After graduating from Manatee, I enrolled at State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota (SCF) where, at the time, I was a vocal music performance major and did concert and chamber choir as well as musical theatre. During my time at SCF, I didn't do much really around athletics as there were only five sports at SCF: men's basketball, baseball, volleyball, softball and women's tennis. Soon, I was talking to a few of the basketball players like Elias Gutierrez, Markee Teal and Odi Onyekachukwu and they were cool with me.
During my second year at SCF, I remember seeing Odi and Elias on the way to the softball field and I thought I would join them and low and behold was the softball team. Now back then, I was not a big fan of softball, but then I thought "Open your horizons and check it out" and that's exactly what I did.
Funny thing was one of the softball players, freshman pitcher at the time, Paige Mathews, was in one of class labs, which was pretty cool. The first games for softball I went to were against Santa Fe College and SCF won 4-3 and 6-0. I was thinking "Maybe they need a luck charm with them."
As I went to more softball games, at one point, the head coach at the time, Meredith Headings, saw me and approached me.
"Are you Patrick?" she asked me, and I said yes and she introduced herself and told me that her players were talking about me and I'm thinking "Uh-oh. Oh no, what did I do wrong? What's gonna happen? Has my life come to an end?"
To my surprise, it was completely the opposite of what I thought. She told me that the team said I was a nice guy and they appreciated me coming to see them play. I felt so relieved afterwards and I even got the opportunity to do the national anthem for them during the series against Illinois Valley Community College, which they loved.
A year later, I started to go to the basketball games there and that year, they had a new head coach at the time, Brock Erickson, who now is assistant coach at Iona College. Surprising to me, that year was the best year I have seen for SCF basketball. They won a majority of games and had players like Isaiah Williams, Denzel Myers, Anders Hass and Michael Sanchez play strong.
Funny thing was I remember I had classes with Williams, Haas, Myers and Sanchez. I was still going to softball games as well and went to a couple of baseball games too and saw Connor Oliver, Ben Ancheff and fellow Manatee High alum, Tyler Souris, play.
During my final school year, I took a sports officiating class with coach Tim Hill II or Coach "21" as his players called him, and I had a lot of the athletes in the class from volleyball to softball.
I really expanded my horizons with the sports including the volleyball games. I remember the first volleyball game I went to like it was just yesterday. The team they were facing against was the JV team from Webber International University on September 11th. Before that game started, there was a moment of silence and then I did the national anthem for that game.
As the game started, I was wondering on how I was going to keep them fired up and during that time I was helping Manatee football and two of the football players started saying "UH-OH" and I'm thinking "Would it work?" I tried it out and low and behold it worked like a charm. We ended up beating Webber 3-0. I kept saying "UH-OH" at their games and it worked for the most part. They had phenomenal players that laid it on line including Maja Ristic, Kat Torre and Tessa Alyman.
During one of their invitationals, I had to be a line judge for my sports officiating class and I was so nervous and frightened to do it. I was on SCF's side and they were playing Polk State and Polk State's coach scared the crap out of me so badly that they replace me with someone else, but I redeem myself the next day and was on the opposite side of SCF's games, which was a relief.
After volleyball season was over, basketball season started, but I didn't go to many of them. I still kept going to softball games and a few baseball games as well.
One thing I remembered was I had strong feelings for one of the softball players, but at that time, she was not looking to be in a relationship, which I understood, and I still kept in contact with her and remained friends with her too.
I had a lot of memorable moments while I was at SCF. I remember inviting the whole softball team to a musical show I was involved in and the majority of them tricked me saying they were not able to come, but they did and that brought tears of joy to my face.
I remember one day, Matt Ennis, the athletic director for SCF, invited me to the athletic banquet and I thought he was joking, but he was serious, so I went and he recognized me and I gave them one more "UH-OH" as a thank you to them.
Let's fast forward to today. I went to visit my second alma mater meet see the new volleyball team and new coach, Angie Byrd. I was talking to one of the assistant coaches, Billie Timmons, about it and she said it was ok with her and coach Byrd. So I hopped on the closest bus heading to SCF.
As I walked towards the gym, I couldn't help but overhear Mr. Ennis and coach Timmons talking to coach Byrd about my visit and literally I heard my phrase "UH-OH" and then Mr. Ennis saw me and said "UH-OH" and was glad to see me. He said to me "We were just talking about you."
Honestly, I did kind of get a hint they were kind of talking about me because when I hear the word "UH-OH" at SCF, they know that I'm there.
I went to meet coach Byrd and she was really nice to speak to and she introduced me to the other assistant coach and her family. Then I went into the gym and saw the new wave of volleyball players doing their pre-practice warm-ups.
Coach Timmons called me over and introduced me to the whole team on told them who I was, what I do currently and how big of an impact I made for SCF. She had the players introduce themselves to me from left to right on who they were, where they are from and their positions as players.
Nearing the end of the line, one of the players from the Czech Republic, Eliška Trunečková, was thrown off guard by me when I said "Dobrý den," which means "hello" in Czech, but she was impressed by that.
I told the team a couple of memories I remembered when I watch the volleyball team play and how I met other alumni that played at SCF in their respective sports, even if FGCU against them. After telling them about my experiences from watching SCF volleyball, I told the whole team "Good luck, play smart, work hard, finish strong and have fun."
One thing I wish I could have said to them was this:
"Every match you play, you only get one chance to win. When you win your matches, that's good, but I want you keep this one thing in mind: every win you earn will also mean each of you will have a target on your back, and the more you win, the bigger the target is on your backs and the harder you have to work. I have seen the volleyball team play in the past and I remember their 22 match winning streak and Coach Timmons can vouch for me on this. Each match they won, the targets on their backs got bigger and bigger, and the matches got harder and harder, but they fought tooth and nail to keep their record in tact and scratched and clawed their way to make it to the national tournament. I want you to remember one thing that I want to tell you: Once the first serve begins, you have to go forward. There's no do overs, no rewinds and no going back."
"The minute you start compromising for the sake of massaging somebody's ego, that's it game over."
- Gordon Ramsay
Just being able to stop by and visit my second alma mater and see old faces I remember and meet new ones that I have never met before can bring a tear to my eye because I miss coming back to see my second alma mater and seeing how well the school does. Even after I left for FGCU wants me to come visit whenever I get a chance and I'm hoping to do so soon depending on my schedule.
"Are you Patrick?" she asked me, and I said yes and she introduced herself and told me that her players were talking about me and I'm thinking "Uh-oh. Oh no, what did I do wrong? What's gonna happen? Has my life come to an end?"
To my surprise, it was completely the opposite of what I thought. She told me that the team said I was a nice guy and they appreciated me coming to see them play. I felt so relieved afterwards and I even got the opportunity to do the national anthem for them during the series against Illinois Valley Community College, which they loved.
A year later, I started to go to the basketball games there and that year, they had a new head coach at the time, Brock Erickson, who now is assistant coach at Iona College. Surprising to me, that year was the best year I have seen for SCF basketball. They won a majority of games and had players like Isaiah Williams, Denzel Myers, Anders Hass and Michael Sanchez play strong.
Funny thing was I remember I had classes with Williams, Haas, Myers and Sanchez. I was still going to softball games as well and went to a couple of baseball games too and saw Connor Oliver, Ben Ancheff and fellow Manatee High alum, Tyler Souris, play.
During my final school year, I took a sports officiating class with coach Tim Hill II or Coach "21" as his players called him, and I had a lot of the athletes in the class from volleyball to softball.
I really expanded my horizons with the sports including the volleyball games. I remember the first volleyball game I went to like it was just yesterday. The team they were facing against was the JV team from Webber International University on September 11th. Before that game started, there was a moment of silence and then I did the national anthem for that game.
As the game started, I was wondering on how I was going to keep them fired up and during that time I was helping Manatee football and two of the football players started saying "UH-OH" and I'm thinking "Would it work?" I tried it out and low and behold it worked like a charm. We ended up beating Webber 3-0. I kept saying "UH-OH" at their games and it worked for the most part. They had phenomenal players that laid it on line including Maja Ristic, Kat Torre and Tessa Alyman.
During one of their invitationals, I had to be a line judge for my sports officiating class and I was so nervous and frightened to do it. I was on SCF's side and they were playing Polk State and Polk State's coach scared the crap out of me so badly that they replace me with someone else, but I redeem myself the next day and was on the opposite side of SCF's games, which was a relief.
After volleyball season was over, basketball season started, but I didn't go to many of them. I still kept going to softball games and a few baseball games as well.
One thing I remembered was I had strong feelings for one of the softball players, but at that time, she was not looking to be in a relationship, which I understood, and I still kept in contact with her and remained friends with her too.
I had a lot of memorable moments while I was at SCF. I remember inviting the whole softball team to a musical show I was involved in and the majority of them tricked me saying they were not able to come, but they did and that brought tears of joy to my face.
I remember one day, Matt Ennis, the athletic director for SCF, invited me to the athletic banquet and I thought he was joking, but he was serious, so I went and he recognized me and I gave them one more "UH-OH" as a thank you to them.
Let's fast forward to today. I went to visit my second alma mater meet see the new volleyball team and new coach, Angie Byrd. I was talking to one of the assistant coaches, Billie Timmons, about it and she said it was ok with her and coach Byrd. So I hopped on the closest bus heading to SCF.
As I walked towards the gym, I couldn't help but overhear Mr. Ennis and coach Timmons talking to coach Byrd about my visit and literally I heard my phrase "UH-OH" and then Mr. Ennis saw me and said "UH-OH" and was glad to see me. He said to me "We were just talking about you."
Honestly, I did kind of get a hint they were kind of talking about me because when I hear the word "UH-OH" at SCF, they know that I'm there.
I went to meet coach Byrd and she was really nice to speak to and she introduced me to the other assistant coach and her family. Then I went into the gym and saw the new wave of volleyball players doing their pre-practice warm-ups.
Coach Timmons called me over and introduced me to the whole team on told them who I was, what I do currently and how big of an impact I made for SCF. She had the players introduce themselves to me from left to right on who they were, where they are from and their positions as players.
Nearing the end of the line, one of the players from the Czech Republic, Eliška Trunečková, was thrown off guard by me when I said "Dobrý den," which means "hello" in Czech, but she was impressed by that.
I told the team a couple of memories I remembered when I watch the volleyball team play and how I met other alumni that played at SCF in their respective sports, even if FGCU against them. After telling them about my experiences from watching SCF volleyball, I told the whole team "Good luck, play smart, work hard, finish strong and have fun."
One thing I wish I could have said to them was this:
"Every match you play, you only get one chance to win. When you win your matches, that's good, but I want you keep this one thing in mind: every win you earn will also mean each of you will have a target on your back, and the more you win, the bigger the target is on your backs and the harder you have to work. I have seen the volleyball team play in the past and I remember their 22 match winning streak and Coach Timmons can vouch for me on this. Each match they won, the targets on their backs got bigger and bigger, and the matches got harder and harder, but they fought tooth and nail to keep their record in tact and scratched and clawed their way to make it to the national tournament. I want you to remember one thing that I want to tell you: Once the first serve begins, you have to go forward. There's no do overs, no rewinds and no going back."
"The minute you start compromising for the sake of massaging somebody's ego, that's it game over."
- Gordon Ramsay
Just being able to stop by and visit my second alma mater and see old faces I remember and meet new ones that I have never met before can bring a tear to my eye because I miss coming back to see my second alma mater and seeing how well the school does. Even after I left for FGCU wants me to come visit whenever I get a chance and I'm hoping to do so soon depending on my schedule.
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