University of North Texas Athletics
Greene Statue Unveil, Groundbreaking On Saturday
9/24/2018 11:45:00 AM | Football
DENTON - North Texas will honor the past and look to the future with two special events on Saturday, September 29, before the football team's Conference USA opener.
The UNT Athletic Department will open the day with a groundbreaking ceremony for the start of construction on an indoor practice facility, followed by the unveiling of a statue of hall of fame football player Mean Joe Greene. Both ceremonies are open to the public.
The indoor practice facility will be located in the current outdoor football practice fields, next to the Athletic Center and the Victory Hall dorm. The groundbreaking will take place at 3 p.m. at the southeast corner of the White parking lot.
The statue of Joe Greene will be located in front of Apogee Stadium on the west side near Gate 2, and the unveiling, which is expected to be attended by several of Joe Greene's fellow NFL players, will begin at 4 p.m.
Attendees to the unveiling can pick up a free commemorative Mean Joe Greene replica statue key chain, which will be handed out starting at 3:30.
At Saturday's game against Louisiana Tech, UNT will distribute 10,000 commemorative football-card packs featuring Mean Joe thru his life. Each pack with contain four cards: Mean Joe with UNT, with the Steelers, in his NFL Hall of Fame jacket, and featuring his philanthropy. One thousand of the packs will contain a golden ticket which fans can redeem to receive a Mean Joe Greene commemorative keychain.
Students will have the opportunity to grab one of 4,000 Mean Joe Greene commemorative t-shirts, which will be distributed to UNT students on The Hill tailgating area starting at 4 p.m. Saturday. The t-shirt giveaway location will be next to the stage where live music takes place.
The day will conclude when North Texas faces Louisiana Tech at 6:30 p.m. at Apogee Stadium, in a meeting of two teams that went to bowl games a year ago and are expected to contend for the C-USA West Division title this year.
