It’s been a rough time as of late for University of Texas AD Steve Patterson. Apart from having to deal with a report that alleges the men’s basketball team suited up academically ineligible players, Sports Illustrated is now reporting via HornsDigest.com that both boosters and alumni are claiming that Patterson puts money above all else, like student welfare, and they aren’t happy about it.
“There is a total disconnect between this AD and the rest of the university,” Matt Herring, a former president of the Dallas Longhorn Club, told HornsDigest.com. “At a time when the football program needs all the support it can get, the program is receiving the opposite—all because of the athletic director.”
Another alum, Sally Lehr, also pointed out that she and her classmates had to pay $25 each just to stand on the football field at Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium.
“He said it was expensive to allow people on the field. They had to turn on the lights. They had to have people leading the tour and a groundskeeper,” Lehr recalled. “He said if athletics had to pay for all of that, they might have to cut the donation they made to the UT library.
“I was stunned by his arrogance and avarice,” added Lehr, whose stepfather was Jones Ramsey, Texas’ sports information director from 1961-83.
“I was raised in a household where you did everything you could to promote the Longhorns any way that you could. I was dumbfounded he thought that was a good public relations move – to charge $25 for people to step on the football field.
“He has turned the Horns ‘brand’ into a commodity to be sold.”
Patterson has only been with Texas since the beginning of the Longhorns’ football season last year, when longtime AD DeLoss Dodds retired and if these stories are true, then he obviously has no concept of building strong relationships with alumni and boosters. He was the President and GM of the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers some years before coming to the university, and it may be him not realizing that the college ranks are highly different from the professional ones.
Even worse is that Patterson has experience in college athletics, as his position prior to working at Texas was AD of Arizona State. Thus, he should know that the key to doing good work in such a position is building positive relationships with boosters and alumni and thus far, it seems as though Patterson has dropped the ball in that department in Austin. Hopefully, with football season approaching, he can right the ship and get back in everyone’s good graces.
Texas opens the 2015 season, its second under Charlie Strong, on the road in South Bend against Notre Dame on September 5.
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*Featured Photo (above) credit to USA TODAY Sports
