Patrick Does Things His Own Way
May 17, 2017 at 4:03 p.m.
By Roger Grossman-
Is this really the end?
It’s hard to imagine that there won’t be a coach’s box occupied by a diminutive, gray-haired man in a dark suit jacket and khaki pants with the last name Patrick come November, but it looks like that will be the case.
Indiana Basketball Hall of Famer Bill Patrick let Tippecanoe Valley Athletic Director Duane Burkhart know Friday that he was stepping down from coaching the boys basketball team there.
It ends one of the most incredible coaching stories in Indiana high school sports history. Consider these things when thinking about his life and career:
• He graduated from Sidney High School in 1956. How many of you can even find Sidney on a map? I’ll give you a hint: It IS in Kosciusko County. I’ll give you another hint: find Pierceton and head south on State Road 13.
• I will be 50 years old in January, and by the time I was born he had BS degree from Manchester College and his Master’s degree from Ball State.
• His first coaching job was to go back and coach at Sidney in 1963, and his first game was right about the time President Kennedy was assassinated.
• From that first season all the way until 2008-09, his teams never had a losing season.
• During his time at Whitko, when the regular seasons were 20 games long, only three times in 24 years did they not win at least 14 games.
I could go on and on with those kinds of numbers, which boggle the mind, but that conversation is a little boring if you ask me. What makes Bill Patrick so interesting is the color and character of the man.
I first met Patrick in 1991, when I was sitting second chair to Rita Price broadcasting area basketball games on radio in addition to my Warsaw Lady Tiger duties. We did a couple of Whitko games then, and in my dealings with him I was not impressed. He was short with his answers, he didn’t seem cooperative and he was a little defensive. Granted, I was a kid fresh out of college and I was still new to the area. He was a really good coach, but honestly, I didn’t like him … not one bit.
Then the inconceivable happened – he left Whitko and started coaching at Tippecanoe Valley.
Valley fans didn’t really know what to do with that at first. For all of those years they yelled at him to sit down and shut up. They mocked and jeered him and they hated losing to Whitko because of him.
Now, he was on THEIR side … and it was weird.
But as I got to know him better, I started to at-least appreciate Patrick as a human being. As time went on, I began to call him my friend.
The crusty guy who the referees will admittedly not miss being in their ears from now on, is not that at all when you get to know him.
He’s very funny, he loves people, and he really cares about the people who are associated with his program.
There are several players who have come through Tippecanoe Valley who owe Patrick a debt of gratitude. There are guys walking around today who 99 out of 100 coaches would never ever have let be in their lockeroom because they had been in trouble, they had attitude problems, they had quit the team once already. Patrick took those kids, and with few exceptions got out of them more than anyone thought was possible.
I only hope those guys understand what Patrick really did for them. He stuck his neck out for those kids when pretty much no one else would have, and he ruffled some feathers doing it. And he didn’t care.
And then there are the other Bill Patrick stories.
There was the night in the Tiger Den when Warsaw was playing Tippecanoe Valley, and a call went against the Vikings. The ball went to the west end of the gym – the opposite end from the Valley bench. Patrick marched past the end of his bench, past the scorer’s table, past the Warsaw coaching staff and right past a stunned Tiger coach Al Rhodes. Patrick ended up all the way at the baseline arguing with the official, who never realized that the coach who was yelling at him had drifted well beyond the area code he was supposed to be in.
The look on Rhodes’ face was priceless. His mouth wide open, his eyes big as saucers, his arms stretched out wide on either side – palms up. He was too surprised at the gall of his opponent to form words.
Patrick often has bemoaned in the preseason his team’s expectations, and several times asked me in a pregame conversation if I had any quarters left from my playing days because he needed a point guard.
He used to write 0-20 on the blackboard in the lockeroom. Then every game they won he changed those numbers to 1-19, 2-18 and so on. Legend has it that one of the seasons he did that, they won 18 games.
And there are a million stories just like those.
But I know this: even if he’s not a coach anywhere next season, he’ll still be coaching. He’ll still go to games and his brain will be chewing on every substitution, every change of defense shape, every charge/block call. And he will have an opinion on it, and if you sit near him you are likely to find out what that opinion is.
And I know this too: Bill Patrick is a man who has done and will continue to do things on his terms. He kept coaching after he fell on his farm and his arm was badly damaged. He kept coaching after a major car accident.
He thinks he’s indestructible … and there is no way that I am going to be the one to tell him that he’s not.
Is this really the end?
It’s hard to imagine that there won’t be a coach’s box occupied by a diminutive, gray-haired man in a dark suit jacket and khaki pants with the last name Patrick come November, but it looks like that will be the case.
Indiana Basketball Hall of Famer Bill Patrick let Tippecanoe Valley Athletic Director Duane Burkhart know Friday that he was stepping down from coaching the boys basketball team there.
It ends one of the most incredible coaching stories in Indiana high school sports history. Consider these things when thinking about his life and career:
• He graduated from Sidney High School in 1956. How many of you can even find Sidney on a map? I’ll give you a hint: It IS in Kosciusko County. I’ll give you another hint: find Pierceton and head south on State Road 13.
• I will be 50 years old in January, and by the time I was born he had BS degree from Manchester College and his Master’s degree from Ball State.
• His first coaching job was to go back and coach at Sidney in 1963, and his first game was right about the time President Kennedy was assassinated.
• From that first season all the way until 2008-09, his teams never had a losing season.
• During his time at Whitko, when the regular seasons were 20 games long, only three times in 24 years did they not win at least 14 games.
I could go on and on with those kinds of numbers, which boggle the mind, but that conversation is a little boring if you ask me. What makes Bill Patrick so interesting is the color and character of the man.
I first met Patrick in 1991, when I was sitting second chair to Rita Price broadcasting area basketball games on radio in addition to my Warsaw Lady Tiger duties. We did a couple of Whitko games then, and in my dealings with him I was not impressed. He was short with his answers, he didn’t seem cooperative and he was a little defensive. Granted, I was a kid fresh out of college and I was still new to the area. He was a really good coach, but honestly, I didn’t like him … not one bit.
Then the inconceivable happened – he left Whitko and started coaching at Tippecanoe Valley.
Valley fans didn’t really know what to do with that at first. For all of those years they yelled at him to sit down and shut up. They mocked and jeered him and they hated losing to Whitko because of him.
Now, he was on THEIR side … and it was weird.
But as I got to know him better, I started to at-least appreciate Patrick as a human being. As time went on, I began to call him my friend.
The crusty guy who the referees will admittedly not miss being in their ears from now on, is not that at all when you get to know him.
He’s very funny, he loves people, and he really cares about the people who are associated with his program.
There are several players who have come through Tippecanoe Valley who owe Patrick a debt of gratitude. There are guys walking around today who 99 out of 100 coaches would never ever have let be in their lockeroom because they had been in trouble, they had attitude problems, they had quit the team once already. Patrick took those kids, and with few exceptions got out of them more than anyone thought was possible.
I only hope those guys understand what Patrick really did for them. He stuck his neck out for those kids when pretty much no one else would have, and he ruffled some feathers doing it. And he didn’t care.
And then there are the other Bill Patrick stories.
There was the night in the Tiger Den when Warsaw was playing Tippecanoe Valley, and a call went against the Vikings. The ball went to the west end of the gym – the opposite end from the Valley bench. Patrick marched past the end of his bench, past the scorer’s table, past the Warsaw coaching staff and right past a stunned Tiger coach Al Rhodes. Patrick ended up all the way at the baseline arguing with the official, who never realized that the coach who was yelling at him had drifted well beyond the area code he was supposed to be in.
The look on Rhodes’ face was priceless. His mouth wide open, his eyes big as saucers, his arms stretched out wide on either side – palms up. He was too surprised at the gall of his opponent to form words.
Patrick often has bemoaned in the preseason his team’s expectations, and several times asked me in a pregame conversation if I had any quarters left from my playing days because he needed a point guard.
He used to write 0-20 on the blackboard in the lockeroom. Then every game they won he changed those numbers to 1-19, 2-18 and so on. Legend has it that one of the seasons he did that, they won 18 games.
And there are a million stories just like those.
But I know this: even if he’s not a coach anywhere next season, he’ll still be coaching. He’ll still go to games and his brain will be chewing on every substitution, every change of defense shape, every charge/block call. And he will have an opinion on it, and if you sit near him you are likely to find out what that opinion is.
And I know this too: Bill Patrick is a man who has done and will continue to do things on his terms. He kept coaching after he fell on his farm and his arm was badly damaged. He kept coaching after a major car accident.
He thinks he’s indestructible … and there is no way that I am going to be the one to tell him that he’s not.
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