There is still not official word on the cause of death of North Texas forward Eboniey Jeter, who was found dead in her Mozart Hall dorm room on Tuesday morning.
The Talons, a big-time spirit group at UNT, organized and held a vigil on campus Tuesday night and lit the clock tower green in honor of Jeter.
New women's basketball head coach Jalie Mitchell and her media crew decided against a press conference this afternoon and instead released a statement.
“As a family, we are hurting. We lost a teammate, a friend and a sister. This is a very tough time for our university and for our team, but we stand strong for Eboniey and for her family. My focus right now is on the Jeter family and my team. We are grieving, but together, we will get through this and make sure we honor the life of a sweet, young lady who is gone from us way too soon. We ask that you please respect the privacy of her family and our team as we go through the grieving process.”
This is such a difficult situation for the team, and for coach Mitchell, who just took the position in April. So far, NBC 5 in Dallas-Ft. Worth is the only outlet I have heard report anything about the cause of death. They're reporting police think it was suicide:
— Mean Green Athletics (@MeanGreenSports) May 5, 2015
I had considered posting about Monday's Green Guys show again, but I received a text message from one of my friends giving me a link to a blog post about the passing of North Texas forward Eboniey Jeter. She was 21 years old.
I don't know any more information about this besides what Brett Vito from the Denton Record-Chronicle has gathered in that post above.
Fellow North Texas athletes expressed their emotions:
Sending my prayers and condolences to Eboniey Jeter's family, her Killeen/Harker Heights family, and her @MeanGreenWBB family. #MGF
What I can elaborate on is my experience with Jeter, which can be described as limited, yet positive. I remember she was the last interview of the season after the final loss to UTSA.
The Mean Green led late in that game, but couldn't get anything past the Roadrunner pressure defense and lost 57-54 to end the season without a trip to the Conference USA tournament.
Jeter herself had one of the better games of her career making all four shots for eight points and seven rebounds. She was also a team-high plus-six while she was on the floor.
Standing at the end of a long, white hallway at the Kitty Magee Arena on the campus of Texas Women's University Jeter was crying at the conclusion of a very difficult season.
With a tear-marked face, she strongly and proudly said, "There's no where to go but up from where we are now."
As far as I'm concerned, she's completed that journey upward.
I co-host an hour long North Texas sports talk show on KNTU-FM on Monday nights. A lot of the show's focus has been on the Mean Green softball team because it is really the biggest team playing at UNT right now.
The Green Guys featuring (L-R) me, Jeremy Miller, Taylor Phillips & Scott Sidway.
As I mentioned in my previous post, this past weekend was huge for the softball team because it propelled them to the seventh seed in the Conference USA Tournament.
We discussed that on The Green Guys, and how -- even though they avoided the best team in the conference, Western Kentucky -- they'll still be challenged against their first round opponent Florida Atlantic.
We were also joined by Tim McNarama (@Tim_McNamara), the C-USA main softball media contact and self-proclaimed world's leading expert in Conference USA softball. Tim was the softball information director at North Texas last season and an overall cool dude.
Tim mentioned how FAU has multiple strong pitchers, and they don't rely on just one ace pitcher. Monday morning coach Tracey Kee told me that the two offenses are pretty similar and both teams could use more of a small-ball strategy.
Of course, I'm not sure how much the Mean Green will need to dive into that if the team slams the seams off the softball like it did in the home series against UTEP.
We had some technical problems getting Tim onto the air (meaning, I thought I knew what I was doing, but I really didn't), and so we didn't get to talk to as much as we wanted. But, here is the full interview with Tim from The Green Guys. (Note: I can't figure out why our voices are scratchy when talking to Tim, but I made a quick fix about halfway through the interview)
You can listen to the latest episode of The Green Guys on our website. The podcast is usually uploaded Wednesday afternoon.
The final Green Guys show of the semester is on Mon., May 11 from 6:30-7:30 p.m. If you're in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area you can hear it on 88.1 FM, or you can listen streaming worldwide on KNTU.com.
My Tuesday sit-down with North Texas softball coach Tracey Kee left me with a heck of a lot more doubts than certainties going into the final week of the regular season.
Coach Kee was pessimistic of her team's motivation -- not of it's ability -- but more so of when a good performance or a bad one would appear. As she likes to point out, the Mean Green beat #7 Baylor earlier this season, and have also lost to some teams below their mark.
But, this weekend proved to be where North Texas finally took a stand and swept UTEP in three games (12-4, 9-3, 14-6). Maybe, all it took was a little pressure -- that's something that centerfielder Kat Strunk hinted at when I talked to her after the third match.
The saying is that pressure creates diamonds, but a song by a rapper Strunk listens to takes it further by adding that fire refines gold.
Pressure could be the catalyst to a fantastic offensive weekend, or it could also be the desire to send the four seniors (Strunk, Dani Hoff, Jen Beardsley and Madison Thompson) to the Conference USA tournament. Strunk pounded the Miners for a school-record seven RBIs in Game 3, including two home runs to go along with the game-winning bomb in Game 1 on Saturday.
The biggest thing about sweeping UTEP and Charlotte losing its series against FIU is North Texas grabs the seventh seed for the tourney and avoids facing No. 1 Western Kentucky until the championship.
Western is led by ace Madison Kramer who mowed down the Mean Green in three games earlier this season, and has sliced through most of the competition without breaking a sweat this year.
Kramer is 21-8 with a 0.84 ERA, has tossed twelve shutouts and averages 13 strikeouts per game (her full stats). She is insane and a potential match-up on the third day of the tourney bodes a whole lot better than facing a fresh Kramer on day one.
The only problem is North Texas will tango FAU in its opening contest on Thurs,, May 7 at 3:00 p.m. CST. The Owls are the number two seed in the eight team tournament and, as a team, are tied with WKU in earned run average.
FAU and the Mean Green did not play each other this season, but did battle in the first round of the tourney when the Owls hosted last year. North Texas won a 10-inning affair that went deep into the evening in Boca Raton 5-4 thanks in large part to program legend Ashley Kirk and current super slugger Taylor Schoblocher (Box Score).
The Mean Green lost the next day to top seeded Tulsa 7-1.
So although North Texas played out of a first round match-up with Western and Kramer, it still can't relax because of a huge challenge against FAU. But if the offense can connect like it did this weekend, there isn't any reason the Mean Green can't make a push for the C-USA crown.
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I had an interesting experience at the series opener of North Texas and UTEP involving an impromptu job and I'll be posting about that -- with a whole lot of pictures -- in a couple of days, so stay peeled.
The North Texas softball team came into the match-up losing 15 of its last 17 games and dropping a doubleheader at Oklahoma State the night before.
Not exactly ideal conditions to play the fifth best team in the country -- for the second time this season.
But, the Mean Green had a pretty good effort and led for an inning and a half before giving up a history-making grand slam to Lauren Chamberlain in the 6-2 loss. The blast gave Chamberlain the 91st home run of her career, the most in NCAA history.
It was also a historic night for another reason as there was the largest crowd in program history.
Counting the number of fans when students get in free and don't have to swipe their I.D. cards is an inexact science, and to be frank most of those in the stands were OU faithful. But it was still cool to see that many people packed into the tissue-box-sized Lovelace Stadium that had two or three pairs of bleachers added down the first baseline.
Kenzie Grimes started just her fourth game of the season for North Texas. After the game she told she was fine with getting the nod, even though coach Kee didn't tell her until about 15 minutes before pre-game warm-ups.
She had a pretty good outing, but walked six Sooner batters in 3 2/3 innings. Mean Green catcher Bryanna Wade hit the two-run homer -- her sixth of the year.
Head coach Tracey Kee
Up next for the Mean Green is its biggest series of the season, and quite possibly its last. They'll play UTEP at home for three games. Which ever team wins the series will grab one of the final two spots in the Conference USA tournament. North Texas can only win the eighth seed, while UTEP can claim the seventh or eighth.
In my usual Tuesday afternoon interview with coach Kee, she told me she has no idea how this weekend will go because the team has played so inconsistently. They scored two runs against Oklahoma -- more than they did in two games combined at Louisiana Tech last weekend.
Her biggest complaint has been the competitiveness of her team. And effort is really not something you want to be worrying about heading to the year's deciding series.
(Speaking of Kenzie, here's a news package I did about her from last season)
The North Texas softball stadium on Wednesday night, April 22.
The Mean Green softball games against Stephen F. Austin were cancelled on April 22 because of rainy conditions earlier in the week, and the field at Lovelace just couldn't take all the water.
This was disappointing for a couple of reasons: 1. I was going to be the public address announcer for the doubleheader, and 2. head coach Tracey Kee told me she was really looking forward to using these two games for her hitters to be able to see some different and live pitching.
Besides the obvious benefit of getting paid a little cash for doing the P.A., I really enjoy working with the softball team and the staff. I've done P.A. for six or seven softball games this season and they are extremely fun and a way to get some experience at a craft which I haven't really practiced since high school.
The locked gates at Lovelace Stadium.
Also, the North Texas softball team could really have used some momentum on two probable wins against SFA. For the second straight week the Mean Green is clinging onto the eighth seed in the Conference USA Tournament -- if it started now. This would mean a first round match-up with Western Kentucky. NOT GOOD!
The Lady Toppers (yes, their university approved nickname) are the best team in C-USA and are led by one of the best pitchers in softball nationwide -- Miranda Kramer. She's earned six or seven C-USA Pitcher of the Week awards this season. And just this week Kramer did everything she could to help Western take down ranked Kentucky, before losing 1-0 in nine innings. Kramer had a no-hitter going through the regulation seven innings -- but her offense was handcuffed and chained to home plate it seems.
Anyways, these next two weekends are going to be vital for the Mean Green softball team. This weekend they face off against Louisiana Tech -- the team right above them in the West division standings. Then next weekend North Texas faces off against UTEP -- the team right below them in the West.
Good luck Mean Green, and hopefully I'll get to fill-in another time on the public address.
I did not post yesterday, but I'll give a good post today and hopefully that will make up for my missed day.
Yesterday I performed double duty. I was the play-by-play broadcaster for the third round playoff game between Denton Ryan and Keller Fossil Ridge. What a game this was!
The Raiders were down 31-0 in the second quarter, before scoring right before halftime. Even with this score it really didn't look like Ryan was going to do much of anything in the second half. But the defensive line turned up, Fossil Ridge went away from what was working and the Ryan offense would not be denied.
The Raiders scored 42 unanswered points to come back and defeated Fossil Ridge and advance to the regional final against Cedar Hill on Saturday. This is really unexpected -- Ryan has been picked to lose in each of their first three playoff games, but they find a way to win each time.
They have a really gritty, tough team that is relentless and doesn't give up.
Here are some pictures from the game:
On the air about 25 minutes from when we went on-air (55 minutes before kick-off).
View from our position high atop Apogee Stadium -- shows the great crowds from Fossil Ridge and Ryan.
Nice shot over the Wings section (I don't get why they call it the Wing...it's supposed to be the tail of an eagle, not the wing) to the skyline of UNT, TWU and Denton.
Shot over the video board and athletic department building showing the rural side and the trees changing colors in Fall.
The second part of my double job yesterday was to fill-in for George Dunham and Hank Dickenson for North Texas men's basketball game. George, Hank and company were in Tulsa broadcasting the UNT football game and wouldn't be back in time for the game.
Therefore I got called up from the battlefront to broadcast the men's game on the Mean Green Radio Network. The pre-game show was a little rocky, and the interview with the head coach left somethings lacking, but once the action got underway I felt like I was back in the saddle.
I did solo play-by-play of my high school's boys basketball games for three years, so I knew what to expect. One thing that did surprise me was the speed of the game. I expected the college game to be lighting quick compared to what I was used to, but it wasn't too difficult to keep track of. Obviously you don't call out every pass; you have to be selective with what you say and try to keep the most important information in the listeners' ears.
