Thursday, November 09, 2006

Thursday: Houston Week

Man, talk about a nothing day. The DMN forgot that SMU football existed today and instead focused on Houston's "Heisman candidate" Kevin Kolb.

North Texas fired HC Darrell Dickey, the former SMU offensive coordinator. It almost certainly means former SMU QB Ramon Flanigan is out of a job as well. A second consecutive losing season, I guess is just too much for UNT to bear. I am not saying it is a good or bad decision, but NTSU has been to five bowls since 1953 and Dickey coached NTSU to four of them. Anyway, for comedy, head on over here to find out who the NTSU fans think they are going to get.

SMU hires Richard Sweet, an executive at Southwest Airlines as Associate A.D. For Marketing & Public Relations. Here is his bio from blogsouthwest.com, a blog for Southwest employees.

Additionally, despite blowing off numerous classes in the early 1980’s, Richard was able to eek out a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration and a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism from Southern Methodist University while attending on an athletic scholarship. (Yes, those were the days that SMU athletes were paid but also the days the Ponies kicked the butts of the best paid athletes UT and Texas A&M could afford.)


My initial reaction is, holy cow, SMU hired somebody with a sense of humor. Others are excited because Sweet went to SMU, which makes him an "SMU guy" (whatever that means). Personally, I always thought keeping things in the family, especially one as disfunctional as SMU athletics, was overrated.

Sweet's official title at Southwest is Senior Director of Marketing and Sales, which sounds awfully important. "As senior director, Sweet’s responsibilities include sales, field marketing, sports marketing and other promotional activities throughout the United States. Sweet also serves on the Marketing Planning Committee for Southwest Airlines." Southwest Airlines is certainly a marketing machine. No clear indication whether SMU will officially adopt first comer-first serve seating or giving away free 1/5th's of liquor to season ticket holders.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Maybe the SMU athletic family is so dysfunctional because we have had so few alumni working inside Moody or the Loyd Center. I can imagine most positions in the SMU athletic department have involved long hours and little pay or appreciation. Allegiances can turn a job, even a thankless one, into a passion.