Pasted from Oregonian columnist Dec 2013
"
If you're like me, you expected some decent entertainment might come from Texas after the Longhorns put Steve Patterson in charge of the ranch.
After all, this is the former Trail Blazers president who once announced that he couldn't trade Damon Stoudamire for a folding chair. Also, the guy who grandstanded to the public and the Blazers coaches by slapping Darius Miles with a $150,000 fine while simultaneously negotiating a back-room deal to refund Miles every penny -- "with interest."
That Miles fiasco caused Patterson to rush back early from a trip to Texas, coincidentally, to perform a crisis-management news conference in which the dolt read from a teleprompter at halftime of a Blazers game, remembering to "(smile)" and "(smile bigger)" where it directed him to do so.
Patterson spit through his teeth when he got especially angry. At the time, my daughter was in kindergarten and I recall taking a call from Patterson while I stood in a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant. The Blazers executive's voice fumed through my cell telephone, spewing profanity, while some poor teenager wearing the restaurant mascot uniform walked past, headed to the breakroom.
They were both bad acts.
Patterson ran the Blazers organization aground, ending a two-decade playoff streak. The Blazers had the worst record in the NBA and were last in revenues. The Rose Garden was thrown into bankruptcy under Patterson's watch. He fired 108 people and because of that wasn't ever really trusted. Media didn't like the guy, and he didn't like media. But as a columnist I secretly loved Patterson because he was amazing theater.
He called me to lunch one day after publicly accusing me of "lying" about the Miles fine-refund negotiations he'd privately conducted with the small forward. I'd presented him with a copy of the document he'd drafted and sent to Miles' agent for review. He admitted it was a mistake. Patterson shrugged, but apologized for saying that I'd lied.
I believed he was sorry. We shook hands and ate soup. A few hours later, of course, Patterson again claimed in an interview with another media outlet that I'd made up the whole thing.
The beauty of this Patterson-to-Texas thing isn't that we know for certain that UT won't fully realize its potential under his leadership. He's older, and presumably wiser. It might very well prove that he's learned something between his stint working for Paul Allen and the spot he finds himself in now. Arizona State went OK for him, I guess. It might also prove that Texas' athletic department -- with all those boosters and all that tradition -- is such a big machine that a owl sitting on a fence post could run it.
The true beauty is that we get to enjoy what promises to be an entertaining show with no pain inflicted on the sports teams you care about.
Patterson once threatened to fire a line of staffers at the practice facility because a trade proposal appeared in The Oregonian. He lined up the secretaries, demanding to know who leaked the deal. He roared, saying he'd fire them all to ensure he got the guilty party. One of the women cried.
What Patterson never knew, and to this day probably doesn't care to know, is that the source of the leak was -- himself. He'd accidentally left the trade proposal in plain view on a fax machine tray at the practice facility.
That was Patterson.
Still, he implemented a long line of security measures. He raised fears across the organization that emails would be searched, and computers scoured, searching for anyone who might leak company secrets. His staff didn't much like that, and naturally, became eager to sink the guy.
Patterson grew paranoid. The organization felt like it was holding its breath. In the end, when Patterson was eventually let go by Allen, it felt like the first day of summer vacation at One Center Court.
We all know Patterson's act. This is a guy who sat mostly silent while the Blazers were faced in 2007 with the Kevin Durant vs. Greg Oden draft dilemma, and then, after Oden flamed out, offered to anyone who would listen that he thought all along Portland should have drafted Durant.
Yeah, us too, bub.
I shook my head when Texas coach Mack Brown was rumored to be stepping down, then not stepping down, then, of course, stepping down again. And I smiled when Brown alluded to a tell-all book he'd write or an interview he'd grant someday. Patterson is sure to have earned a chapter, even in his short tenure.
We had to laugh, too, this week when we heard Patterson say that he's in charge of the hiring process, even as an eight-member hiring committee has been formed. I nearly fell over when I heard him say, "At the end of the day, there's been a lot of malarkey in the press over the last couple of weeks."
At the end of the day... is only the beginning, Texas.
ByJohn Canzano | The Oregonian/OregonLive
Follow on Twitter
on December 19, 2013 at 6:18 PM, updatedDecember 19, 2013 at 6:45 PM"
"
If you're like me, you expected some decent entertainment might come from Texas after the Longhorns put Steve Patterson in charge of the ranch.
After all, this is the former Trail Blazers president who once announced that he couldn't trade Damon Stoudamire for a folding chair. Also, the guy who grandstanded to the public and the Blazers coaches by slapping Darius Miles with a $150,000 fine while simultaneously negotiating a back-room deal to refund Miles every penny -- "with interest."
That Miles fiasco caused Patterson to rush back early from a trip to Texas, coincidentally, to perform a crisis-management news conference in which the dolt read from a teleprompter at halftime of a Blazers game, remembering to "(smile)" and "(smile bigger)" where it directed him to do so.
Patterson spit through his teeth when he got especially angry. At the time, my daughter was in kindergarten and I recall taking a call from Patterson while I stood in a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant. The Blazers executive's voice fumed through my cell telephone, spewing profanity, while some poor teenager wearing the restaurant mascot uniform walked past, headed to the breakroom.
They were both bad acts.
Patterson ran the Blazers organization aground, ending a two-decade playoff streak. The Blazers had the worst record in the NBA and were last in revenues. The Rose Garden was thrown into bankruptcy under Patterson's watch. He fired 108 people and because of that wasn't ever really trusted. Media didn't like the guy, and he didn't like media. But as a columnist I secretly loved Patterson because he was amazing theater.
He called me to lunch one day after publicly accusing me of "lying" about the Miles fine-refund negotiations he'd privately conducted with the small forward. I'd presented him with a copy of the document he'd drafted and sent to Miles' agent for review. He admitted it was a mistake. Patterson shrugged, but apologized for saying that I'd lied.
I believed he was sorry. We shook hands and ate soup. A few hours later, of course, Patterson again claimed in an interview with another media outlet that I'd made up the whole thing.
The beauty of this Patterson-to-Texas thing isn't that we know for certain that UT won't fully realize its potential under his leadership. He's older, and presumably wiser. It might very well prove that he's learned something between his stint working for Paul Allen and the spot he finds himself in now. Arizona State went OK for him, I guess. It might also prove that Texas' athletic department -- with all those boosters and all that tradition -- is such a big machine that a owl sitting on a fence post could run it.
The true beauty is that we get to enjoy what promises to be an entertaining show with no pain inflicted on the sports teams you care about.
Patterson once threatened to fire a line of staffers at the practice facility because a trade proposal appeared in The Oregonian. He lined up the secretaries, demanding to know who leaked the deal. He roared, saying he'd fire them all to ensure he got the guilty party. One of the women cried.
What Patterson never knew, and to this day probably doesn't care to know, is that the source of the leak was -- himself. He'd accidentally left the trade proposal in plain view on a fax machine tray at the practice facility.
That was Patterson.
Still, he implemented a long line of security measures. He raised fears across the organization that emails would be searched, and computers scoured, searching for anyone who might leak company secrets. His staff didn't much like that, and naturally, became eager to sink the guy.
Patterson grew paranoid. The organization felt like it was holding its breath. In the end, when Patterson was eventually let go by Allen, it felt like the first day of summer vacation at One Center Court.
We all know Patterson's act. This is a guy who sat mostly silent while the Blazers were faced in 2007 with the Kevin Durant vs. Greg Oden draft dilemma, and then, after Oden flamed out, offered to anyone who would listen that he thought all along Portland should have drafted Durant.
Yeah, us too, bub.
I shook my head when Texas coach Mack Brown was rumored to be stepping down, then not stepping down, then, of course, stepping down again. And I smiled when Brown alluded to a tell-all book he'd write or an interview he'd grant someday. Patterson is sure to have earned a chapter, even in his short tenure.
We had to laugh, too, this week when we heard Patterson say that he's in charge of the hiring process, even as an eight-member hiring committee has been formed. I nearly fell over when I heard him say, "At the end of the day, there's been a lot of malarkey in the press over the last couple of weeks."
At the end of the day... is only the beginning, Texas.
ByJohn Canzano | The Oregonian/OregonLive
Follow on Twitter
on December 19, 2013 at 6:18 PM, updatedDecember 19, 2013 at 6:45 PM"
