Cowgirls open new stadium with win
STILLWATER — The Oklahoma State women’s soccer team waited in the grass of its upgraded stadium Sunday, the shadow of a new dawning stretching farther across the field as the sun fittingly set closer and closer to the horizon.
Clay Patterson, the fourth speaker in a procession that also included Oklahoma State president Burns Hargis and athletic director Mike Holder, stood at midfield of the stadium that bore his father’s name. He turned toward the sun-beaten Cowgirls and spoke of Neal Patterson.
“He believed in this program’s potential,” he said. “He believed in Coach Holder and the athletic department. He believed in Oklahoma State University.
“He also believed in results, so go get ’em.”
The Cowgirls delivered on that request, opening their 23rd season and Neal Patterson Stadium with a 2-1 nonconference victory over Oklahoma with a record 4,122 fans in attendance. Neal Patterson, the OSU alum and Cernor Corp. founder who donated half of $20 million needed for the Cowgirls’ new stadium, died in July 2017, missing a pregame ceremony to celebrate his achievements that left a handful of Cowgirls in tears.
“We wanted to win for Neal and for his family and for all the people that came here,” coach Colin Carmichael said after the game. “We weren’t playing for ourselves. We were playing for something greater. I’m happy we got to do that for everybody that came out. It was just a special, special night. It’s a night I’ll never forget.”
During the ceremony, Hargis and Holder both took the podium wearing scarfs for Sporting KC, the Major League Soccer club of which Patterson was a part owner. The stadium, too, hosts a small token of that connection. Similarly to how Sporting KC’s Children’s Mercy Park has a singular orange chair for Patterson’s affinity for OSU, there is a blue chair in Patterson’s honor on the club level of the Cowgirls’ new complex.
“The best thing about the stadium is having Neal’s name on it and all that represents,” Holder said. “All the things that we hold dear to our hearts in athletics — honesty, integrity, perseverance, humility, unselfishness, competitiveness, courage — Neal Patterson embodied all of those.”
During the ceremony, the Cowgirls wore light blue shirts honoring Patterson with a version of a quote from his father, Wendell, “Plow one last round after sunset,” reflective of the work ethic Patterson learned in his boyhood on his family farm in Manchester.
Holder said the same quote will be used above the players’ entrance to the stadium. It’s an attitude he wants everyone at OSU, not only athletes, to adopt. It’s one Patterson certainly did.
“I want to thank Neal for working hard,” Holder said. “I want to thank him believing in OSU soccer and the role of the female athlete in the future of our country; for never forgetting where he came from, Manchester, Oklahoma, and a family farm; for making our dream of this new soccer stadium come true; and most especially, for his friendship. I will always respect and admire and love Neal Patterson.”