Sherrington: Why Texas' Steve Patterson would be smart to lighten up until his signature work pans out
On the warm-and-fuzzy scale, athletic directors typically register somewhere between IRS agents and hit men, yet everyone remains happily employed as long as the numbers line up and the right people get eliminated.
Just the same, Steve Patterson’s bedside manner may do him in first.
We know this because Texas’ new president, Greg Fenves, has been in office only since last month, and sources tell our Chuck Carlton that he’s reportedly coached up his athletic director twice and tentatively scheduled another session in customer relations for Friday.
Where all this counseling leads, we don’t know for sure. Despite mounting reports of Patterson’s arrogance or insensitivity, getting canned so early in his tenure seems a stretch.
You’d think he’d be welcome at least until it’s clearer whether his signature work, Charlie Strong and Shaka Smart, will pan out.
In most cases, media and fans judge athletic directors on their hiring record. If balance sheets were interesting, we’d all be accountants.
Even so, Patterson has managed to make his personality a talking point pretty much since he was hired 20 months ago. Unless you’re a pro rassler or a Kardashian, that’s not good business.
Let me ask: When’s the last time you heard or read a story criticizing the personal style of Texas A&M’s athletic director, Eric Hyman? TCU’s Chris Del Conte? Baylor’s Ian McCaw? Oklahoma’s Joe Castiglione?
Raise your hand if you knew Rick Hart was SMU’s AD.
Nothing against any of the above, especially Hart, who made a terrific football hire in Chad Morris. My point is that, for the most part, Hart and the rest of his colleagues go about their business professionally, quietly and, apparently, without malice.
We don’t hear much about any of them until it’s time to hire or fire a coach. Once the dirty work’s done, they retreat to their fundraisers.
Funny thing is, if the search committee trying to find DeLoss Dodds’ replacement had done its homework, it’d have known Patterson isn’t exactly Mr. Rogers. A columnist for the Oregonian, John Canzano, has practically made a cottage industry of Patterson anecdotes, none flattering.
Consider this personal favorite from Patterson’s days as a Portland Trail Blazers executive: Convinced that a trade rumor had leaked from his office staff, Patterson lined up his people and threatened to fire everyone to get the source. One secretary started crying.
Turns out the reporter got the information from a fax Patterson left in full view.
Still, no one called Patterson an ogre in the year and a half he was Arizona State’s AD. Texas officials also were blown away by Patterson’s varied sports background, the breadth of which is, indeed, impressive. He thought so far outside the box, he made Oliver Luck, the perceived favorite and a man of considerable credentials as well, seem like an anachronism.
College sports is big business these days, as all the have-nots lament. It’s good to have someone in charge who knows how to tap new streams. Heaven help you for falling behind in the weight-room gap.
But even as colleges claw for every last bit of revenue available, they’d be wise to remember that the customers are, at heart, a sentimental bunch, some actually under the impression that college athletics should occasionally rise above the interests of the bottom line.
Crazy, right?
As a longtime University of Texas professor, Rick Cherwitz, wrote last month in a Fort Worth Star-Telegram guest editorial after Patterson more than doubled the price of faculty and staff season football and basketball tickets, faculty members no longer feel like “family.â€
“Instead,†Cherwitz wrote, “we became another one of the institution’s many ‘corporate customers.’ â€
Patterson recently attempted to address such charges in a memo to donors. Among other revelations, including travel plans for the marching band, he notes that donations have been flat for five years. He also reports a net loss of $8.1 million for the athletic department in 2013-14, first since the millennium.
It all sounds fairly reasonable until you consider that Texas has been the biggest bellcow in college athletics for years, and donations to athletic programs often are tied to the fortunes of the football and basketball teams.
One of the reasons Patterson fired Mack Brown and Rick Barnes and hired such good replacements was to improve the prospects in the won-loss as well as the balance column.
Until Strong and Smart get some time to turn it around, Patterson would be wise to lighten up. It’d be too bad if he weren’t around to enjoy his best work.
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