Texas misfired with polarizing Steve Patterson, even if he got coaches right

Athletic directors largely are judged by their highest profile hires, and by that measure Steve Patterson’s tenure at Texas would have needed more time for a bottom-line evaluation. Football coach Charlie Strong is in his second season, and Shaka Smart has yet to coach a men’s basketball game.

Smart was seen as an excellent choice, and Strong’s selection as Texas’ first black head coach of any men’s sport at the university was hailed, although improvement isn’t occurring quickly enough for fans of the traditionally powerful program.

But those hires didn’t force Patterson out earlier this week after 22 months on the job. He got that part right, and apparently everything else wrong to a point where Texas president Gregory L. Fenves said, “I felt that the risks of not accepting his resignation at this time and try to have him stay outweighed the benefits.”

And don’t let the door hit you on the way out, those in the Texas athletic department said under their breaths. Patterson was a polarizing figure, who as one Longhorns employee told me during Big 12 Media Days in July “had made everybody miserable and looking for a way out.”

A dynamic personality or presence isn’t required for a successful athletic director. But that person should be to an athletic department what a coach is to the players in the program, somebody who inspires and motivates — or at least doesn’t make you dread showing up for work.

But creating low workplace morale wasn’t Patterson’s big fail. Alienating fans was. He raised season-ticket prices for football and limited resale ability on the secondary market. Season-ticket holders for men’s basketball, a tougher sell, also got dinged.

Things were so bad that Houston billionaire attorney Joe Jamail, he of Joe Jamail Field at Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium, didn’t renew his luxury suite this season.

Major college sports are huge business, and athletic departments don’t come richer than Texas. Sometimes difficult choices must be made. The Big 12 exists in its current configuration because schools believed better options existed for secure futures.

Some schools have dropped sports. Some have fired coaches who won, but not enough.

Through those difficult decisions, schools need athletic leadership that has created a “we’re in this together” environment.

It’s the message donors want to hear, and why athletic directors at many levels spend the spring and summer months on the banquet circuit and carry golf clubs in their trunks along with a half-dozen neckties of the school colors.

It’s why they attend not just the football and basketball games but the tennis matches and indoor track meets, and why they return calls from reporters and want to spend a segment on sports talk radio, even when the story isn’t always about a winning team. The best speak comfortably with the athletes and everybody listed on the staff directory.

They’re paid handsomely for this. A USA Today survey from 2013 found the average athletic director salary for a Football Bowl Subdivision program was $515,000. At the time, eight of the 10 ADs in the Big 12 and 12 of 14 in the SEC surpassed the average. Patterson’s $1.4 million annual salary was guaranteed through 2019.

However the settlement falls, he’ll walk away with a healthy bank account, but a failed communicator and leader.

And now the eyes of Texas turn to a replacement. The man who should have been hired in the first place, Oliver Luck, a Texas law school graduate, has since left West Virginia for a position at the NCAA, where he’s seen as a potential executive director.

Mack Brown, one of college football’s great personalities during his 16-year career with the Longhorns, has said he’s not interested in the job, and that’s a shame. Brown seemed like a natural successor to DeLoss Dodds and the coach and athletic boss would possibly coordinate their career moves for a smooth transition.

Instead, Texas misfired with Patterson and finds itself on the market once again.

This story was originally published September 17, 2015 at 3:20 PM with the headline "Texas misfired with polarizing Steve Patterson, even if he got coaches right."