A statue of TCU football coach Gary Patterson will be "erected at the plaza outside the renovated Schollmaier Arena in the shadows of the stadium he has helped turn into one of college football’s showplaces," according to Tim Griffin of the SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS. TCU Chancellor Victor Boschini said, "It’s taken me five years. I finally convinced (Patterson) that it wasn’t for him, but TCU" (SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS, 12/27). Asked about it Monday, Patterson said that he is "on board with the idea because he wants the benefactor to see it." Patterson said, "There was a gentleman that for five, six, seven years has allotted a lot of money to do something like that -- not just mine, but a couple others. And so he hasn’t been in great health. So I agreed to do something so that he’d get an opportunity to see what it was all about." In Ft. Worth, Carlos Mendez noted Patterson is in his 15th year as head coach, and with a 142-47 record, he "is the all-time winningest coach at TCU" (FT. WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM, 12/29).
BUILDING BLOCKS: TCU AD Chris Del Conte in a Q&A discussed the school’s improved basketball and baseball venues, saying of the new Schollmaier Arena, “It met all of our expectations and then some. ... I like everything about it and all the amenities the student-athletes have. There might be bigger, but there won’t be any nicer.” He added of renovations to Lupton Stadium, "We’ll be ready for the season. Brand new scoreboard. Moving it to left field. We’ll do nice seating berms all the way down the right field line that will wrap around the outfield. ... It just gives us another dimension when we’re hosting regionals or super regionals. ... Because we’re already sold out --- the grandstands are sold out” (FT. WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM, 12/25).
