PATTERSON EXPOSED ON FUNDING OF UT TENNIS FACILITY?
When new Texas president Gregory Fenves on Wednesday said UT's tennis facility to be built east of I-35 has already been funded, Steve Patterson had some explaining to do.
Patterson has sent out members of the Longhorn Foundation all over the state to meet with prospective donors and give them expensively produced packages detailing what contributions could mean in terms of naming rights for different parts of the tennis facility.
The message for months from Patterson's office to everyone inside and outside the athletic department has been that the money for a new $17 million tennis facility - all of it - would have to be raised. Every penny. And that if only $6 million was raised, then UT would build a $6 million facility.
One problem: Former Texas president Bill Powers had made it clear from the moment UT's former tennis facility - Penick-Allison - was targeted for demolition in 2012 to make room for a new medical school that the university, not athletics, would pay for a new facility.
Multiple sources told HornsDigest.com 10 months ago Powers made it clear to Patterson that $15 million for a new tennis facility was being deducted from a total of $30 million that athletics was set to share with the central university.
Sources said it was important to Powers that the university - not athletics - pay for a new facility because athletics had no say in the demolition of Penick-Allison, which was razed last June.
But for months Patterson would never acknowledge the $15 million when asked by HornsDigest.com about the funding for the facility. And, internally, Patterson kept telling everyone in the department every penny had to be raised to pay for it.
Some of the frustration of that utterly confusing dynamic played out Wednesday when women's tennis coach Danielle Lund McNamara resigned her position effective immediately after one season on the job.
That follows Patty Fen$#@!-McCain turning down a contract extension as women's tennis coach at UT and resigning last year. And it follows Texas being turned down four times in trying to hire McCain's successor. UT was turned down by Alabama's Jenny Mainz, North Carolina's Brian Kalbas and was turned down twice by Rice women's tennis coach Elizabeth Schmidt, an Austin Westlake product, before hiring McNamara, who was the women's tennis coach at Yale.
But sources said UT not having a tennis facility this season or next - combined with Patterson pinching pennies by cutting the number of times a UT coach can go into the athletic dining hall from unlimited to 30 times per school year (or they have to pay their own way), helped gut an already unstable women's tennis program.
"There was no place for Coach McNamara to meet with her team," one source close to the situation said Wednesday. "Was she going to use her own money each time she wanted to go into the athletic dining hall just to meet with her players? She'd be taking a pay cut. Come on. It's ridiculous."
The silence was deafening out of Patterson's office on Wednesday. A message left with athletics spokesman Nick Voinis went unreturned.
But an email from women's AD Chris Plonsky was sent out to UT faithful that blamed "a personal situation" for McNamara's resignation. Plonsky also added "we are feverishly fund raising to ensure that our men's and women's teams benefit from this new facility within the time frame of construction plans (which are in the early stages)."
Plonsky's email went out less than two hours before Fenves confirmed during his introductory news conference that the tennis facility had already been funded.
Austin’s Carol Welder, a board member of the Capital Area Tennis Association and former vice president of the United States Tennis Association, has been following the fate of UT’s new tennis facility very closely.
“Texas made the decision to tear down Penick-Allison and made a commitment to replace it, and that needs to be honored,†Welder said. “If they are saying now the $15 million has to be raised for a new tennis facility - after the school vowed to spend the money to replace it – Steve Patterson should know his men’s and women’s tennis programs – premier programs - could be in jeopardy.
"If ground is not broken for the new tennis facility by the end of 2015, the completion date could push into 2017, meaning UT’s men’s and women’s tennis programs would have been practicing and playing on public courts with no place to meet for three years. How would recruiting survive that?"
Here's another problem: Patterson himself has ruined the relationships with at least two donors who came forward with plans to give at least $1 million toward the tennis facility.
Those donors asked not to be identified. But both told HornsDigest.com that they wanted to meet with Patterson about potential naming rights. Both said they had numerous forms of correspondence initially ignored by Patterson's office before working with members of the Longhorn Foundation to set up a meeting with Patterson.
Both donors said they had more than one meeting canceled by Patterson initially. And then when they finally did meet with Patterson, the Texas athletic director let them know he was very short on time.
"The athletic director - supposedly desperate to raise money for a new tennis facility - tells me he only has 15 minutes when we sit down for lunch?" one of the donors said. "I said, 'I'm sorry. I thought you all were asking me for help.'"
The meetings went so badly, according to the donors, they both have vowed never to give any money to Texas while Patterson is the athletic director.
When I asked Fenves Wednesday if $15 million had been earmarked by the central university for a new tennis facility, per a longstanding agreement between Powers and former athletic director DeLoss Dodds, Fenves said:
"That's been funded, and we will proceed."
He then described how some existing facilities - the UT Press building - will need to be relocated before construction can begin just north of Disch-Falk Field and across Comal from the Longhorns' softball stadium.
Fenves said the new estimate for the tennis facility is $17 million.
Sources said Powers was committed to $15 million for a new tennis facility and that if athletics wanted to go above and beyond that, they could raise any additional money.
But Patterson may be his own worst enemy when it comes to raising money - one of the most important jobs of an athletic director.
Ask any athletic director in a Power 5 conference and they'll tell you they are personally responsible for looking after the top 40 or 50 donors to athletics. Multiple sources said Patterson is incapable of that because his people skills are so bad. So more and more people have been hired at Texas to do the fund-raising for him. Multiple sources said Patterson's wife, Yasmine Michael, is now taking a lead role in donor relations.
And Patterson has turned to his coaches to raise money - something former AD DeLoss Dodds always discouraged because it often put coaches in difficult positions.
Patterson has told all of his non-revenue coaches they have to "come up with ways to make your programs profitable." That has included Patterson telling coaches to cultivate/develop donors connected to their sports to help cover costs.
That was another reason women's tennis coach Danielle Lund McNamara resigned on Wednesday, sources said. She was having a hard enough time coaching and meeting with her players without a facility to start worrying about having to be the program's fund-raiser, too.
[Chip Brown]
