The University of Alabama Football and Crimson Tide Sports Source
April 18, 2024
July 16, 2014
Good-bye Sarah
One of the great things about doing mybama has been to learn about “the other sports” at Alabama. There are a bunch of them. But none of them have been more successful than the Alabama gymnastics team.
That is due to the dynamo of a woman who coached it for 36 years. Patterson is as synonymous with Alabama gymnastics as Paul “Bear” Bryant is with Alabama football. When Paul Bryant hired her in 1978, I was still finishing up my BA. I may have read something in the Crimson White, but I really didn’t get to know about her and her amazing run until I got this opportunity. It has been wonderful keeping up with her and the ladies she coached.
She won as many national championships as Paul Bryant and like Paul Bryant she did it with class, style and grace. Frankly, the University and the state are better places because of her. I never met her, but I get the feeling that she was a force to be reckoned with; one of those people that you would call a force of nature.
She was also very human. She and her husband and partner in this whole gymnastics thing survived cancer, David’s cancer. The last few years she’s been a fixture at Alabama softball games cheering her youngest daughter Jordon. She has been honored by the University with the Patterson Champions Plaza. She knows the score, football rules the roost, but the people of Alabama know about her team and they support it. They’ll continue to support it. It won’t be the same, but I’m sure she would agree that Alabama gymnastics is bigger than one person.
Be that as it may. That one person will be missed. Thanks Sarah!
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