We thought it might be fun to talk to the mayor of TCU. He’s a man of needs little introduction, mere initials with ID this guy, some column GP, some column coach or Coach P. We’re lucky enough Britain to have Texas Christian University head coach Gary Patterson studio to talk some why.

 

00:17

Thanks for being here.

 

00:18

My coach. First. First question, coach, before I get to it is I got to tell you something on my partner, Britain, he’s got a little limited understanding of the game of football, he’s probably been convinced by his buddies that the legitimacy of the football bat. So keep that in mind, coach, we’re going to go wide on the football talk today. And we’re going to heavy on the things that you don’t get to talk about very often. Hope that’s okay. Oh, yeah. Perfect. Thank you for being here. Coach. Ron, we’re honored to have you and appreciate your time.

 

00:43

You know, most people don’t think you know, they think that’s all coaches. That’s all they know how to do. So it’s, it’s always a lot more fun for me to talk about anything else, as long as we’re not going to talk politics.

 

00:53

Easy here. Easy here. That’s really, yeah, there’s

 

00:55

a thin firewall there. We’re

 

00:56

trying to separate the so Coach, first question. Last season was obviously an orthodox experience for most people in this planet in this country in the city. How did you handle the season after it was over? Can you speak about the experience going through COVID and all that entailed?

 

01:11

Well, yeah, I would tell you that, you know, probably for loose talking for our student athletes, is probably the most difficult thing that I think I’ve seen in 40 years of college football, kids ever had to go through yet a test three times a week, you couldn’t hang around your friends, you really didn’t go to go over to class, you didn’t play in front of really many fans. And so that’s the fun part of it. So you’re talking about we started practicing, all the way lifting back in June, we came back as a group and basically they went all the way till almost Christmas time. And, you know, you didn’t insane for coaches, I you know, I have grandkids, and I seen him once in March, right when COVID started to hit and then I saw him at Christmas, because you couldn’t be around them. Because we tested you probably we’re gonna miss three ballgames. You’re gonna be out for, you know, X amount of days, especially if you’re close contact. Even if it was worse at that time. Now, the rules, the guidelines have kind of changed, but it was probably one of the more difficult seasons. You know, I felt so bad for us guys like Trey morgue, which here’s a guy that’s going to go in the first round. And you know, he deserved to be able to play in front of huge stadiums and in the kind of player that he was and, and didn’t get an opportunity to do that. But it really turned out to be a unbelievable season. unbelievable season. One Five out of the last six, we were young football team only had eight seniors. And so you know, with everything that went on, get a chance to fight back and really give us a lot of energy going into this year.

 

02:43

Right. I talked to you right before the bowl game got canceled. You told me how hard that was? I mean, I can’t even imagine Can you maybe walk us through how that went through with the guys and how the how you delivered the bomb?

 

02:53

Well, it wasn’t really the bomb, it’s just uh, you know, it’s really harder on that, you know, Arkansas was going to go a day earlier than what we had. And, and we tested and we were already down, guys, a couple of guys opted out. And you know, the rule in in the big 12 is you can’t go underneath a too deep detox position. And we had two guys test positive at 1030. night the night before. And we had to come in, we spent almost three hours trying to find a way to because you’re talking about the healthy for kids. And so if you’re going to go in and the three defensive tackles that were left to him are freshmen, either one of two of them hadn’t played more than 20 plays in a ball game. And so you’re sitting there with that, and then we were down for three defensive for five defensive backs system, we only had seven, we only had a total of six, six DBS. And of those three of them, were going to have to have surgery, as soon as we would have got done with the ballgame. So they probably would not have played the full full game with you know, both our derrius and tre opting out which, you know, it’s there, you got to be excited for them and doing the things you do it, you would like to know that maybe by the first of December, not, not the Tuesday before the Tuesday or Wednesday, before the Saturday that you were going to play and do the things you needed to do. But it really, you know, it all went well, you felt bad for the kids. But in some ways it was probably better for us. Because you didn’t you had one more ballgame, you didn’t get anybody else injured. You do the things you need to do, but it would it would have been a great reward for those guys, but in some ways, it’s not like a new normal bowl game, you weren’t gonna be able to go down for four days and enjoy the city. Basically, you’re gonna fly down the day before the game, you’re going to have pregame meal and then you’re going to go play the game and fly back and so you know it’s our guys got home a little bit earlier

 

04:34

right flip so listen the switch to Britain’s question now.

 

04:37

Well, let me ask this first about that is that you know, you talk about this lack of communication with the players lack of seeing them you get your everybody’s got this added stress to that and you’re the leader of this thing. I mean, how do you how do you handle that if you’ve already got enough stress anyway?

 

04:51

Well, we really didn’t have lack of communication. We were on Zoom calls all the time. He had you know, we were a little bit different. Our kids came in and June. When we came back and you know, we could you know, you could see him in the lab communication was just with family or anybody that was outside the bubble. Yeah, yeah. But our kids we saw, we’re able to see all the time. You know, anybody that didn’t test three times a week, you know, you all think but it’s, that’s it’s like just another check mark on your daily routine for the week that you have to do. Because you’re talking about on Friday, we’re going to test a rapid test and find out here you did the work all week and find out if he was going to get on the bus or not sure to be able to go to the ballgame. So you might plan a guy into the game plan. And he might test pause him and then hit that part of that game plan is completely gone. Sure. And so it was different.

 

05:38

Yeah, well, it seems like you’ve found maybe a little time to hunker down. We’ve got a little sample of something we want to talk we heard this

 

05:44

song. Yeah. We don’t know if you’ve heard this or not, Gary, it’s really good. If you had a chance to listen to it.

 

05:53

You know, when you listen yourself, you don’t you don’t ever think you sound well. But there was fun.

 

05:58

Very solid lyrics though. We were commenting. Just share the show.

 

06:01

Yeah. Who wrote that? Did you write that? Oh,

 

06:03

yeah. Well, JT Hodges, kind of, which is a TC, Greg kind of cleaned it up. I flew private, because, you know, I couldn’t go public, flew down to his he was a bucket list thing. We weren’t going to be able to go on vacation do anything else. So that was kind of my getaway, three or four days. So went down to a place called leapers fork, which was a place called the purple house, which is kind of named TCU. Oh, yeah, there’s a guy there by Nima Casey was there that has actually won a Grammy. Being the engineer for other Kemo share different other artists. So we went down and spent about three or four days, knocked it out, and then went back down again for a song called game on that we did for the season that both ESPN gameday, and then Fox actually used early in the season for their pre games, stuff. And so is, you know, a play in a band for you know, a lot of years early in my life. And so, you know, the other thing about not having spring ball not being as I got, I was able to get my voice back. So yeah, was able to sing a little bit where you’re not out there barking at people all the time.

 

07:07

So what was the inspiration? I mean, you can kind of see where we were with this time and all of our lives, but you know, that take a step back, like explain that a little, well.

 

07:17

JT and I were talking because he was going to come and be the entertainment for our foundation. Okay, and when that cancels, we’re nice to so one day, you know, we need to write a song together. And so this was on a Friday night. Well, on Sunday morning, I sent him a song called lonesome man’s waltz. He called me right back and said, This is unbelievable. I wrote it back when I was like, in my early 30s, and he cleaned it up and so he actually recorded it. And, and so and I haven’t released that one yet. And so I told him, us you know, with everything going on, I have this idea about take a step back. So one night it was like on a Thursday or Friday night I was recruiting calling kids and it was about 1130 So I just sit down like a lot of times with songs they just come real quick. And so I wrote it and did it on camera phone, which is how him and I kind of communicated sure I sent it to him and then we did it and he kind of sent me back and actually took me from a up to eight sharp thought it sounded better with a little bit higher which is what you do you know the being in studio is so cool you know just because the way you do things the way you break down the song and how and all the different parts of how you you get it done and so went down and you know initially I thought he would probably be the person sang but when we did it he thought that the my voice actually sounded better on the song yeah and so we did it and you know really get a lot of shout outs from a lot of guys that are in the industry you know that are here in Texas did their Texas country guys that heard it so it you know when we had the idea to put it to a TCU you know, little bit of highlights kind of get people fired up and so I think we had I think an impressions we had almost a little over 100,000 that and so I think if you go to Spotify, my wife we’re not going to quit our day job though because my wife she for Christmas she did she took the picture off of Spotify and she gave me my first royalty check and she took put it in there for instead $9.08 Yeah, so yeah, I think I’m in the hole I can

 

09:14

buy another packet guitar strings but yeah, that is this Yeah, maybe

 

09:17

picks Yes, we can do picks not necessarily good

 

09:20

name of the song is take a step back and a perfect segue into the next question. If you guys want to hear that song, you should listen. It’s quite good. The lyrics are pretty powerful. Lyrics so great job on the song coach. Thank you. Considering take a step back. We all most people have a general understanding of what how much stress a head coach, especially for Premier Division One program goes through. And I think I have the answer based on the song title. But how does one manage that level of stress all the time and then find a way to have a real life. Another side of things, maybe write songs we’re seeing how do you find the switch? Well,

 

09:56

I tell you, that was one of the things I think the music did for me it kind of is kind of was my release, through what we went through, especially from about April through till we started with the kids coming back in June, you know, because you know, we were going to play we weren’t going to play, you’re talking about if we didn’t play, you’re talking about losing millions of dollars in TV money. And so you know, furloughing and people losing jobs. And so, you know, it’s everything that was what people understand even, you know, even the city of you know, hotel rooms, you know, restaurants, people come in the games, all the things that go along the CO along with, you know, that time here, so, there was really a push, and you know, you have to give chancellor, Chancellor a lot of credit, Victor, because he, you know, he was really the head of the presence, and he kind of helped push you to say, you know, we should go do this, because really, the big 12 was the leader. And really Jeremiah in the 80s in the conference in the coaches and so, you know, you have, you have a group, but if you go look at some of these guys, you can tell that it in, and they’re starting to look better when I get a chance to see him on different calls. But you know, it took its toll on I think, a little bit of everybody just because of the stress, because, you know, we didn’t know about what COVID was about. So you’re, you’re really worried about, you know, the kids his house, now they’re finding out that, you know, the younger generation, it doesn’t respect him as much maybe as what it does other others? And so, you know, it’s but you didn’t know that at the time. And then how do you protect all the all the people that actually the support groups that are older, that actually you from your doctors, your trainers, your equipment, people all of them, right? How do you protect all them to, to make sure that you get up every day, so every day was, you know, it’s was it was a deal, we probably took a little bit more time where we stayed away from the office, you know, I took a little bit different approach, a lot of people stayed away. And you know, we tried to come in and keep trotting. But we did it every day, we’d come with like an offense. So you had only small amounts, by you know, whatever the ordinance was here in town. So you had them in town, so they could actually come up. And I think that helped their mental situation of being able to do things normally that they would not do it from home, all the different things all the time. So you’re around people, and then we’re on kids. And so we had to do a lot more a lot more talking to our kids, I think,

 

12:13

right? Entering spring ball, do you feel like you’ve had a chance to maybe recharge at some level? Or do you feel like it, we’re still in that same even though we are with COVID, but we seem to be turning the corner maybe?

 

12:23

Well, it’s been a lot better for our guys in in some ways, in some ways, evaluation of players, it’s harder, because we haven’t been able to get out. But as far as your coach has not had to be gone all the all of December, all of January, in recruiting, I’m not maybe having to be around me, you know, in the office, now you have all the stuff, but you’re around our own kids in the offseason, a lot more. Now, instead of been on the road recruiting and, you know, we start, we start up here, the 16th of March, we’ll start spring ball. And normally, by the 15th, we’d be going back out recruiting in April, right now they moved that back to May 31. You know, and so, you know, you just have to have a different plan of how you want to do things, we do a lot more virtual tours, of the campus on on FaceTime and different things with, with student athletes and their parents. You know, like anything else, like in business? If it’s not working, then you can’t do something, you got to do something else. So understood, we continually keep up. Keep ratcheting it up.

 

13:25

Sure. So you talked a little bit before we got started about kind of 10 years in 10 places and clearly you gotta love for the game. And you have to to be in the position you’re in. You still have that? And I mean, what happens to that after you’ve you’ve done as much as you have and been where you are? Well, you

 

13:42

know, going for a year, you know, turning 61 to here this month, you know, I think probably I have the same energy I have, you know, you work smarter, you know, I need to keep doing a lot better job of, of, you know, someone that strength is you we’ve all been together a long time that weaknesses, we’ve all been together a long time. And so, my marriage, yeah. Oh, yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s, we’re, I’m going through a program right now 10 week program, just how to handle the New Age, what’s going on how to, you know, deal with what what I call, they would call in the box out of the box, dealing when you have conversations with somebody like an object or as a person, not meaning that you’d actually think it was an object just you know, you’re not keeping their feeling, you know, because it’s a lot of a lot more, a lot more communication involved. You know, in our business we’ve always been you have to have a lot of communication anyway, but of how you approach really red flags putting up when you’re, you’re not probably going down the right path to get the best results you want to which helps you at home also, you know, as I say you say yes to a lot and how you do things but it’s a it’s been a it’s been a learning experience. I think that’s one of the ways you why most a lot of them don’t stay in the business, coaching whatever for as long as one thing because you you have to have a foundation and a business plan. works that you can handle every day. And do it for a long time your coach has changed about every three years and this will be our 24th. Right? And so how do you how do you make that work, and one of the things you have to do is you just have to be honest, you have to be straightforward. And so everybody knows where you stand and how you do things. And, you know, it’s really even with kids, it’s sometimes because you have to push kids, young people to reach their goals. It’s not about being liked or disliked, it’s really about being respected. Everybody wants to be liked when you do it. But as a general rule, there’s some that you can’t you can’t reach them unless you take them to a certain point. And that way, you can build them back up. And so you know, for me, that’s kind of good. It’s always interesting. The ones you have to change, the ones you didn’t have changed a bunch, they’re back right away, the ones you had, that you have to work on changing, it might take them five or six years. For that. They want to come back and do things just because and that’s okay. It’s you know, yet but at the end of the day, it’s, it still comes down to saying we have 40, not for it’s not really about from 18 to 22. It’s about from 22 to 62. And so how do you help them get where they’re going to get to?

 

16:08

So have you found that I mean, the change of kids, you’d look at where you started in your career, you got technology now in their hands all the time? Have you found a change in those kids that that that’s tougher, you have more of those kids that that takes them five or six years to come back? Rather than that as

 

16:23

well? No, not necessarily. It’s really, it’s still about the even you just, you know, you just, you know, the, they’ll say that your parents used to say to you do as I say, not as I do, that doesn’t work because they get so much more information. So what you have to do when even teaching football, you just have to give they need a roadmap. And so, you know, we didn’t really have of the younger kids, we had, we only had eight seniors, we had a young team. We had some guys go out in the portal, but a lot of it had to do with you know, you’re not, we have some really good young players. And you know, you you, you know, competition is tough sometimes. And so it took us a while to grow up. But I think finding out more, a little bit more about him, I think the thing that people don’t understand is that, you know, if you want to know why a young man or any young adult reacts to something, you got to look at his his history, you know, to come from two parent, one parent, no parent, what neighborhood how you do things and so you understand where he’s at then saw a lot easier, like any business you would do you got to do your research and find out what really is important to him, right? And then, because as they say, you can’t change behavior change mindset, right? So our whole thing is working on mindset.

 

17:42

So Coach, your, you know, we know you don’t like talking about how much you do. But could you give us a just general brief statement about what kind of hours you put in during the season during a typical day for the season? What kind of just people understand what what commitments you make for the team every day is the hours you work we know are tremendous. Can you speak a little bit of that?

 

18:03

Well, you know, it’s, you know, for me, because I still like the thing I like best is coaching. And so I still stay involved and deep inside, but really restart Sunday morning, about nine o’clock. I end about one, I get back up at six. So you’re going I don’t know what those numbers are. But you’re probably spending 19 hours a day until Thursday. And then I kind of catch up on my sleep. And you know, and that takes a very strong lady at home. To be able to understand that. That’s why on Thursday night, we have date night now we didn’t have it during the season this year because of COVID and everything else but you know, it’s it’s one of those things where you get it and then really what I do is I don’t have a hard time sleeping. So really, I I catch up on Thursday night and Friday night even night before the ballgame. You know, it’s always better to have a night game because then I could sleep you know, we don’t start anything till about nine o’clock. Gotcha. But you know, it’s, it’s a, it’s what you do. You’re always trying to find a way that one extra play or thought that’s going to make a difference in a ballgame. And sometimes some of those best thoughts have come on Wednesday or Thursday after you kind of step away for a second after you do get a couple those hours asleep.

 

19:12

Sure. So my podcast partner here talks very highly of you. Not when we’re having you on here, but in all senses. And you think about, you know, what we touched on earlier in the impact that you’ve had on all these young guys and understanding them and where they are and meeting them where they are. Do you ever do you ever tried to you know, encompass that a little bit? And just is that too big to think about? I mean, you have an incredible amount of young guys who’ve played for you especially over this 10 year that’s just amazing to think about how many lives you’ve touched.

 

19:42

Yeah, I think it’s somewhere between seven and 824 years here. You know it’s you have the goods and Bad’s like anything else if you had that large number not everything’s perfect. But one of the things that you know, I don’t think they understand that so it’s kind of a blessing for them as you know a lot of places they change Coaches every three years. And so that next step comes in, you really don’t have that other family network to, you know, to be able to rely on or talk to, or whatever, when coaches change because when they come in, as I tell people when, when things about when you change jobs, or whatever you do you do you, you got to help yourself, you got to find a new house, get your kids in school, you got to, you know, get to know the players, like for a coach, you got to know the boosters, everything you do for yourself to try to get things in place where when you stay somewhere, you can tell you can help others. Sure. And so like we do with our foundation, everything else we do. And so, I’ve found that, over the years, our kids understand that, you know, he, like I was saying earlier, you got 24 years, you’ve got 45 year old guys that were seniors when we first started at TCU. Right. And so, and I’m still helping job, you know, you’re still using me as a reference of what kind of people they are when they get into business deals. All those kinds of things people are always calling in and use it in. And you wouldn’t have that. And that’s one of the reasons to be honest with you. That I’ve we’ve stayed at TCU Sure, for the simple reason that, you know, you can move and you could walk quote, people would think a bigger, you know, I always call it the decal on the side of the helmet, you know, that people choose sometimes. But TCU has become that. And but the bigger part of what is cool thing about TCU is just the the level of family that you’re able to have, you know, it’s not everybody’s kind of like my sisters didn’t like me when I was, you know, I was the older one I was the older brother I’d seen, they always thought I got away with things and they didn’t get a chance to do anything. It’s not that hasn’t changed in a football scenario, either. It’s just all, but it’s really it’s fun for me. And probably the coolest part of my job is to see guys that get out in business JW, you know, from all the groups that have gone through the years, families, kids, and then they come back, you know, and some haven’t come back because well maybe they didn’t finish their degree at three yet or the job’s not what they think is quote, it really doesn’t matter to us. It’s more about just getting chance to see their face, because that’s the fun part. Because while they’re here for four years, our job is still to turn them into what they’re supposed to turn into. Right. It’s better because that’s what we told their parents. And we told them about football, about getting them to agree about all the things you do in life, right. And then the other the other years or the years that you get a chance to enjoy about when they come back and I can go from Coach Pete of just being Gary and cheer doesn’t matter. That’s

 

22:36

the best part of this whole thing areas. Most people don’t even realize that they just see the wins and losses, but the amount of men, young men, you’ve impacted their lives forever. In a lot of cases. It’s just tremendous. And that’s something we were taught last year here, but it’s been this in the show, but want to change gears, this is a pretty heavy question I wanted to ask you, but besides the marriage to your wife, lovely wife, Kelsey, in the birth of your children, what would you consider the best day of your life?

 

23:03

Well, I don’t know. I’ve had a lot of really good days. You know, I think if you we talked football, I think probably standing on the field at the Rose Bowl was was awfully pretty cool. You know, but I think you know, it’s you watch every day when I get a chance really at the end of the year when guys graduate. Especially guys that were told coming out of high school that they probably wouldn’t get it they wouldn’t get a degree they wouldn’t do they and then they finish you know the see that smile. Some of the guys we’ve had that I think smile bigger in those situations than they did because they knew they made their parents proud. I think that’s, you know, I kind of like when football I’m kind of like I’m at Christmas. I’m not really that big a person as far as getting things. I like giving a whole lot more than I liked seeing everybody in the family get what they want. They’re happier, do all the things to do and it’s it’s same thing with with the sport, you know, it’s most people in life have seen me for three hours. They know Gary Patterson because what they’ve seen on TV, they see nothing else. And so you I’m a very intense dude. I think Nick Saban said, had a quote the other day passion is sometimes taken his aggressiveness by those that are that aren’t that that don’t want to reach their level of greatness. I mean, it’s you just okay. Yeah. And so I think one of the things with me, as you know, I’m all in. And, you know, it’s not not everybody gets all in, and I’m fortunate because I have a wife that, you know, allowed me as she says about myself and her dad said, she’s very lucky to be the two most important people are alive men in her life, both don’t feel like they go to work. You know, because that’s, you know, you don’t feel like it’s 19 hours a day. Now, as I’ve gotten older, that 19 hours a day feels a little bit. That gets to me a little bit. That gets me a little bit sooner by the end of the season than I did when I was in my 40s. But

 

24:53

on that note D How much more do you have in Yeah, you know, or do you even quantify that, you

 

24:58

know, you haven’t really thought about But that way, you know, it’s one of those things where it’s so you know, it’s one of the things if I don’t feel like I can help you can get to TCU. Right. I can be what I need to be to help win ballgames, do it, then it’s then that’s when you get times where you don’t. But I’ll never be a guy that retires. I don’t these guys that go like I’ve done my whole life. I think that’s when you know, you struggle as you go from 19 hours a day to what do I do? So I think, Oh, I’ll out. I’ll retire into something else. What that is, I don’t know yet. But it’s, it may be fishing or golf for maybe maybe doing broadcasting? Or maybe I met Yeah, sure. I’ll always sing. But I’m not sure. Like I said about my royalty checks. Now we’ve gotten a few more since then. I think we have almost 70,000 hits on the Spotify channel, which is awesome. So but it’s, you know, I think it’ll be something that has to do with kids. I’ve always asked myself, I wasn’t a college football coach, what would I do? And I’d probably in something in education. So you can always be you can always be helping.

 

26:05

Very cool to hear coach. Yeah, sure. Go ahead, Jada. No, we were going to ask you, this is kind of a silly question. But you know, I know, I know how you’re going to answer. So I think but the best player you ever coached? I know you have. You cannot answer JW you don’t have to say my name. I get it. But it won’t increase those Spotify royalty checks, I

 

26:23

promise. Yeah. You know, probably the best athlete was a guy named Tommy Blake, I remember him, you know, you had a guy like, you know, Doug Freestar, for the Cowboys. And we played in the bowl game at Northern Illinois, he had like four sacks against him, you know, he didn’t end up because of different situations end up getting an opportunity to be able to do that. But obviously, you got LT, you have some you’ve got some really, you know, the game in 40, in 24 years has changed the type of player all of it. And so it’s really hard to, to be able to to judge the difference between a kid that played in 2000 or 1998, to a kid that plays in 2024, right? To be honest with me, you know, 2000 Any years that we’ve gone on here, and in this 24 years, we’ve been doing it so, but we’ve had, we’ve had a lot of good ones. Now I can tell you, you can tell you who the maybe the best of each positions been through all the years of TCU. But that, you know, I wouldn’t say that out loud very often. Because then that’s just gonna be a that’d be a discussion. I hear this question all the time Well, between the 2014 2010 team or the to the you know, whatever. Be honest, we it’s, it’s it’s fun to watch, watch guys come together and then be able to achieve something that they get a chance to remember the rest of their lives. I think that’s I think that’s pretty cool.

 

27:47

So in on that, you know, if you got you know, percentages, you can say that are just physical raw talent versus where they are emotionally and mentally you know, that you spoke about that a little. What do you think those measurements are with like two players like he just mentioned to some the best that you’ve ever coached?

 

28:02

Well, they all have same things in common. All of them from LT to Jason barette. All of them, no matter what amount of running or lifting we did, they always did more. They had the one intangible they always knew how to outwork people. Yeah, they were very talented. But they also know how to work at work people. And I think when you find, whether it’s the scholarship guy on our team, or a guy that was a walk on the park, it became very becomes very obvious whether they played football or not, if they were going to be successful in life, and what they were going to have to learn once they graduated from college, if they didn’t learn from us, or they didn’t want to except learning from us, that they were going to have to learn so they could come become so successful, because kind of like we say about the weight room and anything else. It’s not that it makes you a great player, but it gives you you don’t you don’t have a chance if you don’t do it. And so if you don’t have great work ethic, accountability, how to deal with people, all those kinds of things, because given them a dick Bumpus once said, The coach first sees retired, he said, here’s two things that you when you get a degree it means one it says you can set goals and achieve and one second one was you can get along with people because you know, probably 75% of everybody gets a job and something else besides what they graduated in. And so they’re those people that are specific about what they do. But you know, it still comes down the ones that I’ve found are successful are the ones that can relate to people know how to work hard, be accountable, say equity be able to do what you say you’re going to do and and in so you know, it’s hard sometimes because you got a special with people you like in your family or whatever, be able to say you know, be able to tell them things that they don’t want it necessarily they want to hear. And that’s one of the you know, that’s one of the hard parts of job that everybody thinks you want to be the head coach. As an assistant coach, it was a lot easier because right if I didn’t want yeah, if I didn’t want to say that then you can leave it the head because when you’re the head coach, you don’t. You don’t get that choice here. But you know, over the years I think we found I found finding better ways to try to relate to all that. Still, it still comes down to you still have to have you still have to have the difficult conversation sometimes. Which what they don’t realize is nobody wants to have that conversation not with your wife, not with your kids, not with my players. Nobody you don’t your business partner, nobody wants to have that conversation. But if you want to move forward in life, you got to do it. So

 

30:25

sure. So Britain, I speak about this quite a bit because we feel strongly about this. But it’s our opinion that morally mine because Britain still believes in the in the football bat concept. But we I think, racial equality, nothing teaches racial equality and the true value of teamwork better than sports does. For young people, especially, do you have any thoughts on how our country our state or city can can solve for this division between the racial division that still haunts us to this day, because obviously, on a team, my experience other people who played sports, you play along with a guy doesn’t look like you, and you get along and you do what you do. And you don’t see a person for what they look like more as what they bring to the table. And you obviously teach these young kids at TCU, this this life lesson that I was lucky enough to learn from God just like you.

 

31:15

Yeah, I think you’re, you know, it’s, I’ve never, that’s as a coach as player. I mean, it’s, you spent your whole life as a group. And I think you don’t, you don’t see anything different. I think that’s always the way we’ve always been. And I’ll always be a thing, it’s, it’s, I think, coaches, players, all of us, you know, we were fortunate to be able to be in a situation where we can be like that, right? It’s sad that, you know, we’re not farther along than where we need to be. But, you know, we’ve made we’ve made strides, and we need to keep we need to keep working on it, we need to keep listening. I mean, I think that’s the biggest thing that everybody needs to understand is you need to just keep listening. So we can find out and so we can we can come up with those answers and, and do a better job of it. So

 

31:59

that’s a good answer for sure. Last question Britton?

 

32:03

Yeah, so it kind of touched on this before, but what do you want your legacy to be? I mean, that’s kind of a hard question. You know, you don’t seem to be the guy that’s gonna bring out a list and say exactly what you want. But what do you think

 

32:15

I’m still trying to win a national championship? And I, I don’t know, it’s kind of like that statue up there. didn’t ask for it, you know, the guy want to do and he was, you know, sick. And so it was one of his things he wanted to see before he passed away. And so we did it, but people don’t understand the pressure of doing something like that. But, you know, my biggest thing is to keep moving forward. You know, you got to learn from looking back, but I think the biggest thing is just still about winning the big 12 Championship, winning a national championship, you know, even two out of the last seven years 1417 You know, really probably a lot of people think probably got cheated out of getting a chance to play in the playoffs and 17 We’re playing for the big 12 title. And so the last couple of years, we haven’t been where we wanted to get get back, really to bowl games. 18 And then this year, we didn’t go because of reasons about the record was there and and so getting back on track winning ballgames and, and going forward, and still the, the underneath things are still all still there. Still graduating guys still helping to grow up still, I think you can’t get you can’t just have that one, that one goal, or you’re always disappointed. And you know, I was always as an assistant coach. I was never a guy that was unhappy. You know, some people no matter if they get a job, they’re already looking for the next job. And they’re never happy what they have. And I was always, when I became an assistant, I just tried to be a great assistant. Not that you didn’t still have aspirations, but it didn’t, it didn’t ruin my day. And then when I got a chance to be a coordinator, try to be the best coordinator. And then, you know, but someday, like everybody, you want to get a chance to be maybe a head coach and then, but she doesn’t ruin your day. And so then I got an opportunity to do that. One of the harder decisions I ever made back in JW days, just you know, Coach Fran, when they graduated when these guys were done playing. He was going to Alabama as the head coach and the opportunity to go to there as the defensive coordinator and that would have been the easier decision because we lost 29 seniors. Tim went to the NFL you have a Hall of Famer, Lt. Aaron Schauble and you had all these players that went on but you know, get an opportunity to stay somewhere and because I don’t as you said earlier, and we talked about it, you know, all the moving you know, you’re everybody talks about the grass greener but I’ve always said you got to water your own grass. And so for me, it’s get an opportunity because any coach I ever talked to that has ever worked at TCU all everyone would just come back, not just on our staff, but anybody else before just because of the city, the people and everything that went along With, with Fort Worth and TCU. And so for me getting the opportunity to be able to do that, you know, a guy once told me a long time ago, he said, what you want to do is get to a point in your life, when you say no more than, then you say yes. For the simple reason of, of understanding, you know, where you’re at, you don’t need all that some, when you’re younger, you got to say, yes, like you said, you know, 1010 universities in 15 years, and now we’re going on another 20, you know, 24 years and have been at one place. And so, you know, it takes a lot out of you to move and to do all those kinds of things. And fortunately, for us, we’ve had all the all the mixture of things from recruiting base to, when we needed something are boosted everybody that has helped us build it, from our stadiums, to our facilities inside of the weight room training equipment, all the things we’ve been able to do. And the university is grown, because that’s all happened. You know, I think one of the things that people they they don’t realize, is what their effect their movement, or whatever they did their decision. You know, it’s kind of like Scrooge, you know, the movie, you know, you see, well, if he would have when he goes back in life, and he just changed a couple of decisions, how much better he made people’s lives. Yeah. And I, you know, I kind of think about, that’s kind of kind of the way I’ve looked at it, you know, it’s, we’re around here for somebody, if I wouldn’t have been here, or somebody that didn’t know, student when he was when he turned 30. And he needed help talking about something more, I needed a job recommendation that we were still here. Yeah. And I think, you know, everybody sees the football side of it. But there’s such a bigger side of, there’s such a bigger side of being, you know, somebody that was kind of a staple of trying to make a difference. And, and that’s the other thing about,

 

36:48

you know, we’ve really tried to do with our foundation now that it’s turned into the big good with Leon bridges, which is a TCU is a Fort Worth, native and, you know, part of what we do and Chris Harrison, it’s, it’s a, it’s one of those things to be able to grow it, I understand what we can do from the educational part, too. You know, we fed over 100,000 people here at Thanksgiving, with the help of partners, the Fort Worth, you know, the Tarrant County Food Bank of North Texas Food Bank, and be able to do things and that’s just going to keep growing, I think interview, if you move, like I said earlier, you can’t, you can’t do all that kind of stuff. You have to you have to be able to just take care of yourself. But when you’re in sometimes, you know, it’s the it’s the adult thing that you know, everybody hates making that adult decision. There’s a lot of things you love to do. But there’s some things you just you have to do differently. Because it’s it’s the best for everybody. And so that’s what we’ve tried to get accomplished. Kelsey and I have and, and the staff and it’s been fun. You know, we haven’t had a lot of turnover. I’ve got like nine or 10 former players, or gas’ that started with us got a couple coaches that have been with me longer than that. I’ve been at TCU 2526 years. And so it’s you know, very, not very often that assistant coaches grow up where their kids can actually start in kindergarten and actually go all the way through their schooling in one place. Yeah,

 

38:14

so it sounds a lot like you don’t really need to leave a legacy because you already got one living

 

38:20

so So Gary, we really appreciate the time today. There’s a lot of talking heads out there that say some pretty terrible stuff. I know you don’t listen to it as you shouldn’t. Those people that know you sitting in this room and then lots of people in the city are appreciate what you’ve done for the city. You’re You’re a great coach. You’re even a better person. That’s the best part about you is you do some really good things to Gary Pat Patterson Foundation. We want to make shout out to those to that foundation. Obviously, you’re sitting here today. It’s a great foundation. There’s some really good things. I wish you well with Leon bridges. He’s a heck of a guy.

 

38:53

He’s a great singer. And he’s a great guy. Yeah, man. I tell you, it’s been fun.

 

38:57

Thank you for all you’ve done for the city. wins or losses. You do a good job for a lot of men, a lot of young men and that can never be overlooked because those guys people like me that win that can’t thank you enough. So we’re appreciative of you being here sharing some of your time so we could we could waste a little bit of yours but thanks again coach.

 

39:14

We’ll see you thank you very

 

39:14

much. Yeah, thank you

 

39:25

this week in Fort Worth news. Yesterday there was a huge five alarm fire up in north Richland Hills that destroyed 150,000 square foot advanced foam recycling plant 125 Fire Department people won’t seen the smoke was visible to most of us in Fort Worth. No fatalities reported this time. I think the blaze burned for about 17 hours before it was finally extinguished. In the investigation is underway in sports. Not much happened last week because of the storm but this week has seen a flurry of activity. Global I field hosted the State Farm college baseball showdown This past weekend between the big 12 conference in the SEC and the SEC conference

 

40:03

and they did have that I thought there was a boil water ban in or issue that was going on in Arlington but they ended up having that. Anyway I don’t think it was very well attended but I think it went went over pretty well. So good on Arlington for persevering through the storm and being able to do that after just those record cold temperatures.

 

40:22

Certainly, the big 12 unfortunately didn’t fare too well. They lost eight of the nine games, man, but I think that attendance as you said probably wasn’t as great as they’d hoped. Originally right. The T shoe women’s volleyball team led by head coach Joe Kramer has begun their spring season with high hopes we hope to have coach Kramer on the show at some point so good luck to them. Another TCU team the women’s rifle team, who nit in 2019 won the national championship. By they’ve earned their 15th straight appearance in the national champions championships. this coming March, march 12 to 13th at Ohio State University. Good luck to those gals. Lastly, we’ve been tracking the Texas Wesleyan table tennis team. This information Britain is going to be really interesting because these rams over Texas Wesleyan are owners of 69 national championships and counting. There’s something really special happening over there regards to table tennis. And we hope to find someone who can tell us more information about this,

 

41:21

we may be able to the person that introduced me to this actual fun fact that exists. They did that because they have a table tennis table in their office. And they were looking for some type of coach or someone to beat the best player in their office. And so this, you know, maybe a few Google searches or clicks away is how they actually found out this information. So I look forward to having an interview with that person. We

 

41:47

look forward to that story for sure. Thank you very much. That’s the news for this week in Fort Worth. So that about concludes episode number three for us here at fortitude. Our thanks to Deborah people’s head coach Gary Patterson for letting us ask him some questions that only we deem important in people’s lives. Speaking of questions, if you out there have any for us, please hit us up on Twitter at at fortitude, FW. And let us know how we’re doing good, bad or indifferent. Uncle Rich said we could ask anything we want on this recording. So if you don’t hear anything that you maybe want to hear, it’s probably because he edited it out. And thank you again uncle rich for always looking out for a snack for yourself of course. Thanks also to T Tegan and DCad music. Next week, we got a few more mayoral candidates, Dr. Brian Byrd, and Miss Mattie Parker will be joining us, as well as our undercover informant agent Condit. He’s been working some undercover night scenes over at TCU and has some valuable information to share with us.

 

42:44

Yeah, so um, before we go, we want to just we’ve been asked a couple times, like a little bit of an explanation about the podcast and how it came about. And I was talking to JW recently and was, you know, just about all kinds of life stuff and talk to him a little bit about the reason for it. And I remember when, you know, the COVID stuff came around, I was going through some stuff in my life. And it really, you know, began with the COVID great pause, you know, is what it’s it served for me and it slowed everything down. And I remember a lot of that political and social unrest that started happening pretty early on in it and I remember just kind of, you know, being a prisoner of my own home, like so many others were, and just this song kept coming in in the lyrics kept coming in to me. And I guess that that might have been kind of the first inspiration. And I I remember the first time I heard this song, I was younger, I was probably like, teenage early teens and my dad had bought this technique stereo system from Highland electronics, which used to be between what is now like the McDonald’s and McDonald’s and like it used to be Scaggs alpha beta, but it’s right there on Camp buoy. And it was it was the best buy at that time. And ironically enough, it was a around the corner from a place called Sound warehouse where you’d actually go in and buy music. Some of it I remember selling warehouse. Yeah. So they, you know that I would go in and buy tapes, and then I would buy CDs there would take tapes. What are they? Yeah, it’s a cassette. It’s you can just Google it. I guess. Now,

 

44:23

are you making this up? No serious.

 

44:26

But there are, you know, there was a place to get it. But this actually I heard the song on an album and my dad had this record player and I was going through his records, and I found this one that kind of stuck out as this guy. He was he’s almost smiling and it was raining on him. And he had this big black trench coat on and it looked almost like a Dracula thing. So I was like, well, that’s kind of weird. Let me just, I’ll pull up the record. I’ll try to see you know how to do this. And so I did and, and I threw it on and then I recently found out that a guy who co wrote the song You know, wrote it because he had been traveling on a tour bus and they, you know, landed the bus in San Francisco and the Berkeley People’s Park area. And they had seen something on May 15 1969. And it was the same kind of thing was a lot of political unrest, there was a lot of police stuff, there was just something that, you know, kind of rang out to me or sound vaguely familiar. And then I also did a little bit more research, and found out that the guy who recorded the song, he was in a real pickle of his own in life at the time. He had been married and was about to get divorced from his record producer, Sr, which caused some problems. Then he brought the the material he had been working on by himself as a departure from that record label. And the record producer said, hey, look, we don’t do these kinds of songs here. I don’t know what you’re doing with this departure, but we’re not really interested. And he took it himself. And you know, what, what I guess kind of describes fortitude. He used and found it and found some fortitude within himself. And he pushed and went out with his gut. And he end up selling 2 million copies. And it’s, it’s a song by Marvin Gaye called what’s going on. And it just rang so true with me. And I find myself asking this about our world and our country and our city. And just and just trying to just take one brief second, and saying, you know, what’s going on that maybe before you throw out that those words out of your mouth, or that social media post or you know, that email, you just ask, Hey, you know, what’s going on? You know, kind of question question that so,

 

46:42

so, I’m going to read the verses here for you. Please excuse my lack of soul and rhythm. I literally have zero musical ability. But these are pretty heavy, heavy lyrics. And we want to share them with you. begins, mother, mother, there’s too many of you crying. Brother, brother, brother, there’s far too many of you dying. You know, we’ve got to find a way to bring some love in here today. Yeah. Father, Father, we don’t need to escalate. You see, war is not the answer. For only love can conquer hate. You know, we’ve got to find a way to bring some love in here today. picket lines and picket signs. Don’t punish me. brutality. Talk to me. So you can see oh, what’s going on? It’s pretty heavy stuff. And yeah, thanks for reading that. Thank you for sharing your story. That’s incredible. We want to thank you guys for listening, and get lending us your ears once again, to to piggyback on what Brendan was saying, we truly appreciate you guys, the city and all the people involved in it. And every person that donates their time to what we’re doing. We’re trying to keep this interesting and do something positive. We’re not professionals, but we do our best here. So if you’re able to help somebody that doesn’t expect your help, go do it. And you might just make a difference. And if you don’t know somebody that looks like you go introduce yourself to somebody like that. You never know what’s going to happen.

 

48:09

Yeah, if you find something that you’re interested in, you know, you can do it on the Twitter deal, too. We got the ad fortitude, FW, so let us know.

 

48:17

Right. And lastly, before you jump to a conclusion on something like my partner Britain said, just ask yourself what’s going on? To go out there and live your life with fortitude much love