Mean Green

Darrell Dickey has changed the fortunes of North Texas
by: Jeff Davis
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As much as any other coach in the country, Darrell Dickey, the persevering and successful head football coach at the University of North Texas, lives with the reality of college athletics, where aspiring football programs like his, are locked on a collision course with 21st century fiscal reality. “We have an athletic department that’s really struggling for money, so we have to play a very demanding schedule year in and year out, go on the road and play what you call money games,” says Dickey. “We’ve done that in the six years I’ve been here to the most extreme, the furthest extent of anybody in the country.”

Dickey and his boss, NT Athletic Director Rick Villarreal go nose to nose every day with this dilemma: at a time when television ratings and fees that drive big time sport appear to have flatlined, will they operate a program that will climb into the big time, or do they continue to eke out a living on a limited budget and rely on huge paydays as visitors to regional (in their case, Texas and Southwestern) powerhouses willing to grant game slots and substantial guarantees in return for what amounts to David and Goliath matchups. “It’s very difficult, but we’re getting better kids every year and they are getting to understand what we want and how to approach things,” Coach Dickey says mindful that the 2004 non-conference slate includes visits to Texas, Colorado and Baylor.

Like the coaching Stoops brothers, Darrell Dickey is a football lifer, the son of a coach. Darrell learned the game from his father, Jim Sr., as the family followed him to Houston, Oklahoma State, Oklahoma, Kansas, and North Carolina, where Darrell graduated from Chapel Hill High School in 1978. He was a four-year starter at quarterback for Kansas State from 1979-82, just missing out on playing for his dad when he became K-State head coach in 1983. After graduating with a bachelor’s in business in 1984, Darrell Dickey worked his way up through the ranks as a college assistant, then coordinator, before North Texas, the third largest school in Texas after the University of Texas and Texas A&M, hired him.

Since Dickey arrived at Denton, 35-miles north of Dallas-Ft. Worth in 1998, the Mean Green has hit nearby I-35 to face the likes of Oklahoma, Texas, Texas A&M, near home, and take longer trips to places like LSU, Alabama, Air Force, and Kansas. And they’ve handled adversity. “Our coaching staff has kept our players focused and composed. These days in our times, as you see it in professional and college sports, when things aren’t going too well, you start to get the finger pointing and the offense blaming the defense, the receivers wanting the ball more, and the team starts pulling apart,” Dickey says.

That did not happen those first three years when the Mean Green took their non-conference beatings. “For three years when those things happened, our team pulled together. They did a very good job of keeping their composure and perspective when things didn’t start off well early.”

The big change in North Texas fortunes came in 2001 with the arrival of Athletic Director Rick Villareal from Southern Mississippi. “Coach Dickey and I have been friends for a long time. He’s a guy who’s methodical, never one to rush to give up on a situation. He believes that if you want to put in the time, you will get there,” the athletic director says.

Villareal, an assistant at Southern Miss during Brett Favre’s era, gave Coach Dickey the tools he needed to get the job done in the form of scholarships, facilities and support. “I gave him a breath of fresh air. We increased his coaches’ salaries. We gave him a place for his team to meet and we gave him a practice facility,” Villarreal says. “He’s the kind of coach that will make the best use of what he gets. He was able to increase his recruiting situation and make it better. He was able to tell his kids they were Division I players.”

With Villarreal’s support, Dickey’s Mean Green turned it around in 2001. “Three years ago, we started off 0-5 and won our (Sun Belt) conference championship. The next year, we started off 1-5 and won seven straight games and a bowl win (24-19 over Cincinnati in the 2002 New Orleans Bowl),” a justifiably proud Dickey says. The 2003 Mean Green edition extended its conference winning streak to 18 games as they reeled off eight league victories to win a third straight Sun Belt title only to fall short against Memphis in the New Orleans Bowl, 27-17.

“Never once did he think we were not capable of getting there. He’s proven the skeptics wrong,” the supportive Villarreal says. “He continues to push his players to be the very best they can be. He’s done more with less over a period of time. Now that we have new facilities, the sky is the limit for him. He looks at everything as opportunities, not obstacles.”

Brett Vito of the Denton Morning Chronicle has been observing Darrell Dickey’s North Texas program from the beginning. “This is a program, definitely on the way up, doing the right things. Early in Darrell’s career there, while they struggled, he recruited the right players,” Vito says. “They’re getting people other schools wanted in their programs. They’ve started to post big wins and make a little hay outside Sun Belt Conference play. They had a big eye-opening victory over Baylor (52-14) last year.”

The outlook for 2004 was as promising as any season Darrell Dickey and his staff had known at North Texas. Built on a solid running game and ground defense, he had been able to open the attack in 2003 with the running of the nation’s leading rusher Patrick Cobbs who ran for 1,680 yards. Coinciding was the emergence of quarterback Scott Hall who led the Sun Belt in pass efficiency after beating out Andrew Smith midway through the season. With Cobbs and highly touted freshman Amario Thomas to handle the ground game and Hall backed up by Smith to handle the passing and leadership duties, everything seemed in place. Then, tragedy struck in the early morning of Saturday August 7th when word came to Denton that Smith had been killed in an auto accident on his way back to campus from his home in Bay City, Texas.

“We met with the team on Tuesday and discussed his situation,” Coach Dickey recalled within days of the accident. “Andrew’s dad had great words for his teammates and said Andrew would want his friends and teammates to carry on. That’s what we are doing.”

The funeral was held a week later, Saturday, August 14th. “When I asked the team how many wanted to go, they all raised their hands. We cancelled our van and chartered a plane,” Dickey said. “A very good friend and alum of ours, Jim MacIngvale, who owns Gallery Furniture in Houston, paid for the whole trip, 125 people in all. Andrew Smith is in our hearts. He was as fine an individual as I’ve ever been around.”

As the Mean Green dedicate the 2004 season to Andrew Smith, the work continues on campus. These days, the noise of earth movers and carpenters can be heard all over the North Texas campus thanks to Rick Villarreals’ fund raising activities and plans. “Most athletic programs have a goal to build one new facility in three years. Our goal is to build seven in four! It’s a challenge, but our new athletic center is underway, our tennis facility will start in a couple of months, we have four new women’s facilities to start next May.”

Villarreal hopes the difference maker in the big picture will be a new stadium to replace 29,000 seat Fouts Field. He believes a new stadium will offer substantial value for some company in naming rights and will take the program to another level. “We need a place where in addition to tailgating, we can offer all the modern conveniences,” Villarreal says. “We aspire to be the best we can be. We can compete at a national level and we will continue to update to be in that position.”

“We try to be positive,” a pragmatic Coach Dickey says. “Early on when we weren’t as mature a team, we let a heartbreaking loss or win linger into Tuesday or Wednesday. That’s not the route you want to take,” Dickey says. “You got to put it behind you the next day and start getting ready for the next one.”

Such is the reality of football in any season.

Dickey's Coaching Resume:
Year 1998-current 1997 1994-96 1991-93 1990 1986-89 1985	School North Texas SMU UTEP LSU Miss. State Memphis Memphis Memphis Texas A&M	Position Head Coach Off. Coord. Asst. HC/Off. Coord. Tight Ends QB’s/RB’s Off. Coord. Running Bcks Tight Ends Graduate Assistant
Year-by-Year at North Texas
Year: 2003 9-4 2002 8-5 2001 5-7 2000 3-8 1999 2-9 1998 3-8	Overall Record: 9-4 8-5 5-7 3-8 2-9 3-8

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