University of North Texas - Traditions

Traditions

Primary colors

North Texas adopted green and white as its official primary colors during the 1902–1903 school year — 110 years ago. Nowadays, in 2012, black is officially authorized as a tertiary color and may be substituted for green and white in single-color communications. The official green can be replicated using the Pantone Matching System (PMS) 356. The four-color process (CMYK) equivalent is 100 percent cyan, 0 percent magenta, 100 percent yellow, and 33 percent black. When printing on uncoated paper, such as newspaper, the official green is Pantone 355. For reproducing the official green in most graphic design and HTML coding software, the University's Identity Guide recommends:

Hex — #00853E

HSL — Hue 93, Sat 224, Lume 70

RGB — Red 5, Green 144, Blue 51

Mascot

UNT's mascot, the American eagle, was adopted on February 1, 1922, as a result of a student-faculty council debate and ensuing student election. The selection is said to have reflected the student population's ideals of individual liberty and freedom of expression.

The eagle has had three nicknames, beginning with "Scrappy" in 1950. The human costumed eagle character, launched in 1963, carried the name "Scrappy" until 1974 — during the throes of the Vietnam War — when students adopted the name "Eppy" because it sounded less warlike. Since then, the name has switched back and forth, from Eppy to Scrappy; but for the last seventeen years, the name "Scrappy" has endured.

Nickname for intercollegiate athletics

The name "Mean Green," now in its forty-sixth year, was adopted by fans and media in 1966 for a North Texas football defensive squad that finished the season second in the nation against the rush. That season, Joe Greene, then a sophomore at North Texas, played left defensive tackle on the football team and competed in track and field (shot put). The nickname "Mean Joe Greene" caught-on during his first year with the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1969 when Pittsburgh fans wrongly assumed that "Mean Green" was derived from a nickname Joe Greene had inherited while at North Texas. The North Texas athletic department, media, and fans loved the novelty of the national use of its nickname, and its association with with Joe Greene's surname and university's official school color. By 1968, "Mean Green" was branded on the backs of shirts, buttons, bumper stickers, and the cover of the North Texas football brochure.

Fight song

Francis Edwin Stroup (1909–2010) emerged in 1939 — ten years after graduating from North Texas — as the winning composer of a university sponsored fight song competition organized by Floyd Graham. The song, Fight, North Texas, has endured for seventy-three years and the lyrics have changed minimally to reflect the name changes of the university. Stroup went on to compose songs for Drake University, the University of Wyoming and the University of Chicago. Stroup, while teaching at Northern Illinois University in 1961, also wrote the Huskie Fight Song, which was adopted as the university's fight song in 1963. Stroup — a collegiate academician who played piano mostly by ear and neither majored nor worked in music — lived to be 101, a number exceeding the songs he composed by one digit.

Alma mater

In 1919, Julia Smith (1905–1989), while a music student, and Charles Kirby Langford (1903–1931), then a third-year letterman on the football team and an outstanding overall athlete, composed Glory to the Green and White which was adopted as the school's alma mater in 1922. Smith wrote the music and Langford wrote the lyrics.

Other traditions

The Spirit Bell — a 2,000 lb (910 kg) bell brought from Michigan in 1891 — was a curfew bell from 1892 to 1928. The Talons, a spirit and service organization formed in 1960, acquired it in the 1964, mounted it on a wagon, and began the tradition of running it around the football field to rally fans. It was retired to the University Union in 1982 after it developed a crack. A similar 1,600 lb (730 kg) Spirit Bell is currently in use at games. A different organization by the name "Talons" was founded in 1926 as the first social fraternity at North Texas.

On Homecoming Fridays, the Talons light a bonfire built from wooden pallets, typically in a 40-by-40-by-25-foot-height structure. The tradition has endured since the 1930s.

"Boomer" is a cannon fired by the Talons at football games since the 1970s. It is a 7/8th scale M1841 6 pound, smooth bore muzzleloader, resting on hand-crafted solid oak from the campus. Talon alumni have restored it three times, the most recent being in the Fall of 2007, adding a custom limber for transport and equipment.

The Green Machine is a green 1931 Ford Model A Tudor Sedan is driven by the Talons Cannon Crew at football games and special events. It was donated by alumnus Rex Cauble ('74). In 2012, a team of engineering students installed a NetGain WarP 9 electric engine.

McConnell Tower, the clock tower atop the Hurley Administration Building at the center of campus, is bathed in green light for victories. The clock is depicted is on the official class ring with two different times on its faces: 1:00 (for the One O'Clock Lab Band) and 7:00 — the curfew initiated in 1892.

The eagle talon hand signal is formed by curling the thumb and index and middle fingers forward — the ring and pinkie fingers stay closed against the palm.

"In High Places," is a 22 ft (6.7 m) tall bronze statue of a flying eagle created by Gerald Balciar and dedicated during the University's centennial in 1990.