This one is going to be a bit personal. Tom Patterson, who revolutionized sports journalism in Mississippi, died Wednesday night in Roseville, Calif., near Sacramento. He was 61.
Tom hired me at The Clarion-Ledger in the summer of 1979. I am forever grateful. He brought me back home.
By then, Patterson had built a sports staff as proficient as any in the country, and that's no exaggeration. Both the Clarion-Ledger and the Jackson Daily News sports sections, then the afternoon paper, won national awards with such regularity it was the norm, not the exception. We were good, and Patterson knew we were good.
Patterson, a short, elfish, bespectacled, balding and bearded man with mischievous eyes, was the center of our storm. He had ideas the way Nike has shoes. He was a whirling dervish of energy, and he demanded all around him work as hard as he.
This will tell you much about Patterson, his ideas and his ego. He didn't think Mississippi sports teams measured up to his sports sections. He wanted to show off all that talent with a special section covering a special event. Problem was, the Ole Miss and Mississippi State football teams weren't good enough at the time to qualify for a bowl game.
