July 10, 2003

G.W. BRADLEY
UNC Media Relations Intern

By the end of the month of May students across the University of Northern Colorado campus are settling down for a well deserved few months of rest from course work. A unique and inspirational track star by the name of Ryan Patterson was granted a wonderful trip to Lake Buena Vista, Florida. While most students are going to Florida for summer vacation Ryan used this journey to better himself and his university.

Patterson is a junior middle distance runner for the Bears' track and field squad and a native of Littleton, Colo. The NCAA Foundation Leadership Conference is a five-day leadership program designed to bring together a diverse group of student-athletes that will enable them to be better leaders on their campuses and in their communities. A total of 302 NCAA student-athletes who represent fall, winter, and spring sports in Divisions I, II, and III took part in the seminar.

Ryan described the five-day trip to be "one of the best experiences he's had as a student-athlete." He added the five days went quick, because of the hectic agenda planned for every day. The day consisted of two or three seminars conducted by inspirational leaders to speak about motivation. The day also consisted of small group meetings with their 25-30 group members. {Picture} A single day was set aside to spend at MGM Theme Park, and also while attending seminars Ryan participated in leadership exercisers. " While I was at the conference I've made lots of friends and met a ton of athletes around the nation. One of the individuals in particular that I became good friends with was that I met him before at a tournament here at UNC and also he stayed on my couch."

During our time Ryan answered a multiple of questions regarding the trip including one story about inspiration. The story was about a coach from St. Johns University that gave his oath to his returning seniors that he would coach them until they graduated. At that exact time the New York Knicks called to offer him the head-coaching job for the up-coming year. He gave up that higher paid salary and a chance to further his career because of loyalty. Patterson said, "That is the one thing I want to bring back to the UNC campus is loyalty among teammates and coaches.

A couple of quotes he shared will give him inspiration to make a difference and speak up on the UNC campus. Example include "sit in the front row of life; kill people with kindness" and "without leaders who walk the talk, all of our plans, promises and dreams for the future are just that, talk."

When asked about his plans for the future Ryan stated that his future is bright and uncharted, but it would be his goal to land a finance career with a professional sports team. As he returned to UNC he started to make a voice for himself with starting a program about loyalty. He wanted to start with athletes across every sport at UNC to get to know each other and to share a common goal. That goal would be to have more students and school support for each sports respected events or games. He said, "To start having loyalty across our campus it needs to start with the athletes. If we attend each other games and boost up moral for each sport other students will follow; then our smaller campus will fee like a Division I University rather than an unknown campus."

Ryan summed up his leadership conference by using one word "Loyalty."