That old gym was called, uncreatively, ASC (Arlington State College) Gym. It was like a lot of old school gyms, seating roughly 1,000 in a box. Think something like the Redhawk Center at Seattle U. Texas Hall open in the fall of 1965, and while it may have had a much higher seating capacity, it was a step back in many other ways.

Fond memories of stuff like that is always fun for me to hear.

(01-27-2026 10:20 PM)FoUTASportscaster Wrote:  That old gym was called, uncreatively, ASC (Arlington State College) Gym. It was like a lot of old school gyms, seating roughly 1,000 in a box. Think something like the Redhawk Center at Seattle U. Texas Hall open in the fall of 1965, and while it may have had a much higher seating capacity, it was a step back in many other ways.

Fond memories of stuff like that is always fun for me to hear.

as an old guy and one of the earliest graduates of the UTA architecture program, I too have many memories of the place and have seen the great changes that have taken place. one of my favorites was sitting in the packed natatorium next to Tom Vandergriff watching the UTA swim team beat the flippers off the tea sippers from Austin. Mr. Vandergriff was all about Arlington. of course the teasips still have a swim team and we dont. our olympic swimmer Doug Russel later left to coach out west at USC or Stanford maybe.

Ah, the memories. Sports were certainly different back then. I remember after the games ended, we would visit each other a bit and then head for the bus ride home, sweaty and all. The thing I miss the most is letter jackets and sweaters. Those priceless things have all been worn out but I wish I had kept my last sweater. Now, all I have is a baseball type hat with the word Letterman on the side.

(01-28-2026 10:14 AM)RCI Wrote:  Ah, the memories. Sports were certainly different back then. I remember after the games ended, we would visit each other a bit and then head for the bus ride home, sweaty and all. The thing I miss the most is letter jackets and sweaters. Those priceless things have all been worn out but I wish I had kept my last sweater. Now, all I have is a baseball type hat with the word Letterman on the side.

another blast from the past- lineman Bruce Collie from the 80's and a graduate from my high school has made it into the pro football hall of fame. A Robert E. Lee and UTA grad. played for the 49ers.

I suppose you all have seen the news about Scott Cross being hired as the new HC at Georgia Tech.

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basket...ross-coach

(03-20-2026 08:58 PM)wewererebels Wrote:  I suppose you all have seen the news about Scott Cross being hired as the new HC at Georgia Tech.

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basket...ross-coach

So who was the ad who fired him?

Jim Baker. I gave him credit then for going out on a limb. If it worked, he would have been a genius.

But no one, and I mean no one, was supportive of the move at the time. It even made a TNT halftime or pre-game show as a bad firing. Three 20-win seasons prior to the firing came from a school that only had two 20-winners prior to Cross. Cross claimed five in 12 seasons. We've had one since.

We all knew he was destined for a Power job. But it should have been on his terms. I was happy with what he did at Troy, and had zero doubts that what occurred was exactly what would happen. He will win at GT. Dude is just a winner.

he is replacing a guy making 2 million, I wonder what his pay is gonna be. he deserves a good payday.

They released it, but I don't remember the amount. seven figures though.

I literally lost sleep over the history behind this story. Pete Carlon would never have made such a bone-headed move as to fire Scott Cross. Now watch Cross do great things at GaTech. And by the way, I won't be surprised if all three of his sons become all-American athletes.

(03-23-2026 10:16 AM)wewererebels Wrote:  I literally lost sleep over the history behind this story. Pete Carlon would never have made such a bone-headed move as to fire Scott Cross. Now watch Cross do great things at GaTech. And by the way, I won't be surprised if all three of his sons become all-American athletes.

as hard as it is to recruit any of the really good players to come to UTA, he almost always had good sound teams that were not "an easy out" as they say in baseball.

The unprecedented athletic fund raising continues. In the last few days two additional generous donations were announced: $250K and $2 million.

Would be nice to see the millions translating into more victories at some point somewhere in the athletic program.

(03-20-2026 10:29 PM)FoUTASportscaster Wrote:  Jim Baker. I gave him credit then for going out on a limb. If it worked, he would have been a genius.

But no one, and I mean no one, was supportive of the move at the time. It even made a TNT halftime or pre-game show as a bad firing. Three 20-win seasons prior to the firing came from a school that only had two 20-winners prior to Cross. Cross claimed five in 12 seasons. We've had one since.

We all knew he was destined for a Power job. But it should have been on his terms. I was happy with what he did at Troy, and had zero doubts that what occurred was exactly what would happen. He will win at GT. Dude is just a winner.

History has not been kind to Jim Baker's decision. I somewhat understood the rationale (or hope) at the time, but it sure didn't work out. This is a funny industry, and I think Baker over estimated his ability to make positive changes. Agree with another comment somewhere around here: Baker is the only AD we ever had who would have done this.

(03-25-2026 05:26 PM)UTArlingtonMaverick Wrote:  The unprecedented athletic fund raising continues. In the last few days two additional generous donations were announced: $250K and $2 million.

Would be nice to see the millions translating into more victories at some point somewhere in the athletic program.

ya, we seem to get less and less competitive every season in every sport with more and more staff. schools that were our peers in sports years ago continue to leave us farther behind. They somehow have the crazy notion that they need to always be improving while we are just trying to maintain. It's really good news tho to see some folks come forward with generous support . IMHO

(03-26-2026 04:46 PM)runamuck Wrote:  

(03-25-2026 05:26 PM)UTArlingtonMaverick Wrote:  The unprecedented athletic fund raising continues. In the last few days two additional generous donations were announced: $250K and $2 million.

Would be nice to see the millions translating into more victories at some point somewhere in the athletic program.

ya, we seem to get less and less competitive every season in every sport with more and more staff. schools that were our peers in sports years ago continue to leave us farther behind. They somehow have the crazy notion that they need to always be improving while we are just trying to maintain. It's really good news tho to see some folks come forward with generous support . IMHO

I'm curious what the money is going towards. If it is NIL, then the impact won't be felt long term. If it is general budget, it is likely just hedging against the loss in foreign student enrollment. If it is facilities, nothing has been announced yet. If it is sonething else, we have no idea.

(03-27-2026 03:00 PM)FoUTASportscaster Wrote:  

(03-26-2026 04:46 PM)runamuck Wrote:  

(03-25-2026 05:26 PM)UTArlingtonMaverick Wrote:  The unprecedented athletic fund raising continues. In the last few days two additional generous donations were announced: $250K and $2 million.

Would be nice to see the millions translating into more victories at some point somewhere in the athletic program.

ya, we seem to get less and less competitive every season in every sport with more and more staff. schools that were our peers in sports years ago continue to leave us farther behind. They somehow have the crazy notion that they need to always be improving while we are just trying to maintain. It's really good news tho to see some folks come forward with generous support . IMHO

I'm curious what the money is going towards. If it is NIL, then the impact won't be felt long term. If it is general budget, it is likely just hedging against the loss in foreign student enrollment. If it is facilities, nothing has been announced yet. If it is sonething else, we have no idea.

It's a good problem to have to decide what to do with an influx of cash. I would like to see a change at some point in the hiring of coaches to be one of going after successful head coaches at smaller or equal programs that show potential to succeed at the next level rather than looking for assistant coaches below our level that are just gonna do some OJT here and then move on up and out. good programs are always looking for the best available so why is our plan different. coaches at UTA are gonna move on anyway if they are successful so why not aim a little higher up the pecking order to start with. It seems nuts to me that we pay our baseball coach about 90K for example while a small church school across town pays theirs over a million. just shows which school values a first class athletics program and which doesnt. there are campus cops and assistant professors at UTA that are better paid for much less prominent roles. IMHO

It is hard to compare TCU and UTA. Just in baseball attendance, their attendance average is roughly ten times ours. They are also in a P4 conference and their conference distribution is near 35 million yearly, or roughly double our entire budget.

(03-28-2026 06:30 AM)FoUTASportscaster Wrote:  It is hard to compare TCU and UTA. Just in baseball attendance, their attendance average is roughly ten times ours. They are also in a P4 conference and their conference distribution is near 35 million yearly, or roughly double our entire budget.

true. they have a nice following. I was surprised to see that even UTSA with their crappy baseball field had 900+ at our games against them recently.

I think we would be similar if we started the string of success the Roadrunners have earned in recent memory. There's a lot of similarities between the two schools.

(03-29-2026 06:25 AM)FoUTASportscaster Wrote:  I think we would be similar if we started the string of success the Roadrunners have earned in recent memory. There's a lot of similarities between the two schools.

except for university administrations and their goals for the university. utsa announced years ago that they felt that a big part of a university's perceived status is based on their peers. they decided the best way to up their game was to improve their athletic programs and work toward aligning themselves with better schools. while I consider uta a far better school academically, utsa now is aligned with schools such as army, navy, temple, rice, tulane and the like while we are about to be lumped in with such household names as austin peay, utah tech (I dont think they even give PHD"s), north alabama and so on. all probably plenty good schools but not widely considered by the general public as upper crust. the president of the university is paid 621,000$ + and maybe I'm the exception, but I dont think we are getting our money's worth.