Sarah Patterson: An Icon That Touched Many Lives

  

The 2014 edition of SEC Football Media Days, as expected, dominated most of the sports-related headlines in our parts last week, with a record crowd of media representatives flooding Hoover to interrogate coaches and players from all 14 conference programs.

For Tuscaloosa, however, and also a good portion of the SEC community, the retirement announcement last week of longtime University of Alabama gymnastics coach Sarah Patterson also resulted  in many stories throughout the week. There were also plenty of tributes from former UA gymnasts, sports columnists and members of the UA athletic family. Of course all of the tributes were very much merited and truly well-deserved as Patterson is an iconic coaching figure, not only within the confines of Tuscaloosa and UA, but also on the SEC and national level.

That is what happens when you are the creator of a program which has tallied over 1,000 wins, and a coach who equaled legendary Alabama football coach Paul "Bear" Bryant by leading the Crimson Tide gymnastics program to six national titles.

Upon listening to Patterson's press conference and reading the numerous stories detailing all of the achievements of her and her program in the days that followed, I wondered if I should follow suit and write my own piece chronicling her success while celebrating not only  the incredible numbers she has totaled with the Crimson Tide, but also her overall impact on the Capstone and West Alabama in general.

Although I have a lot of personal admiration for Patterson  and the program that she and her husband David largely built by themselves following her hiring by Bryant some 36 years ago, I have to admit that I have never been a huge follower of the program, or gymnastics in general,  and have probably only attended a handful of actual meets in my life if that many. I have always enjoyed keeping up with the athletic and academic achievements of the many great student-athletes she has brought into the UA program. I even gained a pretty nice friendship with one of Patterson's most legendary gymnasts ever in Dee Foster, a very impressive and intelligent person and an individual that truly represented the standard of excellence that Patterson no doubt expected from the thousands of young people who she coached and mentored over the years.

It dawned on me that perhaps a better route to take would to actually let one of Patterson's own gymnasts write a guest blog about the legendary coach for this site,  so I immediately contacted one of them who I happen to be Facebook friends with and gauged her interest in doing a piece in honor of her departing coach. I was thrilled when she said she would love to do it.  However, a few days later, after she had already written her blog, the opportunity for my site to publish it was ultimately declined by a representative of the UA Athletic Media Relations Department without any explanation. To say that I was extremely disappointed and frustrated with this decision is a huge understatement, but unfortunately I was not the least bit surprised by it.

For many years, going back to my days with the Crimson White while a student at the Capstone, I have on numerous occasions dealt with the overall rude and genuinely snotty nature of many officials within this department, so this short and sweet rejection note was just another example of how uncooperative and pompous certain people within this department can be.  To be fair I will say that this does not describe the department as a whole as I have also been fortunate enough to have had good working relationships with media office officials who have gone out of their way to be helpful and nice.

I can definitely detail more negative stories than good ones, though, regarding Alabama media relations people, however,  and I certainly felt it was unfortunate that because in this case a representative chose to leave me in limbo for a day before finally blowing me off, a Crimson Tide gymnast was deprived of the opportunity to express in her own words the impact that Patterson has had on her life.  And yes, the guest blog would have been a great and no doubt widely-read bonus for the faithful readers of the site that Darren Owens and I take much pride in and also put a lot of effort into maintaining.

All that being said, it is still very much an honor for me to  express much admiration to Patterson for leading a program that has been a legendary one in the annals of intercollegiate athletics, and one that has also been a jewel for my alma mater in terms of being a model for athletic and academic dominance.  I also wish her much happiness and good health well into the future, especially after she is fully healed from her upcoming knee replacement surgeries.

Of course the gaudy numbers relative to the program's success under Patterson's leadership speak for themselves, including the 6 national titles, 1,006 wins, 43 postseason championships, 8 SEC team titles, 29 regional championships, 20 Super Six appearances and of course the list simply goes on and on.  Perhaps even more impressive, though, is the fact that during Patterson's coaching reign, 73 athletes were tabbed as scholastic All-Americans, 8 received the Honda Award for top women's gymnast in the nation and Kim Jacobs was recently awarded the Honda Cup for top female collegiate student-athlete.

I wish Dana Duckworth nothing but the best as she takes over the leadership of Crimson Tide gymnastics, but she definitely faces a formidable challenge in maintaining the enormous athletic and academic standards which have been achieved by Patterson's program. And to think, when Patterson was first hired by Bryant, the Tide gymnasts were relegated to practicing in an armory, and  the program struggled mightily in the early going to attract any semblance of media coverage and attendance numbers.

What Patterson ultimately built, of course, is a gymnastics dynasty that all Crimson Tide alumni and supporters can be very proud of, and her place in the upper echelon of collegiate coaching legends, including Bryant and Pat Summitt, is already well secured.

I guess what is most impressive to me, is the number of quality ladies that Patterson has guided into not only being high-caliber gymnasts, but also top-class individuals.  The impact that the Pattersons have made in the overall Tuscaloosa and West Alabama communities, not only with their efforts toward disadvantaged individuals but also with their educational efforts toward issues such as breast cancer awareness.

She has left footprints on the University of Alabama and the City of Tuscaloosa that will never be filled, and I imagine she and her husband will continue to impact our community, even as she retires from coaching, for many years to come.

When I think of Patterson, I cannot help but drift back to a powerful gesture by her and some of her gymnasts toward a friend of mine in terms of a testament of her character, kindness and integrity.

This friend and his wife have been avid and regular supporters of Patterson's UA gymnastics program, but during the past couple of years have dealt with a good share of personal tragedy. In the aftermath of this tragedy, Patterson and her gymnasts not only showered them with various gifts, such as Crimson Tide sportswear, but also with an abundance of love and encouragement  that was desperately needed at this time. And this was for people that they really did not even know.

There is no telling how many more similar gestures just like that were made by Patterson and/or her gymnasts to other people in need, but I am guessing there have probably been too many to count.

Of course all of the flashy victory and championship totals and the number of All-Americans in her program speak to her prowess as a collegiate gymnastics coach.  But the number of quality people who have emerged from her program as even more dynamic individuals, and the thousands of lives she has touched along the way speak to her greatness as a person, and also speaks volumes about why she will be so greatly missed by the UA athletic family.