Gary Patterson

Gary Patterson (born February 13, 1960) is an American football coach and former player. He is currently the head football coach at Texas Christian University (TCU), a position he has held since the end of the 2000 season. Patterson has led the TCU Horned Frogs to five conference championships&mdash;the Conference USA title in 2002 and four Mountain West Conference titles (including three consecutive from 2009 to 2011)&mdash;and seven bowl wins including a victory in the 2011 Rose Bowl. His 2010 squad finished the season undefeated at 13–0 after the Rose Bowl win on New Year's Day 2011, and ranked second in the final tallying of both major polls.

Early life, playing career, education, and family
Patterson grew up in Rozel, Kansas and played football at Dodge City Community College and at Kansas State University. Patterson is married to Kelsey Patterson (née Hayes). He has three sons: Josh, Cade and Blake. He received his bachelor's degree in physical education in 1983 from Kansas State University, where he became a member of the Acacia Fraternity. While coaching at Tennessee Technological University he earned a master's degree in educational administration in 1984. Outside of coaching, Patterson plays guitar and performs at charity events around the Dallas-Fort Worth area during the off season.

Early years
Patterson began his coaching career in 1982 at Kansas State University as an assistant to head coach Jim Dickey. After subsequently serving a number of years as an assistant coach at a number of different schools, Patterson was hired as defensive coordinator at the University of New Mexico in 1996. He served in that job for two years before leaving to take the same position at Texas Christian University (TCU) in 1998. He was named head coach at TCU prior to the Mobile Alabama Bowl in December 2000, replacing Dennis Franchione who left to become the head coach at the University of Alabama.

Patterson remains friends with current Minnesota head coach Jerry Kill from their time as coaches on Franchione's staffs. Kill served as the best man during Patterson's wedding to wife Kelsey in 2004.

Head coach at TCU
Patterson won his 110th game at TCU with a 56-0 rout of Grambling, passing Dutch Meyer as the winningest coach in program history. His teams have won at least 10 games in a season eight times. Only once have they failed to reach a bowl, in 2004. Patterson's Frogs have earned a spot in the year-end top 25 nine times, counting his partial season as head coach in 2000. In 2005, Patterson led the Frogs to the Mountain West Conference championship in their first season as a member. Over the course of the 2005 and 2006 seasons, the Frogs won four consecutive games against Big 12 Conference opponents, with three of the victories coming on the road. Patterson was named the 2005 Mountain West Conference Coach of the Year. In January 2007, Patterson turned down a head coaching offer from the University of Minnesota worth over $2 million per year.

Patterson led the 2009 Horned Frogs to a perfect 12–0 regular season record, a Mountain West Conference championship, a #4 final BCS ranking, and an invitation to the 2010 Fiesta Bowl, where they fell by a score of 17–10 to undefeated #6 Boise State. The 2009 Horned Frogs became the second "BCS Buster" from the Mountain West Conference (and the fourth, overall) and seriously threatened to "bust into" the 2010 BCS National Championship Game. The results of two games on December 5 likely denied the Horned Frogs a final #2 BCS ranking: a last-second, game-winning field goal by Texas in the Big 12 Championship Game and an epic fourth quarter rally needed by Cincinnati to win over Pitt. Patterson was named the 2009 AP Coach of the Year, becoming the first head coach of a non-BCS conference team to win the award. He won a total of seven national "Coach of the Year" awards in 2009 in addition to being named the Mountain West Conference Coach of the Year for the second time (his third conference "Coach of the Year" award, overall).

The following year, Patterson led the 2010 Horned Frogs to a second consecutive undefeated regular season and a #3 final BCS ranking. TCU received the first Rose Bowl invitation offered to a team from a non Automatic Qualifying conference during the BCS era. The Horned Frogs won the 2011 Rose Bowl, 21–19, over Wisconsin to cap off only the second undefeated and untied season in school history.