 as well

so you have not one, but TWO major departments in the university athletics and rec sports that are sharing a facility that has an issue that is stated as a "student and athlete health and welfare issue" and they are going back and forth over who should pay the cost to fix it and BOTH have stated they were well aware of it and the systems were said to be "installed improperly"

and yet one of three things happened NEITHER of the department heads went to their higher ups to solve the issue they both ignored it, there was actually no one higher up that cared to listen or solve it, or the higher ups said "deal with it" and ignored it

when you add up grounds issues, lack of procedures to inspect facilities annually (or more frequently) and the financial controls along with this well it tells you there are issues well above the ADs office period

10. revenue generation, ticket sales, donations to the AD, no master plan for the athletics.....100% on the AD

at some point as an AD you have to say F this I will make a master plan even if no one above me will listen and make one and then when something like this happens you can break it out and say how you tried to push it and were ignored

11. concessions....hell when no one above you cares take control of this they won't know or care and at least make it make money not pennies

12. expenses....this is actually on the administration 100% no matter what

and really the part about the debt service is nonsense and when they break down the actual numbers the administrative cost were only 10% above the CUSA average.....which for the performance in a number of areas is not good, but it is not like it was a massively bloated ADs office

13. branding is on the administration they are terrible at it for the university (they constantly hire consultants for new university cheesy tag lines) and the UNIVERSITY needs to make sure 100% of the departments are in line.....lack of university control period

there needs to be a stop put to the idea that the AD was just telling everyone to F off and the administration just let him keep his job.....they simply did not care and it shows

14. finances and budgeting to coaches....100% failure on the part of the AD

even though it says clearly that the VP of Finance simply never checked into ANYTHING financially dealing with athletics still as the AD you at least need to borrow a cocktail napkin from mike leach and write down the amount of money you will be getting and then make some effort to find out from coaches how much they need and then make a plan to get it to them

just like concessions if the university is not going to check up on things (much less actually do their jobs) hell don't let your coaches hang out to dry

15. scheduling...the AD...nuff said.....although that actually only applies to football it says Olympic sports are in excellent shape in scheduling

16. spirit groups the report says they should be under the university not the AD so that will be placed on the university

17. athletics tutoring and academic support.....this has to go on the AD even though I believe a lot of that is or should be a "cooperative" effort with student services/support

it says the facility was loud and hard to study the AD should have known this and hard to get tutors is probably more on student services, but the AD needs to find a way to solve that

the "life skills part" and the "tell graduate students hey grad school is hard".....well athletes can often be stupid and often don't listen well and have a habit of blaming others for their academic failures......but you as the AD can try and hold their hand a little

18. connecting with former athletes.....probably not as easy as they make it seem for the AD to do, but it is something you HAVE to do and take charge of even if there are road blocks

19. lack of continuity on training desires of the coaches Vs the training staff provided....100% on the AD....that is just poor communication with the coaches and goes back to the no regular meetings and no budgets

20. sports medicine it sounds like it was not a major issue

so of the 20 things listed 10 were on the administration, 9 were on the AD and 1 was not a major issue

the AD clearly was not getting some of the major functions of his job done which is meeting with coaches, connecting with coaches, ticket sales, football scheduling (I question if it will be as easy as the report makes that out to be), it did say the Olympic sports scheduling was very good and the inability to at least manage to take charge of the finances within the ADs office even though the university overall did not give a damn (which is why they had a $100 million dollar accounting issue with three different major unrelated aspects to it) is 100% on the AD

knowing the overall history and issues of the higher university administration I would imagine that many would have gone into "coast" as well in that job especially if they figured out they were not going to get hired away or did not want to get hired away.....but still you can't leave your coaches out to dry or your athletes you have to force it through

I would almost guarantee there was some attempts at forcing things and there was a lot of "well we understand, but this is the situation do what you can", but still there were things that could have been done....hell get a "book keeper" if you can't get someone with accounting experience

but CLEARLY if one has an honest evaluation of this report they should know that it will be extremely difficult to make major changes and the reality is there are still a lot of people at the university right now that are equally responsible for a number of MAJOR issues and they do not seem to be going anywhere unless the new AD simply starts making demands and throwing people under the bus left and right

and there is little chance that more significant university financial resources will be available and budget shell games are not going to get it done and will probably backfire dramatically if tried

I don't think any of this is new to people who follow the AD and University. I will say NT is taking steps noticeable steps in the right direction. I think the new President was and is a great hire. Football locker rooms were just renovated. The new AD and his admin hires seem to be a promising. It might not happen over night, but it finally feels like we're getting our S together both as a University and in terms of athletics. Right now, the biggest obstacle that needs to be handled is the Chancellor. He needs to go. Only then will I be convinced that the future is bright.

(09-29-2016 12:32 PM)NorthTexan95 Wrote:  

(09-29-2016 12:04 PM)TodgeRodge Wrote:  I would say about half the report showed there were major issues with the way the AD did some things, but the other half was worse and showed a total lack if institutional accountability which is not surprising and really does not seem to be changing at a rapid pace or in a meaningful way

For the record, TodgeRodge has some kind of personal vendetta against UNT so you can take a lot of his complaints with a grain of salt. However, I don't see much here I'd disagree with other than some of your points that place blame on the Administration should be on the AD but the lack of oversight and accountability is damning. How can you let a department with such a large budget not have qualified staff to handle it? Ugh.

When Dr. Neal Smatresk was hired a few years ago he was immediately hit with a huge and expensive accounting problem where UNT basically got an extra $23 million dollars from the state because they were misreporting. That led to an immediate replacement of many senior staff in the Finance department and an overhaul of accounting practices and software. The problems were somewhat similar to what's happened with the AD office. It all highlights that while UNT has some great things going for it there was some real rot in administration not only in the AD office but in other departments as well.

Dr. Smatresk seems to be going about getting things fixed in the AD office as well. Many things in the report can be fixed quickly by simple fixes (such as cut the grass, buy some lockers, clean the carpet, and answer the phone). Some are much bigger and will require time and money. If we can take care of the the little things then it will help us get to the big things.

actually the accounting scandal was much larger than that

they received untold undeserved dollars from the state over at least a 20 year period with much of it in the last 5 years or so and it totaled to about $80 million or more it was not even possible to determine

they state allowed them to skate with only paying $23 million BACK and let the rest slide

in addition to that there was tens of millions in booked accounts receivables that were either not able to be collected, not real or unaccounted for and assumed never collected

then there was an overstatement of university reserves of about $5 to $8 million dollars where the money simply was not there even though it was booked

here are the reports

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/education...icials-say (hit the stop button fast to prevent the splash screen)

http://www.dentonrc.com/local-news/local...or-unt.ece

the first report was prior to the audit and it lays out the the issue of the $23 million in unrecoverable accounts receivable and the missing reserves and it also hints at the state funding issue

the second report shows the state funding issues back to at least the 70s totaling over $80 million and the recommendation they be required to pay back $76+ million of that

and actually it lead to two people in the finance department being allowed to resign and one being ask to leave

(09-29-2016 12:53 PM)TodgeRodge Wrote:  actually the accounting scandal was much larger than that

they received untold undeserved dollars from the state over at least a 20 year period with much of it in the last 5 years or so and it totaled to about $80 million or more it was not even possible to determine

they state allowed them to skate with only paying $23 million BACK and let the rest slide

in addition to that there was tens of millions in booked accounts receivables that were either not able to be collected, not real or unaccounted for and assumed never collected

then there was an overstatement of university reserves of about $5 to $8 million dollars where the money simply was not there even though it was booked

here are the reports

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/education...icials-say (hit the stop button fast to prevent the splash screen)

http://www.dentonrc.com/local-news/local...or-unt.ece

the first report was prior to the audit and it lays out the the issue of the $23 million in unrecoverable accounts receivable and the missing reserves and it also hints at the state funding issue

the second report shows the state funding issues back to at least the 70s totaling over $80 million and the recommendation they be required to pay back $76+ million of that

and actually it lead to two people in the finance department being allowed to resign and one being ask to leave

You're right. I thought $23 million was too low when I typed it but didn't take the time to double check. It was a huge mess.

As much as I was hoping they would add baseball I am glad they (UNT) are looking at it as "why add another sport when we can't provide for the ones we have now" mentality. I say that partly because there have been articles and rumors recently that USM was in the process of considering adding a new women's sport. With our budget as low as it is now can we really afford to take on added expenses of a new sport and still continue to support the sports we already have.

(09-29-2016 12:34 PM)GreenGate2006 Wrote:  

(09-29-2016 12:04 PM)TodgeRodge Wrote:  I would say about half the report showed there were major issues with the way the AD did some things, but the other half was worse and showed a total lack if institutional accountability which is not surprising and really does not seem to be changing at a rapid pace or in a meaningful way

lets go through them (red overall university black bold AD issues)

1. the compliance issues where the academic administration does not get compliance reports directly from those in charge of compliance.....that is not a issue with the AD that is an issue with the university administration period they simply did not care

2. having a person in charge of the finances in the ADs office with no financial background or training at all....this is not UT or OU where the AD just says "I need a person" and hires one and lets the university know

plus there is the fact that the administration and the VP of Finance should have been aware of that and demanded it be correct and if that demand was ignored then something should have been done about it by the administration (the VP of Finance will come up again of course)

3. not knowing the number of sports played.....is that actually possible well if it is then damn someone does suck at their job and the whole spirit thing as well is something that an AD should have a handle on as far as sports

4. the facilities.....well the "track" facility is getting replaced and it was allowed to rot as part of Fouts about 30 years ago so do you expect the AD with a tight budget to pay good money to improve a track facility that is beyond repair when it is known it will be torn down and replaced.....eventually

I will place this on the administration of the university for not having a timely plan in place to actually get the facility replaced

5. weeds and grass not mowed.....does your AD have to be in charge of the grounds department?

6. newer and nicer athletics facilities with issues like the tennis courts that is on the AD you can't let newer get run down

7. issues with locker rooms, weight rooms, lockers, cleanliness of facilities

hell you have to be able to have enough lockers and you have to keep your stuff clean and while it should not be expected that the AD at a place like north Texas state just says "we need a locker room and showers" and boom $200,000 is spent.....it should have been taken care of somehow

8. water damage in locker room facility I will place this on the administration because you can pretend that the AD just ignored it, but at some point your facilities group should have caught it by the time it was actually inside the building and causing wet floors

and if they ask the AD "why did you not call us" and he just stared at them well it is on them for not reporting that to the administration and the administration not handling it because facilities are rotting and there should be an administrative procedure to inspect 100% of ALL university facilities to catch that and there CLEARLY is not

9. the issue with the pool this is 100% on the administration and it goes back to the above #8 as well

so you have not one, but TWO major departments in the university athletics and rec sports that are sharing a facility that has an issue that is stated as a "student and athlete health and welfare issue" and they are going back and forth over who should pay the cost to fix it and BOTH have stated they were well aware of it and the systems were said to be "installed improperly"

and yet one of three things happened NEITHER of the department heads went to their higher ups to solve the issue they both ignored it, there was actually no one higher up that cared to listen or solve it, or the higher ups said "deal with it" and ignored it

when you add up grounds issues, lack of procedures to inspect facilities annually (or more frequently) and the financial controls along with this well it tells you there are issues well above the ADs office period

10. revenue generation, ticket sales, donations to the AD, no master plan for the athletics.....100% on the AD

at some point as an AD you have to say F this I will make a master plan even if no one above me will listen and make one and then when something like this happens you can break it out and say how you tried to push it and were ignored

11. concessions....hell when no one above you cares take control of this they won't know or care and at least make it make money not pennies

12. expenses....this is actually on the administration 100% no matter what

and really the part about the debt service is nonsense and when they break down the actual numbers the administrative cost were only 10% above the CUSA average.....which for the performance in a number of areas is not good, but it is not like it was a massively bloated ADs office

13. branding is on the administration they are terrible at it for the university (they constantly hire consultants for new university cheesy tag lines) and the UNIVERSITY needs to make sure 100% of the departments are in line.....lack of university control period

there needs to be a stop put to the idea that the AD was just telling everyone to F off and the administration just let him keep his job.....they simply did not care and it shows

14. finances and budgeting to coaches....100% failure on the part of the AD

even though it says clearly that the VP of Finance simply never checked into ANYTHING financially dealing with athletics still as the AD you at least need to borrow a cocktail napkin from mike leach and write down the amount of money you will be getting and then make some effort to find out from coaches how much they need and then make a plan to get it to them

just like concessions if the university is not going to check up on things (much less actually do their jobs) hell don't let your coaches hang out to dry

15. scheduling...the AD...nuff said.....although that actually only applies to football it says Olympic sports are in excellent shape in scheduling

16. spirit groups the report says they should be under the university not the AD so that will be placed on the university

17. athletics tutoring and academic support.....this has to go on the AD even though I believe a lot of that is or should be a "cooperative" effort with student services/support

it says the facility was loud and hard to study the AD should have known this and hard to get tutors is probably more on student services, but the AD needs to find a way to solve that

the "life skills part" and the "tell graduate students hey grad school is hard".....well athletes can often be stupid and often don't listen well and have a habit of blaming others for their academic failures......but you as the AD can try and hold their hand a little

18. connecting with former athletes.....probably not as easy as they make it seem for the AD to do, but it is something you HAVE to do and take charge of even if there are road blocks

19. lack of continuity on training desires of the coaches Vs the training staff provided....100% on the AD....that is just poor communication with the coaches and goes back to the no regular meetings and no budgets

20. sports medicine it sounds like it was not a major issue

so of the 20 things listed 10 were on the administration, 9 were on the AD and 1 was not a major issue

the AD clearly was not getting some of the major functions of his job done which is meeting with coaches, connecting with coaches, ticket sales, football scheduling (I question if it will be as easy as the report makes that out to be), it did say the Olympic sports scheduling was very good and the inability to at least manage to take charge of the finances within the ADs office even though the university overall did not give a damn (which is why they had a $100 million dollar accounting issue with three different major unrelated aspects to it) is 100% on the AD

knowing the overall history and issues of the higher university administration I would imagine that many would have gone into "coast" as well in that job especially if they figured out they were not going to get hired away or did not want to get hired away.....but still you can't leave your coaches out to dry or your athletes you have to force it through

I would almost guarantee there was some attempts at forcing things and there was a lot of "well we understand, but this is the situation do what you can", but still there were things that could have been done....hell get a "book keeper" if you can't get someone with accounting experience

but CLEARLY if one has an honest evaluation of this report they should know that it will be extremely difficult to make major changes and the reality is there are still a lot of people at the university right now that are equally responsible for a number of MAJOR issues and they do not seem to be going anywhere unless the new AD simply starts making demands and throwing people under the bus left and right

and there is little chance that more significant university financial resources will be available and budget shell games are not going to get it done and will probably backfire dramatically if tried

I don't think any of this is new to people who follow the AD and University. I will say NT is taking steps noticeable steps in the right direction. I think the new President was and is a great hire. Football locker rooms were just renovated. The new AD and his admin hires seem to be a promising. It might not happen over night, but it finally feels like we're getting our S together both as a University and in terms of athletics. Right now, the biggest obstacle that needs to be handled is the Chancellor. He needs to go. Only then will I be convinced that the future is bright.

I know your new around here GreenGate so I'll give you the lay of the land. todgerodge is not fan of North Texas. He takes it upon himself to always paint the Mean Green in the worst possible light. He is our program's personal stalker. Most don't engage in responding to his posts. It only encourages him to write more long-winded posts.

(09-28-2016 09:59 PM)Green Menace Wrote:  And why are we hanging out our dirty laundry on the CUSA board?

I'm not one for airing our laundry either, but this article would certainly make its way here at some point. Plus, I really don't see it as anything most others didn't already know. It is fairly well understood that UNT hasn't managed their athletics well for over a decade.

I view this report as a positive, if it results in our university addressing these issues. Personally, I believe Smat and Baker are going to work to remedy many of the problems we have had over the years. As a result, North Texas should either become a flagship of C-USA or move on to a more prestigious conference. We all know college football is an arms race. I see this as the Mean Green's declaration of intention. We will see.

(09-29-2016 06:22 PM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  I know your new around here GreenGate so I'll give you the lay of the land. todgerodge is not fan of North Texas. He takes it upon himself to always paint the Mean Green in the worst possible light. He is our program's personal stalker. Most don't engage in responding to his posts. It only encourages him to write more long-winded posts.

I know YOU ARE (you're) new around here GreenGate so I'll give you the lay of the land.

GROUP THINK!!!!!

you are not allowed to actually critically evaluate the mean green and north Texas state especially using facts you are only allowed to pump your little sunshine pump and your butt smoke bellows as hard as you can pump them and let everyone know that it is only a season or two until the giant is awake and north Texas state DoMiNaTeS!!!!

please ignore the fact that this narrative has gone on for a decade or more (way more really) now and it has never happened and the giant has gone from sleeping to looking like he might be in a coma or dead.....keep the narrative alive it is pretty much the only real long lasting mean green tradition

also you are not allowed to look at the entirety of the situation especially outside of the athletics department or transfer any blame from outside of there

you need to pick a single issue, get on the group think train and beat your little green drum that once that issue is solved the giant is awake and DoMiNaTiOn is eminent

first you can blame it on SMU and SMU subverting everything possible to wake the giant

you can move to old boring, tired, abrasive coach.....no haha that is not DMac that is Double D the Buick!

then you can blame being in the Big West and then The Sun Belt

then you can blame it on being the only Texas team in the conference

then you can blame it on SMU again and SMU blocking north Texas state from the CUSA

then you can blame it on the budget

then you can blame it on the poor stajium and the inability to recruit to it

then you can blame it on a high school coach and his high school coordinators

then you can blame it on the other teams in CUSA not carrying their weight and making the new CUSA that you were allowed into not being like the CUSA you wanted to be a part of in the past when SMU denied you

then you can blame it on the AD

then you can blame it on an old, tired coach that runs a boring system that no high school kid wants to be a part of

then you can blame it on a smaller than needed budget

then you can blame it on the AD again because he does not print money in the basement of the remnants of Fouts

I think no indoor practice facility will be the next one, but generally the group does not settle on an excuse until after it is shown that the last singular event that was suppose to awaken the giant has not awakened the giant

you are not allowed to notice that even though a new report pretty much makes it clear that all of the things the AD department was blamed for actually are endemic in the overall university administration and that many of the people that have been around during the time of those issues are still in their job and still need to be told things like "uh hey the AD department over there with a $30+ million dollar budget they really have no one with any accounting background and no real budget"

or "hey have you ever considered having your facilities people inspect any of your facilities at any set amount of time"

or "hey have you ever thought about having a system in place and a person to report to so that when your AD and your Rec Sports can't decide who pays the cost for shared facilities they actually have someone to go to in order to have the issue solved"

ignore all of those UNIVERSITY wide issues and that pretty much all the people that allowed those to happen are still around

ALL IS WELL THE GIANT WILL BE AWAKE SOON AND DoMiNaNtatIonZ!!!!!!!!

I read somewhere in the newspaper article that some players had to BUY their OWN uniforms.If true--this is ridiculous!

(09-29-2016 07:40 PM)TOPSTRAIGHT Wrote:  I read somewhere in the newspaper article that some players had to BUY their OWN uniforms.If true--this is ridiculous!

Not for football, but yes it is ridiculous and embarrassing. RV ran a closed system. It was never easy getting information out of his department. For years I have questioned how a program like LA Tech could sufficiently fund their programs, and still lure quality opponents to Ruston, with a budget that is considerably smaller then ours.

Issues like the ones stated in this article are the reasons why UNT only averaged around 13K in football last season, and why some of our fans paid to fly the "Fire RV" banner.

The good news is that issues like the uniform problem are certainly being addressed, and North Texas is now committed to funding, and supporting our athletics at a competitive level.

(09-29-2016 07:21 PM)TodgeRodge Wrote:  

(09-29-2016 06:22 PM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  I know your new around here GreenGate so I'll give you the lay of the land. todgerodge is not fan of North Texas. He takes it upon himself to always paint the Mean Green in the worst possible light. He is our program's personal stalker. Most don't engage in responding to his posts. It only encourages him to write more long-winded posts.

I know YOU ARE (you're) new around here GreenGate so I'll give you the lay of the land.

Funny you being the grammer police when you can get the name of the school correct. As for the rest of your post ... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ...

(09-29-2016 07:21 PM)TodgeRodge Wrote:  

(09-29-2016 06:22 PM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  I know your new around here GreenGate so I'll give you the lay of the land. todgerodge is not fan of North Texas. He takes it upon himself to always paint the Mean Green in the worst possible light. He is our program's personal stalker. Most don't engage in responding to his posts. It only encourages him to write more long-winded posts.

I know YOU ARE (you're) new around here GreenGate so I'll give you the lay of the land.

GROUP THINK!!!!!

you are not allowed to actually critically evaluate the mean green and north Texas state especially using facts you are only allowed to pump your little sunshine pump and your butt smoke bellows as hard as you can pump them and let everyone know that it is only a season or two until the giant is awake and north Texas state DoMiNaTeS!!!!

please ignore the fact that this narrative has gone on for a decade or more (way more really) now and it has never happened and the giant has gone from sleeping to looking like he might be in a coma or dead.....keep the narrative alive it is pretty much the only real long lasting mean green tradition

also you are not allowed to look at the entirety of the situation especially outside of the athletics department or transfer any blame from outside of there

you need to pick a single issue, get on the group think train and beat your little green drum that once that issue is solved the giant is awake and DoMiNaTiOn is eminent

first you can blame it on SMU and SMU subverting everything possible to wake the giant

you can move to old boring, tired, abrasive coach.....no haha that is not DMac that is Double D the Buick!

then you can blame being in the Big West and then The Sun Belt

then you can blame it on being the only Texas team in the conference

then you can blame it on SMU again and SMU blocking north Texas state from the CUSA

then you can blame it on the budget

then you can blame it on the poor stajium and the inability to recruit to it

then you can blame it on a high school coach and his high school coordinators

then you can blame it on the other teams in CUSA not carrying their weight and making the new CUSA that you were allowed into not being like the CUSA you wanted to be a part of in the past when SMU denied you

then you can blame it on the AD

then you can blame it on an old, tired coach that runs a boring system that no high school kid wants to be a part of

then you can blame it on a smaller than needed budget

then you can blame it on the AD again because he does not print money in the basement of the remnants of Fouts

I think no indoor practice facility will be the next one, but generally the group does not settle on an excuse until after it is shown that the last singular event that was suppose to awaken the giant has not awakened the giant

you are not allowed to notice that even though a new report pretty much makes it clear that all of the things the AD department was blamed for actually are endemic in the overall university administration and that many of the people that have been around during the time of those issues are still in their job and still need to be told things like "uh hey the AD department over there with a $30+ million dollar budget they really have no one with any accounting background and no real budget"

or "hey have you ever considered having your facilities people inspect any of your facilities at any set amount of time"

or "hey have you ever thought about having a system in place and a person to report to so that when your AD and your Rec Sports can't decide who pays the cost for shared facilities they actually have someone to go to in order to have the issue solved"

ignore all of those UNIVERSITY wide issues and that pretty much all the people that allowed those to happen are still around

ALL IS WELL THE GIANT WILL BE AWAKE SOON AND DoMiNaNtatIonZ!!!!!!!!

Now, I could be wrong, but one of our own, not yours but ours, posted a detailed report about how effed up north Texas athletics is...so...I guess we can say bad things about our school, again not your school, so relax and go back to doing whatever it is you do...

(09-29-2016 08:43 PM)NTTHOR Wrote:  

(09-29-2016 07:21 PM)TodgeRodge Wrote:  

(09-29-2016 06:22 PM)Side Show Joe Wrote:  I know your new around here GreenGate so I'll give you the lay of the land. todgerodge is not fan of North Texas. He takes it upon himself to always paint the Mean Green in the worst possible light. He is our program's personal stalker. Most don't engage in responding to his posts. It only encourages him to write more long-winded posts.

I know YOU ARE (you're) new around here GreenGate so I'll give you the lay of the land.

GROUP THINK!!!!!

you are not allowed to actually critically evaluate the mean green and north Texas state especially using facts you are only allowed to pump your little sunshine pump and your butt smoke bellows as hard as you can pump them and let everyone know that it is only a season or two until the giant is awake and north Texas state DoMiNaTeS!!!!

please ignore the fact that this narrative has gone on for a decade or more (way more really) now and it has never happened and the giant has gone from sleeping to looking like he might be in a coma or dead.....keep the narrative alive it is pretty much the only real long lasting mean green tradition

also you are not allowed to look at the entirety of the situation especially outside of the athletics department or transfer any blame from outside of there

you need to pick a single issue, get on the group think train and beat your little green drum that once that issue is solved the giant is awake and DoMiNaTiOn is eminent

first you can blame it on SMU and SMU subverting everything possible to wake the giant

you can move to old boring, tired, abrasive coach.....no haha that is not DMac that is Double D the Buick!

then you can blame being in the Big West and then The Sun Belt

then you can blame it on being the only Texas team in the conference

then you can blame it on SMU again and SMU blocking north Texas state from the CUSA

then you can blame it on the budget

then you can blame it on the poor stajium and the inability to recruit to it

then you can blame it on a high school coach and his high school coordinators

then you can blame it on the other teams in CUSA not carrying their weight and making the new CUSA that you were allowed into not being like the CUSA you wanted to be a part of in the past when SMU denied you

then you can blame it on the AD

then you can blame it on an old, tired coach that runs a boring system that no high school kid wants to be a part of

then you can blame it on a smaller than needed budget

then you can blame it on the AD again because he does not print money in the basement of the remnants of Fouts

I think no indoor practice facility will be the next one, but generally the group does not settle on an excuse until after it is shown that the last singular event that was suppose to awaken the giant has not awakened the giant

you are not allowed to notice that even though a new report pretty much makes it clear that all of the things the AD department was blamed for actually are endemic in the overall university administration and that many of the people that have been around during the time of those issues are still in their job and still need to be told things like "uh hey the AD department over there with a $30+ million dollar budget they really have no one with any accounting background and no real budget"

or "hey have you ever considered having your facilities people inspect any of your facilities at any set amount of time"

or "hey have you ever thought about having a system in place and a person to report to so that when your AD and your Rec Sports can't decide who pays the cost for shared facilities they actually have someone to go to in order to have the issue solved"

ignore all of those UNIVERSITY wide issues and that pretty much all the people that allowed those to happen are still around

ALL IS WELL THE GIANT WILL BE AWAKE SOON AND DoMiNaNtatIonZ!!!!!!!!

Now, I could be wrong, but one of our own, not yours but ours, posted a detailed report about how effed up north Texas athletics is...so...I guess we can say bad things about our school, again not your school, so relax and go back to doing whatever it is you do...

Slide Show Show...I appreciate it.

It seems a tad late to bring this up now, but I'm actually not new around here. I went by MeanGreenFan123. To be honest, I had a few beers the other night and couldn't remember my password. I tried to recover it but wasn't receiving the email. I was lazy and impatient and just decided to make a new handle for the time being. Unfortunately, this ultimately caused todgerodge to come out of his cave and go on his usual diatribe. For that...I am forever sorry. May god be with you all.

(09-29-2016 12:03 PM)NorthTexan95 Wrote:  

(09-29-2016 11:37 AM)KAjunRaider Wrote:  What happened to 'ole Mattress Mack ?

He disappeared after we fired Dickey as head coach. He had threatened to take back a $1 million donation after that if we didn't rename the practice fields after Dickey. Not sure if he could have taken it back but we now have the Darrell Dickey practice fields. Not sure anyone actually uses that name, though.

Why did you guys fire Dickey?

(09-29-2016 05:52 AM)TodgeRodge Wrote:  

(09-28-2016 09:56 PM)HogDawg Wrote:  

(09-28-2016 09:47 PM)NorthTexan95 Wrote:  

(09-28-2016 09:39 PM)HogDawg Wrote:  

Quote:UNT is paying debt service for Apogee from its athletic budget, which cuts into the department’s funding. Kuehne and Sicuro recommended that UNT move the debt service costs to the university to free up funds. They also recommended UNT increase its equipment budget by 15 percent.

Ohhhh......now I get it. YOU spend the money, but get SOMEONE ELSE to pay for it?

I *THINK* the issue is our AD office is paying for fees on the debt when if it transfers to the school then those fees are rolled into the overall debt and no extra fees. I think that's the thought process is a very basic words which is all that I can handle.

I didn't see any mention of saving on fees. It simply said they needed to create more room in UNT's athletic budget, and that two of those guys were recommending moving the debt service (a/k/a mortage payments) for Apogee Stadium to the main university budget instead of the athletic budget. The problem with this is, the athletic department will be "robbing from Peter to pay Paul", as the saying goes. They'll simply assign the debt service payments to some other poor bastards budget.

it is basically a way of fooling financial illiterates into thinking that money for stajium debt service can be pulled from thin air

all they are really saying is that the university needs to subsidize athletics more either at the expense of academics or at the expense of increased tuition and fees for students

this is not going to work out well if even one student that is opposed to athletics spending more wakes up and actually runs the numbers

what they are trying to do is take stajium debt service and wrap it into "overall building debt service" so they can then pretend that money is not being spent on athletics and perhaps it will not show up as a line item of athletics facilities spending

the reality is that money still has to come from somewhere and it will either be tuition or fees, but there are issues with attempting to do this and it could get ugly if they do it wrong (and they probably will)

here are the issues faced and how they play out poorly

1. no state funds can be used to pay for the athletics period and 50% of the stajium must be paid for with funds that are not generated from student fees or tuition....this is a state law

that means that 50% of the stajium can be paid with student fees or tuition dollars and the other 50% has to be paid for with ticket sales, events, donations or other monies generated by athletics

so at the end of the day there is only so much of that debt that can be transferred anywhere and it really does not matter where it is transferred to the LAW still says where the actually dollars need to come from

the student fee covers that 50% as reported by the past Chuckster Neinas report when the student fee was first passed, but that is about all it covers

that right there is the limit of what can be paid for by ANY university dollars no matter if those dollars are in a student fee, directly from tuition or pulled out of thin air

2. when the stajium was built and the student fee was passed at that time north Texas state had a student fee in place and $3 dollars of that went to athletics

when the specific athletics fee was passed that $3 dollars was removed from going to athletics and the athletics was funded with a dedicated $10 dollar athletics fee for a net gain of $7 dollars

that $10 dollar fee can by law only be raised one single time by 10% (one dollar) without a student vote being held allowing it to be raised more than that or raised again.....this is again by law and written into the legislation that was passed to allow the student fee

most north Texas state fans believe that the law allows the fee to be raised 10% at a time as many times as they want as often as they want until it gets to the state law max of $20 dollars that applies to all universities

this is in fact an incorrect interpretation of the law as told to me by the office of the person that wrote the law and pushed it through....they stated it could be raised 1 single time 10% and that is it without a student vote

it has now been raised that 10% so that fee is now $11 dollars

3. most students on campus if you ask them would believe that the entirety of the university's contributions to athletics consist of that money generated from that fee

it was never stated that the only university money handed off to athletics would be the money from that fee, but it is implied and was implied when the fee was passed by a student vote

currently the university sends about $9.3 million dollars to athletics outside of the student fee and the student fee sends about $10.7 million for a total of $20 million in student/university dollars going to athletics

there is not anything illegal about this, but I do not think that the VAST majority of students are aware of this and I think a very large number of them would not be happy about it if they knew the reality

and so the bigger reality is you have a university with a fiscal year 2015 (2014-15) athletics budget of $31.3 million and $20 million of that is already coming off the backs of students in the form of a fee that generates $10.7 million and then an additional $9.3 million in university funds that most students would be surprised to learn about

that university has no way to raise the actual athletics fee without a student vote on it and they have to cover 50% of the stajium debt service with money generated by the athletics department

so really if you want to try and play the shell game of moving debt around and pretending that the money for that came from thin air you what you would have to do is still shift some athletics generated money over the university and call that "for stajium debt service" and then you would have to shift university/student generated dollars back over to athletics and call that "for general athletics expenses".....and the end result of that is you actually make it look like MORE university dollars are being spent on athletics than actually are

and that is WITHOUT any increase in actual athletics dollars.....and outside of the athletics department generating more dollars the only place that MORE athletics dollars can come from is from the academic side which means more of a subsidy beyond the $9.3 million dollars that is spent on athletics plus the $10.7 from the dedicated student fee ($20 million total in student/academic side money)

so if you shifted the debt service to the academic side, then shifted athletics dollars over to the academic side to help cover the mandated 50% of that stajium debt service (lets say you shift $5 million in athletics dollars over there) and then you shift academic dollars back to athletics for "general athletics support" well then you have increased that $9.3 million (on paper) to $14.3 million even though you were playing a shell game with money....and then if you actually add say $5.7 million to the athletics budget in NEW MONEY coming from the academic side well now that academic side subsidy is $20 million dollars PLUS the student fee that generates $10.7 for a total on paper athletics subsidy of $30.7 million dollars......when most students think that the only academic side money going to athletics is the student fee and they already are ignorant of the $9.3 million in other dollars

and even if they looked at it all and figured out the shell game of moving the debt service it (the $5 million shifted from athletics for the legally mandated 50% athletics debt service in the stajium) well they would still see a university that is spending $25.7 million in student dollars on athletics with only $10.7 of that coming from the student fee that most believe is the only student money going to athletics

it would be a lot smarter to simply leave the debt right where it is in the athletics side and simply give athletics $5.7 in new academic side money and hope the students don't notice it like they do not notice the $9.3 now

and the bigger risk than that is right now with the financial management at north Texas state I am not sure most even would remember the law requiring the 50% debt service mandate from the athletics generated dollars (I would not be surprised if those that wrote this report were not aware of that which is why they proposed this shell game in the first place)

and if there comes a time when they either forget or are not aware that they need to shift some athletics dollars over to the academic side to cover that 50% portion of the debt service.....well someone could be in violation of the law....but of course when your university just had a $100 million dollar accounting fraud involving multiple issues I don't think you worry about things like that

There is one more thing that UNT could do, but somebody would have to voluntarily give up their job if the state of Texas would allow it: combine the athletic department with the intramural department (or whichever department handles intramurals). That would free up some $$'s, but the athletes might have to share their athletic fields/gyms/arenas with regular UNT students wanting to play intramural sports. This is what Vanderbilt University(aka Vandy in the SEC) in Tennessee did so that they would have more $$'s to use for athletics. I think Vandy did get more money that way though.

(09-29-2016 01:54 PM)usm99 Wrote:  As much as I was hoping they would add baseball I am glad they (UNT) are looking at it as "why add another sport when we can't provide for the ones we have now" mentality. I say that partly because there have been articles and rumors recently that USM was in the process of considering adding a new women's sport. With our budget as low as it is now can we really afford to take on added expenses of a new sport and still continue to support the sports we already have.

XACLY!

the only thing I can think of with this ours is 'posturing' to 'impress' the ack or having the substance to attract the leftovers in the final phase of realignment....

regardless, it's just silly to take monies away from the ones that can make monies and attract talent....

there are only a handful of people on the planet that can name an olympic sport athlete or the coaches/management group that runs any of those programs at ANY university....I just call 'em "mommies"

at the end of the day this is simply a business.....something southern miss has failed to recognize relative to growing moving forward....too little too late for what has happened....now, it's make-up time to realize what is left in the "full value" leftover category....

all the fan can hope for is, "pedal to the metal"

(09-30-2016 09:04 AM)usmbacker Wrote:  Why did you guys fire Dickey?

The old AD and Dickey hated each other.

(09-29-2016 12:53 PM)TodgeRodge Wrote:  and actually it lead to two people in the finance department being allowed to resign and one being ask to leave

Sounds like they should have been jailed. Did they "resign" themselves to living the rest of their days on a Caribbean Island?