By Steven Bartolotta, February 28, 2011, 2:30 p.m.
It was a huge weekend for the North Texas football coaching staff as they held the first ever "Junior Day" at the Athletic Center. For those not familiar with it, junior day is when high school athletes along with their parents have a chance to come up and visit with the coaches and tour the facilities.
For a program that has won hardly anything in six years, never done a junior day before, let's call this one a huge success. 176 kids from primarily Texas with a few sprinkled in from Oklahoma were here on Saturday.
The kids got a chance to tour the facilities from Victory Hall, to Champs, the Athletic Center, and then the crown jewel the new football stadium.
Along with that they heard from North Texas AD Rick Villarreal, had a presentation about academics, NCAA eligibility, and then the best part as far as I'm concerned was they had a chance to meet with all of the coaches.
The kids had sessions with specific coaches and group meetings with position coaches and heard from the big guy himself, Coach McCarney.
I was told there team meeting room in the Athletic Center had 234 chairs setup, about the max possible, and there were over 400 people, parents included in there to hear about North Texas.
Major kudos to the staff of Coach McCarney because they have to do the major legwork of calling high school coaches from around the area and arranging for this, which is no small chore.
I've been around a lot of coaches in a lot of different sports in a decade of being in this business, but the ability to connect to kids, parents, fans, staff, players.....(I could keep going but you get the picture) is incredible.
First-time junior day was a major success.
