Mike Patterson played his last basketball game for the Lobos in 1976.
Now, 29 years later, he's set to receive his degree from UNM - a bachelor of arts in Communication and Journalism.
The 6-foot-8-inch former Lobo forward has spent the gap between his college tenures toiling in the car business. He's been his own boss and worked for larger dealerships, making good money and providing for his family.
Inspiration stuck, however, when he sent his youngest son off to college.
"It kind of rejuvenated me, seeing my son go off to do something," he said. "I decided I wanted to do something. Toward the end of the car business I started to dread going to work. No job is good if you're not having fun."
Patterson came back to UNM through the Graduation Project, which brings back traditional and nontraditional students who have more than 98 hours but haven't earned their degree.
How he left the Lobos in the first place is a story of hostile emotions that sticks with him to this day.
Patterson played under infamous coach Norm Ellenberger, who left the program after the 1980 season amid a cloud of improprieties. The Lobogate scandal, as it would later be known, concerned wire fraud involving phony transcripts for players and left the program debilitated for years.
Patterson's memories of Ellenberger before Lobogate don't shed a flattering light on his former coach. It was their relationship that drove him off the team, he said.
"I had a personality clash with the coach," Patterson said. "He used to like to cuss at players and holler. He'd be an inch from my face and that kind of thing. I wasn't used to it and it started to get to the point where it affected my confidence. When a person goes through so much verbal abuse it starts to mess with your performance."
Coming out of high school in Colorado, Patterson was an All-American being recruited by everybody in the top-20 but UCLA, he said.
He moved to Albuquerque after visiting The Pit and deciding it was the venue for him. But, he said, he never thought his basketball career here would amount to so little. After an All-American run through high school in which he put up averages of 20 points and 20 rebounds, his numbers over his UNM career were a modest five points and three boards.
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"It makes me sad because I don't know how good I could've been if I had gone to a program where I got along with the coach," he said. "From that pedestal I was on in high school when I was getting 20 points and 20 rebounds, to fall to where I did. I felt I should've been a 15 and 12 man in college."
He quit the team and then, when his first son was born, quit school with 21 hours left to graduate.
And here he is now, finishing up his last semester in which he took 18 credit hours. He was a dean's list student in the '70s and has kept up that pace.
He said despite being the old man in some of his classes, he's taken to student life naturally. He's even able to make some unique contributions.
"In my sociology class there was a time we were talking about discourse and conflict during the '60s and the civil rights movement," he said. "None of these kids were born and I'm telling them I know exactly what went on. I remember the civil rights movement. I remember when Martin Luther King got killed and when Malcolm X got killed."
Being on the 29-year plan hasn't fazed Patterson. Now that he's earning his degree, he said he wants to work in public affairs for a university - preferably UNM.
