The care and feeding of an athletic department sugar daddy can be a perilous business. Just ask University of North Texas Athletic Director Rick Villarreal.

Just a few short years ago, a wealthy gentleman by the name of Al Goldfield was the bull-goose backer of UNT’s drive to get a new football stadium. Goldfield and his wife, Shirley, donated $1.5 million to the stadium campaign back in 2006, when the project was just getting up and running, and that seed money was essential in paying for the early planning costs for a new 30,000-seat stadium to replace the crumbling Fouts Field.

Now, the appropriately named Goldfield and UNT have all but split the blankets. Goldfield, a cellphone millionaire who built a gigundo house in Denton County and took a shine to UNT athletics despite never having attended the school, told the Record-Chronicle’s Brett Vito this week that he is no longer actively involved in the stadium project, or with the UNT athletic department.

Goldfield was sketchy about details of the breakup, but he indicated he didn’t think the fundraising effort had been very effective so far. He also seems to have felt neglected. He told our man Vito that he had asked the athletic department to keep him posted regularly on the fundraising campaign, but that it hadn’t done so.

“I told them that Ann [UNT Associate Athletic Director Ann Clinkscales, who had headed up fundraising for the stadium project before resigning recently] could call me once a month or when they found a major donor,” Goldfield said. “That was four months ago and I haven’t heard from her. I found out that she stepped down. I haven’t talked to Rick in four months, either.”

It’s the classic story: You don’t call. You don’t write. You don’t send me flowers any more.

Our sympathy goes out to Villarreal, who must feel like the bumfuzzled husband who can’t figure out what he’s said that’s gotten him exiled to the living room sofa. He is playing it cagy, as all experienced husbands do if they wish to get back in their wives’ good graces. He has had nothing but praise and kind words for Goldfield since the story broke.

“I look forward to working with Al as this project comes to fruition,” said Villarreal, leaving the door wide open for a reconciliation. “The Goldfields should always know that they were a major part of making it happen.”

Honey, you sure look great in that dress! Have you lost weight?

L’affaire Goldfield reminded us of the last dustup between UNT and one of its athletic sugar daddies. It was in November of 2006, when UNT fired head football coach Darrell Dickey after a few dismal seasons. That firing enraged one big athletic donor, a furniture huckster named Jim “Mattress Mac” McIngvale. (Do all athletic sugar daddies have such colorful names?)

McIngvale had given a cool million to the UNT athletic department to help build its new athletic center, and UNT had named its new football practice field after him in recognition of that gift.

But Mattress Mac was a Darrell Dickey fan, and he was so upset at Dickey’s firing that he demanded that his name be taken off of the new practice field. Failing that, he said, UNT should give his million bucks to the fabled One O’clock Lab Band, not a bad idea, really, but heresy for a football guy.

UNT weathered that storm, and it will doubtless survive this one as well, but it will doubtless take time for the wounds — emotional and financial — to heal.

Neil Sedaka was right: Breaking up is hard to do.