UCLA Opponent Tackles Rivals, Social Ills With Gusto

Sometime Saturday, if form holds and the UCLA offensive line doesn’t, DeWayne Patterson is going to get up off quarterback Wayne Cook and wave to the television cameras at the Rose Bowl.

In West Oakland, some students at McClymonds High are going to remember when he visited them in the summer and think, “that’s for us.” It will be, at least in part.

“They’re always in the back of my mind,” he said.

That’s because his ties with the East Bay are always there. Every time he leaves Washington State for a break, he returns to see another Victorian home restored, another project torn down. What doesn’t change is McClymonds, which has stood for almost 90 years, and the kids who are trying to get out of West Oakland. They are gentrifying the area, but it’s still not a place where you want to go out at night.

It’s his message, and that of the school’s teachers: Get out, and return as a success.

He does, as an All-Pacific 10 defensive end.

A lot don’t.

“You see so many guys down there with athletic ability,” Patterson said. “In my class there were a lot of guys with huge athletic ability, and the only things holding them back were SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) scores or they don’t have the right math class. It holds them back for the rest of their lives. They get a job and stay in the same environment, and they never get a chance to step up out of there.”

They talk the talk. They are going to be stars like Bill Russell, the Celtics’ legend; like Jimmy Hines, for years the world’s fastest human; like Hall of Fame baseball player Frank Robinson and Vada Pinson. Like Joe Ellis and Nate Williams of the Warriors.

They are McClymonds’ alumni who took the necessary steps to ensure the dream didn’t die.

Patterson heard. Some only listen.

He was a starter at tight end as a freshman, and by his sophomore season college recruiters came to look at teammates Marcel Wade, Ivory Irvins and Brian Baldwin, all of whom went to Pac-10 schools. There were other athletes who didn’t make it because of academic difficulties. Patterson saw their problems and quickly figured out their futures.

“I figured if they could play college football, I could,” he said. “But knowing what I can do and then being able to do it was what counted.

“Everybody has a choice of what they want to do with their life. At a certain point in my life, I decided that I didn’t want to be stuck down there and be a statistic--dead or in jail one day. I wanted to go to college, play football and be on TV. Everybody has a motivation in life, but whether they do anything with it is up to them.”

His motivation came early, and it was reinforced, at home and at school. Charles Patterson was an Oakland bus driver who was often at school, never missing a game or an open house. He knew the teachers and the coaches and made certain they knew whom to call in the event of trouble.

“He had parents who made sure he studied,” said Lu Paulette Taylor, an English teacher who has employed DeWayne as a house-sitter during his summer visits from Washington State. “It’s all I would have to say, ‘I’m going to call your father,’ and that would keep him in line.”

Said Patterson: “I knew she was going to say that. Pops was kind of strict on me in high school. He’s a big guy, kind of intimidating, so they knew he would keep me in line.”

Ella Gordon, his mother, was the same way at home.

“She didn’t go to football games, and only now, after watching me on TV for four years, is she understanding the game,” Patterson said. “But she told me, ‘There’s life after football; you never know if you’re going to get hurt.’ ”

The message was received again. He is 22 hours from a degree in criminal justice, and the intent to finish what he has started is strong.

By his senior season, he was ready--except for a qualifying score on his entrance exam. He took the test five times to get the required 700, and visited Washington, Washington State and Oregon State. California was in the neighborhood.

“I let one of the coaches (at Washington State) talk me out of going there,” Patterson said. “He told me it would be good to get out of that environment and go to a little city, and that’s basically what I wanted to do.”

Folks at McClymonds agreed.

“It looks like the kids that go away to college have the most success,” said Ralph Bellamy, who has 20 years at the school, some of them as an assistant football coach.

The coach who lured him to Pullman, Tom Loppano, is now the assistant head coach at Cal.

As a freshman, Patterson analyzed the situation and decided that a career at tight end at McClymonds wasn’t going to continue at Washington State.

“All I had before that was tight end, touchdown,” he said. “At Washington State I was playing behind Butch Williams (who has played with three NFL teams) and Brett Carolan (who signed with San Francisco), so I wanted to move to the other side of the ball, because it wasn’t that deep. When I first got here, we were an offensive school.”

The Cougars had Drew Bledsoe, the first pick in the 1993 NFL draft, at quarterback. With Bledsoe gone, the emphasis is on defense. Patterson is one of the reasons.

After a redshirt season, he became a starter. He is really a 6-foot-1, 248-pound linebacker playing defensive end, and his specialty is the sack. He has a school-record 27, and had three in Washington State’s 24-3 victory over Fresno State two weeks ago.

Against UCLA last season, even though the Cougars gave up 40 points, he intercepted a Rob Walker pass and returned it 89 yards for a touchdown, caused two fumbles, recovering one, and had three sacks.

There were plenty of opportunities to wave at the kids at McClymonds.

At season’s end, he returned, again with a message. It’s the same one he got so long ago.

“There’s nothing wrong with McClymonds High School, but you want to get out of Oakland and see that there’s a lot out of the inner city,” he said.

“Washington State gave me a good opportunity to get away, to learn that there’s something else beyond Oakland, instead of staying there doing the same things.”