DENTON, Texas - Just a few weeks ago, we were talking about never seeing snow during a
Sun Belt Conference road trip. The number of times doubled today.
The Denton area got nearly
a foot of snow in the past few days. Fortunately, it's been warm enough that it's
been melting, although that seems to be making a slushy mess on the roads and
sidewalks. The city seems to be running as normal, as opposed to a certain town
in northeast Arkansas a few weeks ago.
The team stayed at the
hotel in Murfreesboro after the game on Thursday night, something that does not
often happen often after games. After a quick breakfast in the lobby at around
7:30 a.m. on Friday, the team headed to the Nashville airport for a flight to
Dallas/Fort Worth and a short drive north to Denton.
In the last blog, we
mentioned that the Murphy Center was only 36.1 miles from the Nashville airport.
The Super Pit in Denton is 35.0 miles from DFW, just 0.6 miles farther than the
Ritchie Center is from DIA.
Both Denver and North
Texas arrived at DFW at roughly the same time, as UNT had played at New Orleans
on Thursday night.
After a quick lunch in the
hotel lobby, the players had a few hours to relax before practice at the Super
Pit at 6 p.m. The team then went to Texas Roadhouse, which of course was founded
in Clarksville, Ind., and has become legendary, according to the back of the
menu.
Aside from freshman Blake Foeman, who has been suffering
from food poisoning during the trip, everyone appears to be in high spirits and
ready for tonight's game.
Watch Out for Skeeters: Brothers Travis Hallam
and Chase Hallam are making a sort
of homecoming at Saturday's game. The Hallams grew up in Mesquite, Texas, home
of the Mesquite High School Skeeters, which is just over 50 miles southeast of
Denton.
According to Travis and
Chase, they have already lined up tickets for several family and friends, and
dozens of others have told them that they'll be making the trip. In all, they
expect in the neighborhood of 100 people at the Super Pit cheering for them,
which is especially nice in enemy territory.
Among those, of course,
will be their father, Doug, and mother, Debbie, who have traveled from Mesquite
to nearly every game this season. The have said that it's easier for them now
that their sons both are playing for Denver, even if "home" games 700 miles
from their home, which is why they expect to miss no more than 3-4 games this
season (they have or will watch them on television or Pioneer Vision, of
course).
When the boys were in high school, Doug said that they
went to 233 of their sons games during one year when Travis and Chase were in
high school.
Our friend Richard Chapman in the DU Communications Department wrote a great story about the Hallam family. You can find it here.
Worth Repeating (from
last year's North Texas blog): North Texas really has a way with names.
That includes the Mean Green.
As I've heard it, North Texas has always used a screaming
eagle as the school's mascot (if you go to www.meangreensports.com you can hear
the scream of the eagle - I don't recommend doing so at work), but at some
point after Mean Joe Greene graduated from North Texas in 1969 and headed to
the Steel Curtain in Pittsburgh, the school renamed its teams. As a side note,
according to Wikipedia (which everyone knows is the foremost reference point
when checking accuracy), there was a movement a few years ago to add the albino
squirrel as a second mascot. I cannot be the only one in favor of the school adopting
the albino squirrel. However, the web gurus might have trouble adding the
scream of the albino squirrel to the website.
Here are a few more famous names that graduated from North
Texas: Norah Jones, Pat Boone, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Roy Orbison, Dr. Phil and
"Stone Cold" Steve Austin.
The New Stuff:
While browsing the Mean Green Athletic Hall of Fame, one of the plaques jumped
out.
College Football Hall of Fame coach Hayden Fry was the
coach and athletic director at North Texas (then North Texas State) from
1973-78, when his teams compiled a 40-23-3 record, before he took over at the
University of Iowa.
And a few impressive alumni not previously mentioned: singers
Don Henley (The Eagles) and Meat Loaf, actors Thomas Haden Church (Wings, Spiderman 3 and Sideways) and Peter Weller (Robocop and 24), and former Majority Leader of the U.S. House of
Representatives Dick Armey.
Never Gets Old:
When we landed in Nashville on Wednesday, a woman walked up to associate head
coach Mike McKee and asked if he was the coach of the team, he told her he was
one of them.
Her reply was one that we hear often and probably take
for granted: "Your players are the nicest guys. They were all polite throughout
the flight, and a few of them in the back entertained a child the entire time."
McKee thanked her. It's always nice to hear, regardless
of the fact that we hear similar things often.
Yearly travel
totals:
Total Flights
- 15
Total Mileage
Flown - 10,971
Total Bus Miles
- 1,487
Total Number of
Hotels - 11
Total Number of
Different Airports - 12
Total Number of
Airline Delays - 1
Total Number of
Cancelled Flights - 0
Total Number of
Bags Lost This Year - 1
Total Number of Times
DU Has Encountered Snow on Sun Belt Road Trips - 2
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