University of North Texas
Mean Green Mania
Athletic Highlights
Men’s Basketball:
- 1921: The 1921-22 season is officially the start of UNT basketball, although a team was fielded beginning in 1916. The Mean Green joined the Texas Intercollegiate Athletic Association in 1921 and won the first of four TIAA titles, claiming its first-ever conference crown on the first try with a record of 11-1.
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1943: UNT won the Lone Star Conference crown and advanced to the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics Tournament. There the team beat Wisconsin Stout, York and Hamline, fell to Northwest Missouri State in the semifinals and bounced back to win the third-place game over Murray State.
- 1977-78: Ken Williams led the nation in rebounding with an average of 14.7 per game. He demolished the school record with 411 total rebounds and is the only Mean Green player ever to lead the NCAA in a statistical category.
- 1988: UNT claimed the Southland Conference Tournament title and made its first trip to the NCAA Tournament. Tony Worrell (’96) was named the Southland Player of the Year, Jimmy Gales earned Coach of the Year honors and Ronnie Morgan was selected Freshman of the Year.
- 2001: Head coach Johnny Jones joined UNT. Now entering his eighth season in Denton, he already ranks third in school history with 106 wins.
- 2007: UNT’s second trip to the NCAA Tournament came after a win over Arkansas State in the Sun Belt Conference Tournament title game. The SBC tournament’s Most Valuable Player Calvin Watson (’07) nailed six 3-pointers, and All-Tournament team selection Ben Bell (’08) added five assists.
Women’s Basketball:
1976: Today's women’s basketball program began 1976, although women’s teams were on campus as early as the 1920s.- 1986: The team won the Southland conference title and advanced to the NCAA Tournament.
- 1998-99: The team recorded its first undefeated season at home.
- 2000-01: UNT won 19 games and earned UNT’s first-ever trip to the Women’s National Invitational Tournament.
- 2001-02: The team won a school-record 21 games and was again invited to the WNIT.
- 2008: Shanice Stephens was named the new head coach.
Football:
- 1913: In its first intercollegiate football game, North Texas State Normal College faced off against Texas Christian. Except during World War II, UNT has played every fall since.
- 1931: The Eagles won their first-ever conference title — the Texas Intercollegiate Athletic Association crown — and went on to win three of the next five titles in the newly formed Lone Star Conference.
- 1946: The team attended its first bowl game — the Optimist Bowl — and won, moving past Pacific and its future College Football Hall of Fame Coach Amos Alonzo Stagg in the last 9 seconds to win 14-13.
- 1952: The first football game was played at Fouts Field, named for legendary Coach Theron J. Fouts. The Eagles beat North Dakota 55-0.
1975: Coach Hayden Fry led North Texas to a 21-14 win at Tennessee before 72,000 stunned fans in what many people believe to be the biggest upset in Mean Green history.- 2001-2004: UNT won the Sun Belt Conference title and made the trip to New Orleans an annual tradition. The trip to the inaugural bowl in 2001 broke a 42-year drought without a bowl appearance for the Mean Green (they had last played in the 1959 Sun Bowl). UNT won the 2002 New Orleans Bowl, defeating Cincinnati 24-19. It was only the second time in school history that the Mean Green won a bowl game and the first time since 1946.
- 2006: Todd Dodge was named the 16th head football coach, reporting to work just three days after his Southlake Carroll football team won its fourth state championship in five years.
Golf:
- 1939: The golf program began.
- 1949-1952: The team won four consecutive national championships. Since the program’s inception, the team has won 26 conference titles.
- 1975: Former Mean Green golfer Sandra Palmer (’63) was named the LPGA Player of the Year.
- 2003: The men’s golf team won its first Sun Belt Conference title and Jim Bob Jackson was named the Sun Belt Conference Coach of the Year.
Soccer:
- 1995: The women’s soccer program began. The team ranks 14th in the nation in the most games won since the 1995 season and has never had a losing season in school history.
- 2000: UNT is the only Sun Belt Conference school to play in the tournament championship game every season since the start of the league in 2000.
- 2001: The team won the Sun Belt Conference regular season.
- 2004, 2005: The team won the Sun Belt Conference Tournament and advanced to the NCAA Tournament two years in a row. Head coach John Hedlund was named the Sun Belt Coach of the Year both years.
Softball:
- 2004: The first game played by the new Mean Green softball team was against Texas A&M Feb. 4, with the first hit of the program a home run by Susan Waters (’07). The first softball game won was Feb. 10, when the Mean Green defeated Northwood 3-1. Current head coach T.J. Hubbard helped field the first team as an assistant coach.
- 2007: The Mean Green defeated Louisiana-Lafayette 6-5 in the first round of the Sun Belt Conference Tournament, handing the Ragin’ Cajuns their first-ever loss in Sun Belt Conference Tournament history.
- 2008: In February, UNT recorded one of its biggest wins at home, defeating Oklahoma State 5-2 at Lovelace Stadium.
Swimming:
- 1998: UNT’s swimming and diving program began. UNT compiled a 2-14 record that season and finished seventh in the Big West Conference.
- 2003: The Mean Green moved into the state-of-the-art Pohl Recreation Center, which is equipped with an eight-lane pool, custom Daktronics timing and scoreboard system, locker room and team meeting facilities, as well as fan seating areas.
- 2008: For the first time in the program’s history, the Mean Green ended its season ranked in the top 25 in the mid-major poll for consecutive seasons. UNT finished the 2007-08 season ranked No. 15 in the poll after finishing No. 24 the year before. Head coach Joe Dykstra was named the 2008 Sun Belt Conference Women’s Swimming Coach of the Year following a season in which the Mean Green set every school swimming record and tallied its first two NCAA consideration cuts in the program’s 10-year history.
Tennis:
- 1978: UNT began today’s women’s tennis program, which posted a 14-11 record in its opening season and was in the national top-25 within four years. Gwynn Sammel remains the program’s winningest singles and doubles player, and head coach A.G. Longoria still owns nearly every coaching record. UNT tennis reached a high of No. 18 in 1982 on the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women national rankings.
- 1990: The Mean Green won the Southland Conference title, the only conference crown in school history, and took singles titles in both 1990 and 1991 and doubles titles in 1990 and 1992.
- 2006: The Mean Green tennis program moved into its new home, the Waranch Tennis Complex, and head coach Sujay Lama came to UNT. The state-of-the-art complex hosted the 2007 Sun Belt Tennis Championships and will host the event again in 2009.
- 2008: The Mean Green posted a 13-9 record — the best win percentage (59.1) since 1987 — and was ranked No. 13 in the Southwest Region.
Track and Field:
- 1923: The track and field program began. The men’s track and field team has won 18 conference titles since its inception.
- 1938: In February at Madison Square Garden, Elmer (’38, ’42 M.S.) and Delmer Brown (’39) and Wayne (’40) and Blaine Rideout (’40) set a new world record of 7:27.5 in the mile and seven-eighths relay. In April at the 44th Penn Relays, Alvin Chrisman (’38), Henry Morgan (’39), and the Rideout twins set a new world record of 9:59.4 for the outdoor two-mile and one-eighth distance medley relay. In June at the Princeton Invitational, Wayne Rideout set a new world record of 3:00.3 in the three-quarter mile run. He became the first Texan in history to set a world record by himself in college track.
1972: Bill Schmidt (’70) won a bronze medal at the Olympic Games in Munich, becoming the first North Texas athlete to win an Olympic medal.- 1986: The women’s track and field started team competitions and has since won two conference titles.
- 1997: Rick Watkins was appointed head coach. He has been named the Sun Belt Conference Coach of the Year four times.
Volleyball:
- 1976: UNT began the volleyball program under Dolores Copeland. The team posted a record of 18-11-1 in its inaugural season and a school-record 26-19 mark in 1977.
- 1995: UNT’s first Southland Conference title led to an appearance in the NCAA Tournament. Michelle Dressel (’96) set the new school mark for single-season assists, as did Kim Coffey in kills and attacks.
2003: Corina Marginas (’04, ’06 M.B.A.) finished her career as an honorable mention American Volleyball Coaches Association All-American. The former Sun Belt Player of the Year is the only player in the history of the league to earn four consecutive first-team all-conference honors. She left with seven school records (six of which still stand), including 2,211 career kills and 4,920 attacks — over 1,600 more than any other player in UNT history.- 2006: On Sept. 1, current UNT head coach Cassie Headrick notched her 83rd victory to become the winningest coach in school history. Heading into her ninth season at the helm in 2008, she is the only volleyball coach in school history with multiple 20-win seasons.
- 2007: Brooke Engel (’08) became the first player in NCAA history to lead the nation in service aces in back-to-back years, leading with 0.97 aces per game in 2006 and 0.87 in 2007. She ended her career 19th in NCAA history with a mark of 0.622 service aces per game.
