North Texas Mean Green

Nickname

The name "Mean Green" was adopted by fans and media in 1966 for a North Texas football defensive squad that finished the season second in the nation against the rush. That school year, Joe Greene, then a sophomore at North Texas, played left defensive tackle on the football team and competed in track and field (shot put). There are conflicting accounts for the origin of the nickname. Two possible origins are two separate cheers that supposedly developed during North Texas' 1966 game against UTEP. One cheer was by Sidney Sue Graham, wife of the North Texas sports information director. In response to a tackle by Greene, she blurted out, "That’s the way, Mean Greene!" However, Bill Mercer, former North Texas play-by-play announcer, states Graham's thought behind the nickname was the Mean Green defense. Her husband began including the nickname for the team in press releases and it caught on with the media. Meanwhile, in the student section, North Texas basketball players Willie Davis and Ira Daniels, unsatisfied with the unenthusiastic crowd, began to chant "Mean Green, you look so good to me." The rest of the crowd soon followed. "After that we did it every game," Davis says. "A lot of people later on started associating it with Joe because his last name was Greene, but it actually started with that simple chant that Saturday night at Fouts Field. And that's the truth."

Conference affiliations

NCAA

• Lone Star Conference (1931–1949)
• Gulf Coast Conference (1949–1957)
• Missouri Valley Conference (1957–1975)
• Southland Conference (1982–1996)
• Big West Conference (1996–2000)
• Sun Belt Conference (2000–2013)
• Conference USA (2013–2023)
• American Conference (2023–present)

Sports sponsored

A member of the American Conference, North Texas sponsors teams in six men's and ten women's NCAA sanctioned sports.

Football

Main article: North Texas Mean Green football

Founded in 1913, the Mean Green has won eight Lone Star Conference championships, five Gulf Coast Conference championships, five Missouri Valley Conference championships, two Southland Conference championships and most recently, four consecutive Sun Belt Conference championships. The team has also appeared in fifteen bowl games, winning three, most recently the 2014 Heart of Dallas Bowl. From 1952 until the 2010 season, home football games were played at Fouts Field. A new 30,850-seat stadium, DATCU Stadium opened for the 2011 season.

Basketball

Main article: North Texas Mean Green men's basketball, North Texas Mean Green women's basketball

Since 1973, the school's teams for men's and women's basketball have played their home games in the Super Pit. For most of its history, the Mean Green have had patches of success, starting in the 1970s when the team received its first ever top-20 ranking under head coach Bill Blakeley. Blakeley coached three consecutive 20-win seasons: 1975–76 (22–4); 1976–77 (21–6); 1977–78 (22–6) From 2001 to 2012, the men's team experienced relative success under head coach Johnny Jones. During the 2006–2007 season, North Texas won its first Sun Belt Conference title and advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1988. North Texas won the Sun Belt Conference title again during the 2009–2010 season to advance to the NCAA Tournament for the second time in four years. Jones left the team for his alma mater LSU in 2012, and his replacement Tony Benford has struggled to maintain Jones' success in Denton. In 2013, North Texas joined Conference USA, and from there moved to what is now the American Conference in 2023.

Men's golf

The men's golf team has won four NCAA Championships in 1949, 1950, 1951, and 1952.

Discontinued sports

Baseball

In 1984, the university began fielding a varsity baseball team, but it was discontinued after the 1988 season because of the newly-enacted Title IX requiring institutions to provide athletic opportunities proportionate to the gender makeup of their student bodies. The team competed as a member of the Southland Conference. After starting the program's inaugural season with a 0–19 record, the Eagles won their first game against the Emporia State Hornets, 4–1. The team played their home games at Mack Park in Denton.

In the mid-2000s, the university planned to revive the program and build an on-campus ballpark. The ballpark would have been the home field for both the Mean Green and the Denton Outlaws collegiate summer baseball team. The program's revival failed to happen, and the Denton Outlaws disbanded after the 2007 season.

The 2014 UNT fiscal budget included $600,000 in start-up costs for reviving the Mean Green baseball program, with plans to construct a new on-campus ballpark within the Mean Green Village athletic complex. However, accounting errors by the UNT system led to the revival of the baseball program being placed on hold indefinitely. The earliest date the program could have been revived was in time for the 2016 season, dependent on the facilities' construction beginning in early 2015, but that did not occur.

Season-by-season results

References

1. "Eagles are 19-Point Favorite", ''[[Denton Record-Chronicle]]'', Sep 21, 1967, pg 10
2. "How Our Green Got Mean". The North Texan.
3. (September 5, 2013). "Looking back at a century of Mean Green". North Texas Daily.
4. (August 15, 2015). "Which nickname came first at North Texas? 'Mean Joe' Greene or Mean Green?". USA Today.
5. By 1968, "Mean Green" was on the back of shirts, buttons, bumper stickers, and the cover of the North Texas football brochure. Even the band became identified as the "Mean Green Marching Machine."Mike Cochran (AP), "Mean Green Same as Nickname", ''The Abilene Reporter-News'', Sep. 1, 1968
6. "North Texas Championships". College Football Data Warehouse.
7. "University of North Texas Athletics - Official Athletics Website".
8. Vito, Brett. (2012-03-14). "Baseball: North Texas exploring addition of baseball program". [[Denton Record-Chronicle]].
9. "Southland Conference".
10. (1984). "The Aerie". North Texas State University.
11. "Baseball: UNT's financial issues put baseball on hold {{!}} Denton Record Chronicle {{!}} News for Denton County, Texas".
12. "Notebook: UNT budget includes $600,000 for baseball {{!}} Denton Record Chronicle {{!}} News for Denton County, Texas".
13. "NTSU Honors International Composer", ''[[The Dallas Morning News]]'', May 9, 1970
14. "Pianist Will Play Works of Copland", ''[[Denton Record-Chronicle]]'', pg 2, Oct. 6, 1957
15. "North Texas Mean Green".
16. Paul Maranto, ''Maxwell Leading Off as Eagle Golfers Shoot for Fourth NCAA Title'', [[Denton Record-Chronicle]], Section 5, pg. 5
17. [https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/xsg01 J.C. King and Frances G. Trimble (married to John F. Trimble; ''née'' Dorothy Frances Guerra; born 1945), ''Golf'', Handbook of Texas Online, Texas State Historical Association, accessed October 15, 2012]
18. [[Denton Record-Chronicle]]
19. [http://la84foundation.org/SportsLibrary/JSH/JSH1987/JSH1403/jsh1403c.pdf Ronald E. Marcello, ''The Integration of Intercollegiate Athletics in Texas: North Texas State College as a Test Case, 1956'', Journal of Sport History, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Winter, 1987)]
20. ''Biographical Sketches'', The North Texan, Volume 33, Number 4, Fall 1983
21. "University of North Texas Athletics - Official Athletics Website".
22. "Archived copy".
23. "North Texas Wins C-USA Men's Golf Championship".
24. (February 2022)