Patton Talks Himself Into Challenge, Beauty of Boise

H urry!

Get ‘em while you can!

Greg’s ‘Pattonisms’--Going out of town, so they’re going out of style!

Last stop for 700 miles!

“For a long time, I thought I was going to die at UC Irvine. When I actually made the decision to leave, it hit me like a cold-water balloon in the face.”

“I surprised everybody, even myself. I was talking to the assistant A.D. at Boise State, talking about somebody else who I thought would be good for the tennis job there, and he says, ‘Why don’t you look at it?’ I go, ‘Huh?’ He says, ‘Throw us a resume, come up and take a look around.’ That one little snowball started an avalanche, as far as changing my life forever.”

“I fly to Boise, check into my room, turn on the local news and I’m waiting for the first drive-by shooting. The first thing I see is a 1K race for 3,000 kids. The next thing is a rodeo for kids. The next thing is a report on the city council meeting. I’m thinking, ‘Hey, this is refreshing. Am I in a Frank Capra movie? Am I in Disneyland?’ ”

“It was scary. After they made me the offer, I didn’t sleep for four nights. ‘This is too good,’ I kept thinking. They just built a new tennis facility, with six new courts. You can hike in the mountains. You can go skiing. You can go river-rafting. I was trying to come up with a reason why I couldn’t come. I couldn’t think of one.”

“I should be working for the Boise Chamber of Commerce. I should be getting residuals. Boise is the fourth-best city in the country for raising a family. I read that in Parenting magazine. Money magazine says it’s the sixth-best place to live. Tennis magazine says it’s one of the top 50 cities in terms of playing tennis and having people interested in tennis. I tell you, I’ve been reading up on it. It’s Shangri-La--and no one knows about it! The mountains are there and no one’s bothered to look on the other side.”

“Boise told me they wanted a big-name coach. I had trouble accepting the fact they meant me. I’ve got six letters in my last name.”

“I have an opportunity to live in a great, great place. I’ve put the goal of winning the NCAAs on the back burner, but I’m still truckin’. I’m still doing what I want to do. You could drop me in the middle of the desert and the first thing I’d do is draw some lines in the sand, grab a racket, find the first camel that walks by and teach it how to hit a backhand.”

“Actually, the mountain I have to climb to get into the NCAAs is a lot steeper at UCI than it is in Boise. At Boise, I’ve only got to beat San Diego State, New Mexico, Utah, BYU, Weber State and Fresno State. I’m playing the guys from ‘F Troop.’ At Irvine, I’m going up against Stanford, UCLA, USC, Pepperdine, Berkeley and the University of San Diego--all the gorillas. And I mean King Kong, Godzilla and the Predator--and that guy, you can’t even see.”

“The hardest thing was to tell Tom Ford (UC Irvine athletic director). Tom’s in a boat that may not be sinking, but it has holes in it. He wasn’t the one who put the holes in it, but they didn’t let him know how many holes were in the boat before he got on board, and there are lots of them. He’s had to get rid of part of the crew to try to save the boat. And now, some of the crew is changing ships.”

“One thing that really concerns me is that the state of California and the people of California are bailing out on the young people of California. Everybody’s cutting sports programs--high schools, junior high schools, universities, major universities--and they’re not giving kids anything to belong to. That’s all they want. And if you don’t give them that chance, they’re going to join gangs and get into trouble. I despair on that.”

“It took me 13 years to build the program at Irvine. I don’t want it to fall apart. It’s like when you’re mowing the lawn the size of a football field. It takes a lot of steps and a lot of pushing to get that lawn looking immaculate. Then, you rake up the grass and you’re sweating and they’re stains all over you. Then, when the sun’s going down, you look out at this immaculate, well-manicured lawn and say, ‘I did that!’ ”

“If any program at Irvine can survive without a lot of money, it’s tennis. Right now, we’re sponsored by a clothing company, a shoe company, a racket company. All we’ve got to pay for are scholarships and tennis balls. . . . That was the great thing about coaching at Irvine. We could be paupers and still storm the castle and win the war.”

“Bobby Dye is the basketball coach at Boise. He was out fishing when I was there. I said, ‘Yeah. Fishing. That’s exactly where Greg Patton wants to go.’ Everybody thinks I’m a California boy, a maniac for the city. I can be a mountain man pretty easy.”

“At first, my wife was scared a little at the thought of moving. Now that’s she’s seen Boise, she’s really excited. She told me, ‘If you don’t take it, I’m moving up there anyway.’ ”

“It’s like learning how to sky-dive. I’ve parachuted once in my life and the concept was so frightening. But once you jump out, it’s so exhilarating because once the chute opens, you know you’re going to live. . . . Well, I’ve just pulled the chute again and I know I’m going to live. I just don’t know how hard the ground is.”

“We’re going to play Irvine next year. Boise’s in the UCI tournament. That’s one of the last things I did as Irvine tennis coach. I scheduled myself.”

“It’s been a great ride at Irvine. We had our banquet Sunday night and I was crying like a baby. I told my wife afterward, ‘What if I just told everybody I was kidding?’ ”

“I’m still gonna be around for a while. I don’t leave until September. I’ll still be coaching the (TeamTennis) Dukes and doing my tennis camps this summer. I’ve been writing letters to my friends, and as I tell them, ‘Once an Anteater, always an Anteater. Except now, this Anteater is gonna be riding on a Bronco.’ ”