North Texas Mean Green (formerly North Texas Eagles) represents the University of North Texas (UNT) in intercollegiate athletics. The teams compete in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). North Texas competed in the Sun Belt Conference and Conference USA before joining the American Athletic Conference, now known as the American Conference, on July 1, 2023. UNT's official school colors are Green and White. North Texas' mascot is an Eagle named Scrappy.
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, "ThatâÂÂs 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." 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."
NCAA
A member of the American Conference, North Texas sponsors teams in six men's and ten women's NCAA sanctioned sports.
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.
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: 1975âÂÂ76 (22âÂÂ4); 1976âÂÂ77 (21âÂÂ6); 1977âÂÂ78 (22âÂÂ6) From 2001 to 2012, the men's team experienced relative success under head coach Johnny Jones. During the 2006âÂÂ2007 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 2009âÂÂ2010 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.
The men's golf team has won four NCAA Championships in 1949, 1950, 1951, and 1952.
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 0âÂÂ19 record, the Eagles won their first game against the Emporia State Hornets, 4âÂÂ1. 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.