Again to the start

It was 1978, and Alabama gymnastics was on its fifth coach within the final 5 seasons. Bear Bryant, who served as athletic director along with being the top soccer coach, took an opportunity on a current school graduate from Slippery Rock School and gave her a $5,000 wage. 

Patterson did not comprehend it on the time, however Bryant was planning on shutting down this system after her first yr. Nonetheless, she was in a position to produce a constructive season, plus Alabama wanted gymnastics for Title IX numbers. 

“It was the primary time it was a non-losing season,” Patterson stated. “And so he gave me 5 scholarships to work with. We recruited 5 girls from far and wide. And people girls, of their senior yr took us to our first nationwide championship. It wasn’t the one we gained, however we certified. And that was all the things, these scholarships that he gave me.”

Nonetheless, it wasn’t simply the scholarships that helped. Patterson had one other daring ask. She wanted an ample ground train mat to apply on, which looks as if an affordable request. The primary downside— it could price $5,000, which was equal to her wage on the time. 

“I used to be asking for him to offer me $5,000, the identical as my wage, to get a ground train mat,” Patterson stated. “We had a males’s wrestling program and so they dropped it, and we have been tumbling on a purple wrestling mat that had a gap in it. And we taped a white “A” over the outlet. So I went in to satisfy with him and requested him. Coach Bryant regarded round at me and [administrator] Sam Bailey and stated, ‘Sam, give the little girl what she needs.’

Patterson received the mat. 

“That was a turning level,” Patterson stated. “5 scholarships and an actual ground train mat that had springs beneath it, so issues began to show round.”

Constructing a fanbase and tradition

And switch round they did. Only one decade later, Alabama gymnastics would host and win the 1988 nationwide championship. It was the primary NCAA championship for a girls’s sport at Alabama. (Softball and ladies’s golf have gained crew titles since.)

Nevertheless it did not come simple, and did not occur in a single day. When Patterson first took over this system, the gymnastics program competed in Foster Auditorium. She estimated that the earliest meets would solely have round 50 individuals in attendance. However quickly, they started filling up Foster, so she requested to be moved into Coleman Coliseum. 

Foster regarded full with 3,000 individuals, however that was only a drop within the bucket inside Coleman. 

“We had a giant black curtain over the bottom of the Coliseum so that you simply couldn’t see half the seats,” Patterson stated. “After which we crammed that up and had 7,000. However then they’re all sitting up excessive on one facet of the sector. After which at one level, we dropped the curtain.”

Patterson’s older daughter Jessie Jones, who presently serves because the director of pupil media at Alabama,  remembers seeing the shift. 

“I can bear in mind once I was actually little, and so they used to place up this big black curtain that will form of be the backdrop, again when press row was on the ground,” Jones stated. “If you happen to walked within the Coliseum and regarded throughout the sector, there was this big black curtain that blocked off a fourth of it to make it appear smaller and to offer all the things a focus. And she or he labored so exhausting to get that curtain to come back down. They didn’t need it. I bear in mind it. She all the time needed to offer the crew the platform she thought they deserved, and he or she wasn’t going to cease till they’d that.”

Legendary Utah gymnastics coach Greg Marsden instructed her one of many issues that will assist them fill the coliseum was internet hosting a nationwide championship and successful it. And the Crimson Tide did simply that in 1991 and 1996. 

“So individuals stored coming,” Patterson stated. “Now, they’ve all types of promoting individuals, however again within the day, it was me. The one factor I discovered from being a senior girls’s administrator from 1985 to 1995 along with my teaching job was I received to know Pat Summitt. Pat instructed me that if you happen to’re not prepared to market and promote as a lot as you coach and recruit, you’ll compete in entrance of nobody. And I believed these phrases resonated with me, and we labored actually exhausting.”

Patterson enlisted the assistance of the athletes to cross out flyers on the mall and on automobiles. They’d cross out donuts to college students. Something they might do to get individuals to Coleman Coliseum. 

They marketed it as “Enjoyable Household Fridays.” It was cheaper to deliver your loved ones to an Alabama gymnastics meet than an evening on the films or different actions. Advertising and marketing in direction of households helped construct a tradition that also exists within the gymnastics fanbase immediately. 

It was nearly one other decade later after successful its first nationwide championship when Alabama lastly bought out Coleman Coliseum with over 15,000 followers in attendance for a girls’s collegiate gymnastics meet between the Crimson Tide and Georgia. 

“’ll always remember,” Patterson stated. “They instructed me the stands have been full earlier than we marched out, and that they have been turning individuals away. There have been dads that had promised their youngsters they have been going to take them to satisfy, and so they received there and there have been no tickets. Individuals have been truly scalping the tickets outdoors of Coleman. Somebody referred to as and stated, ‘We have to delay the meet. There’s automobiles all the way in which again to DCH.’ 

“When the lights went down after which they got here again up after we did the intros, and I regarded up and I noticed the followers and the stands being fully full, I feel that was one of many highlights of my profession. That meant greater than successful a championship.”

That was the primary of many sellouts to come back. Within the yr since, 15,000-plus individuals have poured in to Coleman Coliseum a number of occasions to observe Alabama gymnastics. 

Alabama, Georgia and Utah have been the pioneers of fan engagement and huge crowds in collegiate gymnastics. However in recent times, packages like LSU, Florida, Kentucky and Auburn have all skilled sellouts and large crowds in their very own arenas. Seeing that makes Patterson’s coronary heart soar.

It is a legacy and tradition that has carried over to different girls’s sports activities at Alabama, like soccer, which bought out the Alabama Soccer Stadium for the Elite Eight matchup within the NCAA Event towards duke. Or softball, which skilled a number of sellouts in 2022 at Rhoads Stadium. Patterson’s youthful daughter, Jordan, was on the Alabama softball crew from 2011 to 2014. Jordan was on the 2012 nationwide championship crew with softball, and the Pattersons have been avid supporters of Alabama softball ever since. 

“I’ve nice seats at Rhoads Stadium, and once I stroll in and see that place full, particularly this previous yr, I believed again to how did we ever make this occur?” Patterson stated. “It was a battle. How do you make the battle? I simply tried to do it in a method that was not essentially combative. However extra in a method of, you’ve two males’s sports activities which can be flying constitution flights. OK, we’d like two girls’s sports activities that fly on constitution flights.”

Patterson labored below almost a dozen athletic administrators all through her tenure at Alabama, and he or she stated it was all about discovering the proper second to go in and speak to them. 

“There was a few the athletic administrators that my voice to them was, “You might have a grandson. You might have a granddaughter. Don’t you need the identical factor in your granddaughter as you do your grandson?’” she stated. “So it was a battle for all the things, however I attempted to do it in a method that made sense to individuals.”

Ever-encouraging presence 

If any Crimson Tide crew has a giant win, you may doubtless count on a congratulatory tweet coming from Patterson shortly after. Otherwise you may even see her within the stands. 

As a substitute of shifting to the seaside or mountains for retirement, the Pattersons caught round in Tuscaloosa. Even after retiring from teaching in 2014, Patterson frequents Alabama sporting occasions and is usually discovered at Rhoads Stadium. 

“The day-to-day is perhaps completed, however they nonetheless love all these individuals,” Jones stated. “From the athletes to the individuals they labored with, that didn’t finish.”

Jones stated she all the time felt like she had bonus large sisters rising up and has many ladies she considers household that have been a part of the Alabama gymnastics program. When she received married in 2008, extra gymnastic alumni got here than she may have ever imagined. 

Beginning in January, Alabama gymnastics formally enters a brand new chapter when Ashley Priess Johnston will coach her first meet as simply the third completely different Crimson Tide gymnastics head coach within the final 40 years. 

Johnston was a gymnast at Alabama below the Pattersons from 2009 to 2013 and was part of two nationwide championship-winning groups in 2011 and 2012. All through her transition to move coach, the Pattersons have been there each step of the way in which and can little question be within the stands at Coleman Coliseum supporting her and the crew this season. 

“Whereas I positively lean on them for help and steerage, that is nothing new to me,” Johnston instructed BamaCentral again in June. “I have been doing that for my whole teaching profession. And so actually, they’ve taken on that very same function the place they’re simply supportive, have let me know that if if I want something, they’re there for me, however in the end, they’re the most important cheerleaders the most important help system to again me alongside this journey.”

Patterson additionally has given again to the Tuscaloosa group in a significant method. She launched the Energy of Pink meet in 2005 to lift consciousness for breast most cancers. Over 250,000 followers have attended pink meets in Tuscaloosa since then. It additionally led to the creation of the DCH Breast Most cancers Fund, which promotes consciousness and offers screenings to those that could not have the ability to afford in any other case. In keeping with Patterson, the fund has raised over $3 million. 

Alabama is the place legends are made, and Patterson has little question cemented herself as a legend, not only for the championships she gained, however for the legacy and tradition she constructed for girls’s athletics at Alabama. 

The previous stated she all the time will get requested concerning the championships and the rings, however crucial issues to her are watching the athletes go on to reach life after gymnastics and the influence that she has been in a position to have on the group. 

“These are the true treasures of our 36 years teaching.”

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