Conversation with an AD Part One - the UAC Rebrand

While I don't want the purpose of this blog to vary from its core, opinions and commentary on various aspects of the UT Arlington Mavericks Athletic Department, I have been contemplating in recent years how to do a little more, take it to the next level if you will. I attempted what follows last year, but obviously it didn't work, likely due to user error. I took a different approach, shook a few more hands and viola. 

On Friday afternoon, I had the genuine pleasure of a sit-down question and answer session "on the record" with the Athletic Director at UT Arlington, Jon Fagg. While I intended to make the interview a singular blog post, he allowed me to keep going. My thought process was if he offered 30 minutes, I was going to take 31. However, he let me go for over an hour and a half. As such, I really have to break it down into multiple parts. 

While I picked his brain about quite a bit of items, the drive home was filled with internal questions about things I should have followed up on more than I did, it was only natural. I did hit a lot of main points though. There is quite a bit of information in the conversation.

With that said, the Maverick Rambler presents its one-on-one with the AD.

Volleyball Preseason is Near the End

The Western Athletic Conference released the 2025 volleyball preseason poll and I have a suspicion that the UT Arlington Mavericks will feel a little disrespected. The defending champs were picked second by the conference's coaches.

The Utah Valley Wolverines were tagged as the preseason favorites, garnering five of the seven coaches first-place votes and a total of 34 points. UTA garnered one and the Utah Tech Trailblazers grabbed the final first-place vote. The Mavs edged the Blazers in total points, 29 to 25.

California Baptist was fourth (21), Abilene Christian (17), Tarleton State (12) and Southern Utah (9) round out the preseason poll.

2025 Schedule Detective

As summer closes and Universities across the country start to release the upcoming basketball season schedules, it is time to start compiling what we know about the UT Arlington schedules. To refresh your memories, UTA is usually makes their schedule known at the back end of school releases. They are usually quite late to the game. It gets harder and harder to schedule teams at UTA's level to get quality games, or in some cases, games at all. 

I get my non-conference information from two sources generally. The individual teams that have released their schedule already and Rocco Miller, who does about the best job out there of covering every school in the country as you'll find. Occasionally a third source comes out, but that is rare. 

Additionally, the Western Athletic Conference has released the upcoming conference slate. As was rumored, there will be a third game, ending the traditional round-robin, home-and-away format that has been the staple. Once the schedules are released, I'll opine my opinion of that and how the Mavs fare with that third game.

Here's what we know:

Facility Ranking

This summer has been the hardest to come up with content. Like last summer, I'm working on stuff that, also like last summer, hasn't panned out yet. It may not, or it may come a little later than I want, but the main point is that I think there have been fewer posts this summer than usual. 

However, I was thinking about a conversation I had on Twitter, or X, with another Mav fan about the state of Maverick Stadium from a several years ago. With the advent of a new sport coming to the venue, I was rethinking about that exchange. Specifically, what would Maverick Stadium need in terms of an upgrade or renovation.

While the pace has slowed, the have been renovations or new facilities in the last two decades that have completely changed the presentation of UT Arlington athletics from when I was a student. With that in mind, I thought about ranking the facilities on campus. Obviously, an apples-to-apples comparison is difficult, but using a base theme, like player amenities, curb appeal, fan comfort, location and overall function. the ranking can be standardized a bit.

With that framework set, here's my ranking of all Maverick athletic facilities:

Top Five 2024/25 Moments

 As July transitions into August, the end of the collegiate summer doldrums is in sight. Volleyball opens the 2025/26 athletic season at the end of the month. While many schools have been analyzing the offseason moves of their respective football team or pontificating on whether a new coach was the right hire, we UT Arlington Maverick fans are gauging if UTA can repeat as WAC champs on the volleyball court or looking for pieces to the basketball schedules.

As fall is still a lonely time for Mavs, that doesn't diminish the anticipation some have for the upcoming year. With that constraint, let's look back at past year and see the top five moments from 2024/25.

There will be some guidelines I will impose on the list. First, no team can have more than one moment. Without that constraint, it is probable that one team could own multiple spots and the list would rapidly lose balance. Second, this list will be constrained to athletic feats or milestones. For example, as excited as I am about women's flag football coming next season or as newsworthy as the Western Athletic Conference transforming to the United Athletic Conference was, they will be excluded from this list. Third, it doesn't have to be performance or scoreboard based, just has to revolve around a program at UTA.

With that framework set, let's start the countdown.