12 Feb 2013
Sports Editor
Tim Cato / Senior Staff Writer
The move to Conference USA in 2013-14 might not be the only big change on the horizon for Mean Green athletics.
A committee formed several months ago to look at the possibility of bringing baseball to UNT is continuing to make progress.
“We brought some people together to help determine the funding process for a facility as well as the program for the first two years,” athletic director Rick Villarreal said in a Denton Record-Chronicle article. “We have made a lot of progress. Hopefully, in the near future, we will be able to lay out the situation publically.”
UNT is one of the few holdouts from the sport. Currently, 298 of the 347 Division-I colleges host an official baseball team.
One major hurdle for the program will be building a new stadium. UNT owns land around Lovelace Stadium, home to its softball program, which will eventually host the new stadium.
Another major issue is the Title IX gender equality act that requires the number of male and female athletes to be similar. The Mean Green currently sponsors three male teams, seven female teams and two co-ed teams.
UNT last had a baseball program from 1984-1988.
The university has a baseball club, but the National Collegiate Athletic Association does not sanction the club, like it would the baseball team if UNT decides to field a team.
The next step for UNT baseball would be an official announcement of the program’s arrival in the coming years.
