No rest for the weary: TCU’s Gary Patterson is more ‘ambassador’ than ‘ball coach’
TCU coach Gary Patterson already knows one chapter he’d write in an autobiography – ‘My Perfect Day.’
“It’ll be one page,” Patterson said, “and it’ll be blank.”
Patterson drew laughter with that comment during a Fort Worth Chamber luncheon earlier this month, but it is true – coaching college football is a 24/7 job.
The 58-year-old Patterson has shown no signs of slowing down and remains as passionate as ever to keep TCU on the winning track.
Patterson doesn’t complain about having just six true weekends off last year, or two so far this year, because of new recruiting rules that allow schools to host official visits in April, May and June.
Oh, and forget about the holiday season. Patterson is usually running a practice or playing a game on Thanksgiving, and has spent Christmas in a hotel room at a bowl site 14 of the last 18 years.
“But you know what,” Patterson told the crowd, “it’s a great profession as long as you don’t need a weekend. It is what it is and it’s been fun.”
Patterson is in the midst of trying to recharge before the grind of another football season begins later this week with the start of fall camp. He didn’t get much of a summer break with recruiting efforts and charity endeavors.
Along with speaking to the Fort Worth Chamber, which presented him a check for his Patterson Foundation, he hosted another fundraising event for his foundation’s “Launch into Literacy” campaign earlier this month as well.
Patterson and his wife, Kelsey, are supporting local libraries because of troubling statistics of local children’s reading levels. In 2015, according to Patterson’s website, third-graders in Fort Worth had one of the lowest passing rates on the STAAR reading exam at 67 percent. In 2016, the pass rate fell to 61 percent and, as of 2017, just three in 10 students were reading on grade level.
“We were in one library where the most recent president on one of the books was Ronald Reagan,” Patterson said. “It kind of takes you back a little bit.”
Outside of football and his charity endeavors, Patterson has also found himself becoming more invested as the No. 1 ambassador for TCU. He spent part of his luncheon speech on the upgrades the school is in the midst of raising money for at Amon G. Carter Stadium.
He then spoke about the future TV contracts that could affect the revenue streams of schools. With more and more “cutting the cord” and declining TV ratings, college conferences might feel the effect if TV networks aren’t willing to pay as much as they have in the past.
The Big 12 TV deals with ESPN and FOX run through 2024-25.
“In four years, we’re going to have conversations because a lot of the young people, as you know, watch everything on their phone,” Patterson said. “How is ESPN, how is FOX, how are all these people going to do TV contracts? We’re not doing something [like upgrading the stadium] just because … it’s one of those things where we can create another amount of X-revenue so we can protect TCU, protect Fort Worth, as far as us always having the same kind of program.
“Maybe for a lot of years I was your ball coach. Nowadays you’re more of an ambassador.”
It’s safe to say Patterson never envisioned a day when he’d be talking about TV contracts and fundraising when his coaching career began in 1982 as a graduate assistant at Kansas State.
But that’s how the sports world has evolved over 36 years. It’s not just about coaching football anymore.
“I was still cutting up film and putting it on a wall and putting it back together, cutting and pasting,” Patterson said, smiling. “The world I knew when I started 36 years ago has changed completely.
“It still comes down to blocking and tackling, but that might be the only thing that’s the same.”