From a philosophy student to collegiate sports, Howard Patterson’s journey is nothing short of remarkable. As UT Tyler’s assistant VP for Athletics, he’s seen the inside curve of the track, guiding UT Tyler Athletics’ ambitious shift from Division III to II. Patterson recounts the strategic play-by-play of building an athletic program from the ground up, the excitement of watching student-athletes flourish, and the nitty-gritty of juggling a bustling athletic department.
Patterson also shares tales of UT Tyler alumni who have sprinted beyond the finish line, like Brittany Mahomes, whose post-collegiate endeavors continue to break new ground. As he charts the potential addition of a football program, we hear there’s more to it than just the ability to score touchdowns.
TRANSCRIPT
LANDESS:
After dominating an NCAA Division III for years, UT Tyler Athletics moved up to Division II and since then has claimed seven Lone Star Conference Championships. I’m UT Tyler Radio News Director Mike Landess. The man who led the Patriots through the transition to Division II is now the assistant vice president for Athletics. UT Tyler Radio Connects with Dr. Howard Patterson. So how did a guy with a doctorate of philosophy degree become a top men’s and women’s soccer coach and now a top NCAA Division II contender?
PATTERSON:
Sheer luck. Sheer luck. Soccer was a passion of mine all the way, I wouldn’t say growing up. I started developing a passion for soccer my junior year in high school. I hadn’t played up until then and then continued it through college, not ever being very good at it but still loving to play the game. And then my senior year at Springfield College in Massachusetts, where I went to college, there was a job board back then. We didn’t have all of the electronics and stuff, and no cell phones, so schools that were looking to hire people would send a sheet of paper, and it would get pinned up to the job board, and the paper would say what the job was and where it was. So I went and walked by there one day, and I saw a posting for graduate assistant men’s soccer coach at Midwestern University in Wichita Falls, Texas. So I had to go to the library to figure out where Wichita Falls, Texas, was. And OK, so I could take off and maybe, if I get a job in Texas, see if I can do it, because I’d be the head coach, or I could stay there at Springfield and be a graduate assistant to Herb Schmidt, who was a great guy, wonderful gentleman, who’s passed away since then. But I applied for the Midwestern job, figuring I had nothing to lose, and they brought me down and interviewed me, and I loved Wichita Falls. I love the people there more than the city, but nonetheless it felt right. So, despite my angst at leaving my parents, being an only child and moving 1,500 miles away, I took the job and kind of the rest is history at Midwestern. I stayed there 16 and a half years, and we were in two national finals. We had set the record for 11 consecutive years, qualifying for the national championship tournament and just loved it. But then this guy at Incarnate Word came along and said, “I want you to come down here and be our athletic director and then straighten out the soccer program. It’s in disarray, it needs some help.”
LANDESS:
And Incarnate Word is where?
PATTERSON:
San Antonio.
LANDESS:
San Antonio.
PATTERSON:
Right across the street from Trinity, basically. It’s a retirement headquarters for the Northern Hemisphere nuns, I don’t know what order order, of Incarnate Word, I guess. Anyway, I went down there, interviewed, liked San Antonio, as most people do, and liked the campus. It was a private Catholic school. I said what the heck, I’d like to be an AD. Let’s see what that is like. And so I’d had a really good mentor at Midwestern, Gerald Stockton, who was the basketball coach and AD — was a great guy and helped me tremendously along my career. I figured I’d take a chance, and I went down there, took the job and loved it. Love San Antonio. Our children were born there, my wife taught there. And then this job at University of Texas at Tyler popped up, and it was to start an athletic program. And I thought, “Well, what the heck, I can try that.” I’ve never really had a on-site mentor, somebody that like I was the assistant AD. No, I was the AD. I was the assistant men’s soccer coach. No, I was the soccer coach. So I really never had anyone to learn from other than through observation, like Gerald Stockton.
LANDESS: Osmosis!
PATTERSON: Yeah, osmosis, I guess. So I applied for this job. I met, I came up and met Rod Mabry, whom I liked. Dale Lunsford, you know, I hit it off pretty quick. And then I went back to San Antonio, and I get a call from Dale. He says, “I’m gonna be in town. Can we meet for lunch?” I said sure, so we meet. He offers me the job, and he says, “I can only afford to pay you this much.” That’s fine, I said that’s, that’ll be great. So we didn’t, he told me later, he said, “You should have haggled with me, I would have given you more.”
LANDESS:
And you said, “Well, I would have taken less.”
PATTERSON:
I would have yeah, well, yeah, I know it so and here I am. That was 23 years ago, 23 and a half, and–
LANDESS: Wow, that’s amazing.
PATTERSON: My first, first meeting. There are two of us in the studio here, but I would have had one more person in the studio, and that was my first staff–three people.
LANDESS: Oh my gosh.
PATTERSON: We were able to build facilities and add coaches and add programs over the years. And, I think my success here is directly related to the people that I’ve been able to hire, because I haven’t coached any team since I’ve been here, haven’t hit a ball, haven’t kicked the ball. We’ve been able to hire great coaches, and they have produced the success at the Division III and now at the Division II level.
LANDESS:
Well along those lines, I was just looking at recent stories regarding UT Tyler Athletics, just over the past month. I found women’s golf, softball, baseball, men’s and women’s tennis, men’s and women’s track and field, men and women’s basketball. I mean there’s a lot, and it’s all going on at the same time. How do you, do you have to clone yourself to keep up with all this?
PATTERSON:
Yeah, thankfully we have good calendars on our phones nowadays, and I get a lot of alerts that come on, like I’m supposed to be at a radio show here in 20 minutes, so here I am.
LANDESS: Right, here you are.
PATTERSON: It’s so much fun to watch the student athletes grow, to see them in competition. I go to a lot of practices and what not. Don’t get to stay very long, but 10, 15 minutes to watch teams practice. Get to know the coaches fairly well, and not so much their staffs, but the head coaches and the support staff that we have: sports information, facilities, academics, etc. So it’s it’s been, you know, the key is hire good people. Hire good people and go do radio shows — that’s the key.
LANDESS:
That is the key. There are scores of success stories for UT Tyler Athletics, certainly from the Division III days and now from the emergence into Division II. Do you ever (have) misgivings about making that step up to Division II?
PATTERSON:
Well, contrary to what people might think, this wasn’t my idea to go to Division II. I thought we had a very strong Division III program. We had the right model: student-athletes — students first, athletes second. And it concerned me a little bit, moving to Division II, when that announcement was made by a former president, Dr. (Mike) Tidwell, that going to, we were going to go to Division II, and we applied for membership, and we were fortunate enough to get in the first group of people transitioning from III to II. It was a 3-year process. Division II is much more competitive than Division III is. You tend to get maybe not as as high a quality student-athlete in Division II because winning is important in Division II. You don’t want to be last in every sport. You don’t want to be last in any sport, but our coaches again have been able to do, to attract good quality student-athletes. In fact, this past semester, was the first time in the program’s history that I can remember anyway, that every sport had a GPA above 3.0, and we had a department GPA of 3.41 with the university’s GPA of 3.29. So every semester I’ve been here, and that would be 46, with the exception of one semester, we’ve always had a higher GPA than the student body as a whole. So, again, it’s good, hiring good coaches, having them make sure that they understand this is for the students, academics first and athletics second.
LANDESS:
I mentioned that you were a very successful soccer coach. One of UT Tyler women’s soccer success stories is a young woman who was known as Brittany Matthews in those days. She and her winning team actually came to the CBS 19 studios when I worked there, and I have a photo of them on the news set with us. Now, all the world has photos of the now Brittany Mahomes as a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model. That’s another UT Tyler Athletics first, right?
PATTERSON:
Yes, Brittany has done extremely well, as has Patrick.
LANDESS:
Yes, he’s doing pretty well.
PATTERSON:
Yeah, he’s doing pretty well.
LANDESS: High five for him.
PATTERSON: He’s a hell of an athlete.
LANDESS: He is, no question.
PATTERSON: No one, I say no one–I don’t think anyone ever thought that he would reach these heights at 29 years of age. He is still so very young. He and my son graduated together.
LANDESS: Oh, is that right?
PATTERSON: Actually, my son was at the Sports Illustrated party in Vegas during the Super Bowl for Brittany. He and Patrick are still very good friends, and Brittany is very good friends with our women’s soccer coach still.
LANDESS:
And she is actually a part of a professional team in Kansas City, right?
PATTERSON:
Right, she’s part owner of that women’s professional soccer team. And they’re building the only women’s professional soccer facility or field or stadium in the country. This will be the first. And it’s just, it’s gorgeous, just gorgeous.
LANDESS:
It’ll be fantastic. So soccer is such an international sport and programs in Texas high schools and colleges are fairly robust these days. That said, do you still get questioned about when is UT Tyler gonna get a football team?
PATTERSON:
You’re the first this week. I did get one last week from the Greeks here on campus. Football is such an expensive sport. In Division II, I’d say the average cost to have a football team is $2.5 million. The challenge that we would have, other than the $2.5 million, is a facility, because we have nowhere on campus to practice, to store sleds, for the guys to shower, store all their gear. We have no offices for football staff. So my estimate a few years ago was $60 million just to get started, and that’s not hiring a coach or giving out one scholarship. So it’s an expensive sport. Now, it brings a tremendous amount of life to a campus. There’s not much like game day, Saturday game day and the tailgating and everything that goes with it. But I’ve not yet to have anyone offer to give me $60 million.
LANDESS:
Well, I think that obviously Dr. Calhoun’s priority was to get the medical school started, and now that that’s going and will be in place, one has to wonder if that wouldn’t start to come up again.
PATTERSON:
It could. I guess it would depend on our next president, who will probably be here this summer, my guess is, or Sept. 1. If that president comes from a D2 school, you know, if he’s coming from a hospital or the health center, then he won’t have a passion probably, probably for football. But if he happens to be coming from a Division II or Division I institution where football was a part of the culture at that school, then he may, he may start working on it. It’s a lot of money.
LANDESS:
I was interested, I wondered about Rice’s football team. I wondered how they did in sports, and I guess they’re best known for baseball, not even football.
PATTERSON: That’s correct.
LANDESS: Yeah, exactly, all right. So your teams have had so much success over the years. Does that make the recruiting process for the various sports easier, or is the competition for those young athletes pretty intense at the Division II level?
PATTERSON:
That’s a good question. Competition is intense because in our conference, which is the largest conference in the United States – Division II, and it’s also the most spread out. We are nine, 885 miles point-to-point from us to Western New Mexico and Silver City, so it’s a very spread out conference. Competition has always been tough, whether it be Division III or Division II. In Division III, it was tough because a lot of the private schools had different ways of awarding financial aid, and we were strictly FAFSA and need-based. But in Division II, we all have similar amounts of scholarships. And that means that school A can give a kid a full ride. School B — us — can give that kid a full ride. So now, how do you entice them to come? One thing that’s making a difference in Division I is NIL — name, image and likeness and there are —
LANDESS: Explain that for people who may not be totally familiar with it.
PATTERSON: Name, image, likeness is a way to provide financial assistance to a student athlete in return for them promoting a product. So maybe they’re promoting Torchy’s Tacos, so they take a picture of them in front of Torchy’s Tacos eating a taco. That’s the bottom end. The top end is multiple millions of dollars.
LANDESS:
Nike and…
PATTERSON:
Yeah, Nike, the girl’s, Caitlin (Clark), the women’s basketball player in Iowa is, is making more money as a college athlete than she would if she were a professional athlete.
LANDESS:
Oh, my goodness.
PATTERSON:
The gymnast over in Louisiana is making multiple millions. So that’s how that student athlete’s image and name and or likeness can be sold to a company that wants to be associated with that student athlete. So that’s huge in Division I, because now you can say not only are you getting a full scholarship, but I got a $70,000 over here from Burger King if you come here. As opposed to, all I can do is give you a full ride. So it’s really unevened the playing field.
LANDESS: Give them some Whataburger certificates, couldn’t you?
PATTERSON: I’ll tell you what, well, we can do that. And you know at our level here, we’ve got a couple of kids that are getting $50, $100, and we’re exploring other avenues for our student athletes. But that’s going to be the next wave in Division II, the schools that can provide money for NIL, and it’s not the school. That’s an outside entity. The school can’t be a part of it. But it’s still being brokered through the school. So you come here, you got this. So competition’s tough for players. The other problem we have is we’re a moderately selected institution. We’re not open enrollment. So there are schools in our conference that will take anyone that fogs a mirror. They may not be there for 4 years, but they’re going to come in in year one and make a difference. We can’t recruit those student athletes.
LANDESS:
OK. UT Tyler’s transition into Division II sports has been pretty remarkable. You think the Patriots will compete in Division I between now and when you retire?
PATTERSON:
No. Division I would probably triple our budget. And our budget is upwards of $8 million now with scholarships. Division I’s another world. Those teams that you see on TV, they don’t mess around. They’re starting lineup in basketball 6’8″, 6’9″ and we scrimmage. We actually played exhibitions with Arkansas this year, got destroyed. We played Arlington and played OK, but there’s still a difference. They’re recruiting up two or three levels above where we are. Every now and then, you’ll get a D1 kid who comes to Division II because he washed out or sat on the bench. He’s good, but he never did get to get in the competition at D1, and he can come to D2 and make a huge difference.
LANDESS: And make a name for himself.
PATTERSON: We haven’t found any of those yet.
LANDESS: Oh well, you’re still looking.
PATTERSON: We’re still looking,
LANDESS: Still looking. Any final thoughts to share?
PATTERSON:
Well, our women’s basketball team go on to the conference tournament, and then after that, they should be in the regional tournament which we might be hosting. Baseball is off to a good start. Softball is off to a good start. Men’s, women’s golf are off to a good start. Women’s track finished third in the conference indoor meet; men fifth in the indoor meet. We’re having a pretty good year. Not everything’s perfect. We’re not beating everybody, but we’re still transitioning to that Division II. Yes, we’re a solid Division II program across the board. So this is only our third year in Division II.
LANDESS:
And you’re emphasizing the student part of student-athlete.
PATTERSON:
Yes, yes, sir, yeah, that’s the most important part to me — GPAs and graduation.
LANDESS:
Thanks for listening as UT Tyler Radio Connects with Assistant Vice President for Athletics Dr. Howard Patterson. To share, listen again or for a transcript of this interview, visit our website, UTTylerRadio.org. To be notified about future episodes, subscribe to “UT Tyler Radio Connects” on your favorite podcast platform. For UT Tyler Radio News, I’m Mike Landess.
(Transcripts are automatically generated and may contain phonetic spellings and other spelling and punctuation errors. Grammar errors contained in the original recording are not typically corrected.)
