HIGH PLAINS SETTLER
Small-town Kansas fashioned Gary Patterson into a Fort Worth icon
ARLINGTON, TEXAS — Gary Patterson grew up loving music.
As a seventh-grader, he was the lead singer in a band that actually was paid from time to time. While a student at Kansas State, Patterson was part of a harmony singing group.
Patterson sang at his own wedding reception. He’s been known to play his guitar around Fort Worth, both for fun and to raise money for various causes.
But music is not what got him off the High Plains of Kansas and into the high society of Fort Worth. That would be sports.
“You worked seven days a week,” Patterson said. “You either played sports or you worked. To stay out of the field, you played all the sports. Didn’t matter if it was track or whatever, you made sure you got on the bus.”
Patterson remains on the bus. TCU’s iconic football coach takes his Horned Frogs into the Big 12 Championship Game on Saturday against Oklahoma, and Patterson has built quite a program. Once left behind in the ashes of the Southwest Conference, TCU has risen to become the most successful football program in the state of Texas, over more than a decade.
Not the Longhorns. Not Texas A&M. Not Baylor.
TCU. Five times Texas Christian University has finished in the AP top 10 in the last 10 years, with a chance to do so again this season with an upset of the Sooners.
Patterson, in his 17th season as the Frogs’ head coach and his 20th season overall at TCU, now has lived longer in Fort Worth than he lived in Rosel. Patterson left Pawnee County Kansas in 1978. But Pawnee County never left him.
“Growing up with a background of trying to treat people right, work hard, love sports,” Patterson said. “Growing up in a family where you had all that probably influenced me as much as anything.”
Rosel, Kansas
Rosel sits in the wide open spaces of central and western Kansas. Rosel is 53 miles south of Hays, 87 miles west of Hutchinson and 55 miles northeast of Dodge City.
The population of Rosel in 1970, when Patterson was 10 years old, was 236. Patterson’s graduating class at Pawnee Heights was about 27. The population of Rosel in 2016 was estimated at 150, with the school enrollment also declining.
“Basically, it’s a working town, working people,” said Greg Patterson, Gary’s younger brother by two years.
Keith Patterson had a dirt business that leveled farmland for irrigation. Gail Patterson was a nurse. Their two sons and two daughters knew what it meant to work.
“It was sunup to sundown,” Greg Patterson said. “Just a lot of hard work. Lot of great people. We played sports. That was kind of our getaway.”
Patterson’s music acumen is a mystery. Greg Patterson said the family wasn’t all that musicallyinclined and that his brother self-taught himself to play the guitar.
But Gary Patterson came by his athleticism honest. He was only 5-foot-10 but had a decent amount of talent, long-jumping about 21 feet and being a savvy player in multiple sports. The Pattersons’ father was a good athlete. Their uncle Ray Patterson played football alongside Bill Parcells at Wichita State, and their uncle Harold was a three-sport star at Kansas who became a Canadian Football League star.
Gary Patterson “was one of those guys, didn’t have all the talent in the world,” Greg Patterson said. “But where his talent shined, he was so committed and worked extremely hard on everything he did. Mediocre, that wasn’t allowed with him. He was self-motivated. Anything he did, he did to his fullest.”
Patterson wasn’t Pawnee Heights’ valedictorian but was an excellent student. School came easy to him.
“Academics was always important to him,” Greg Patterson said. “You didn’t go without doing your homework. You attended class, and if you didn’t, there was consequences. We never got by with anything.”
Greg Patterson still lives in Rosel and owns a sports bar in Rush Center, about 20 miles north. Keith Patterson still lives in the house in which he raised his family. Pawnee Heights’ enrollment continues to decline. Gary Patterson played on the Tigers’ last full-time 11-man football team. Greg Patterson’s senior year was split between 11and eight-man football. A few years ago, Pawnee Heights went without a football team, but the Tigers have since started playing six-man football and this year won the state championship.
Still a lot of pride in Pawnee County.
“The way we lived in our early years has a great impact on us,” said TCU athletic director Chris Del Conte. “Gary grew up in a hardworking family, the soils of Kansas. That work ethic, that let-your-actionspeak-louderthanyour-words, defines who he is and who our program is. It’s never been about him. It’s been about TCU, it’s been about his players. That’s just the way he operates, in all facets.”
Campus life
Patterson graduated from Pawnee Heights in 1978 and went to Dodge City Community College with an academic scholarship and went out for the football team. Two years later, same thing at Kansas State. Academic scholarship, football walk-on.
Those were the days when Kansas State was shackled with the reputation as the nation’s worst football program. When Patterson got to Manhattan in 1980, the Wildcats had produced one winning season in 26 years.
“At that time, we were trying to just get anybody just come see us,” said Gary Darnell, a Moore High School and OSU graduate who then was K-State’s defensive coordinator. “If you were able-bodied, it was a pretty wide open door. He showed up, he was able to contribute his first year.
“As you can tell, he is not a spoiled child. He’s earned every inch he ever got. Just one of those fireball kind of guys.”
In 1981, Kansas State coach Jim Dickey famously turned desperate in trying to invigorate the Wildcat program. He redshirted 12 seniors, tanking the season, and KSU went 2-9. But in 1982, Kansas State had newfound depth and a chance to compete, and the Wildcats went 6-4-1, earning a berth to the Independence Bowl. Until Bill Snyder’s arrival, that was the only bowl berth in KSU history.
Patterson did not play on that team. He had suffered a knee injury, KSU had better linebackers anyway and Darnell convinced Patterson to become a student assistant coach.
“He wanted to be a coach from a young age,” Greg Patterson said. “A teacher and a coach.”
After that season, Darnell was hired as head coach at Tennessee Tech. He took Patterson with him to coach linebackers. A coaching odyssey had been launched.
Finding Fort Worth
For a guy so rooted early in Rosel and rooted so lately in Fort Worth, Patterson certainly lived a nomadic coaching life. Two years at Tennessee Tech. One year at Cal-Davis. One year at Cal Lutheran. One year at Pittsburg State. Three years at Sonoma State. Three years at Utah State. One year at Navy. Two years at New Mexico.
Along the way, Patterson embraced the 4-2-5 defense and the idea that he could coach with the best of them.
“He’s a fairly humble guy,” Darnell said. “I’ve always known inside his gut, he feels ‘I’m as good as those guys.’ But he never wore it on his sleeve. He just didn’t back down from anybody on anything.”
Patterson embraced a defensive philosophy of not outsmarting himself. Patterson believes that too much complication gets in the way. It’s a belief also embraced by the likes of Jimmy Johnson.
“The simplicity of what you do, the reaction time,” Darnell said. “If you delay the reaction of the defense ... the simpler you can make it, the better off you are.”
Patterson had coached for Dennis Franchione at Pitt State in 1988, then rejoined Franchione at New Mexico in 1996. When TCU hired Franchione in 1998, Patterson came along as defensive coordinator, and when Franchione was hired by Alabama at the end of the 2000 season, Patterson was promoted to head coach.
He had found a new home.
Horned Frog icon
Most American football fans see Patterson as an intense, rambling, defensive mastermind. They’re not all wrong. Patterson’s singing voice isn’t what it used to be — too much yelling over the years, he figures.
But that rumpled look belies the intelligence of the man inside the TCU gear.
Darnell calls Patterson “stubborn as hell” but also points out that Patterson’s “raw intelligence is high. His common sense is very very high, which is a nice combination. He’s a guy, doesn’t show his hand all the time.”
Patterson has had competitive feuds with former Baylor coach Art Briles, Texas Tech University and OU quarterback Baker Mayfield. Patterson is smart, but he’s also feisty.
“He’ll let his emotions rise above his brain every once in awhile,” Darnell said.
But Patterson has mostly built an exemplary program. The Frogs went from conference vagabonds to Big 12 power. From decaying facilities to pristine (and paid for) facilities. From a meager fan base to the pride of a major American city. TCU had five conference affiliations since 1995 — Southwest Conference, Western Athletic Conference, Conference USA, Mountain West Conference and Big East — before finding the promised land of the Big 12. The new Amon Carter Stadium is a jewel; the Horned Frog administration refers to it as the Camden Yards of college football, and while it might not be that lofty of a structure, it’s impressive to anyone who saw a game in the old Amon Carter Stadium.
Del Conte, the TCU athletic director, calls the hirings of Patterson and university chancellor Victor Boschini Jr. (in 2003) “the two most important hires in modern TCU history.”
Texas Christian University is a transformed place, and athletics is a big part of that. The football success is wellknown. But baseball coach Jim Schlossnagle has taken the Horned Frogs to the College World Series five times since 2010. And that kind of success helped entice basketball coach Jamie Dixon to return to his alma mater, and TCU has become competitive in the Big 12. What Snyder means to Kansas State, Patterson means to TCU.
“Gary has been able to stay and make this a destination,” Del Conte said. “TCU’s a great place to go and be a part of and you can have an amazing career.
“Gary has put us on the map. We’re known from coast to coast. That brand has accentuated all those other sports. The rising tide of football has lifted all boats.”
Patterson is still hollering on the field and picking his guitar off the field, still working hard, still making sure that he gets on the bus.