TCU's Gary Patterson needs more room for his trophies

FORT WORTH, TX - A quick stop by TCU Head Coach Gary Patterson's office these days reveals a corner filled with trophies. The thing that's really neat to me is when you go back and you find out what all these different awards stand for, says Patterson. For me it's a we thing. Head coaches get far too much credit.

During the off season, Patterson biggest job could easily have been trying to figure out what to do with all of his trophies. Not the Conference Championship trophy which sits in the lobby, but the awards he received for coach of the year. At last count, that number stood at nine.

All of them represent something different in what they were looking for, Patterson says. Again I think you have to have a little luck, it kind of has to be a perfect storm. II think you have to do a lot of things right. It's hard to keep all that group we just talked about in the same year. It was a lot of fum. I'm very apperciative. I'm very humbled by it and I also understand that this year, it doesn't mean anything.

Patterson says he doesn't like to brag about his awards, but when you receive all the major college coach of the year awards, its hard to overlook.
Another windfall were the checks that came with those awards.

The Liberty Mutual award included $50,000. He donated that to the Presbyterian Night Shelter plus another 20-thousand to the TCU Alumni Accosiation.

The Bobby Dodd trophy included $10,000 so he donated that to the Tarrant Area Food Banks.

Its neat that you can do some things that a lot of other people benefit from, so, those are things that showed up and were kind of surprise that it all happened.

Last week Patterson got yet another award when Playboy Magazines pick him as their choice for preseason coach of the year. It's just another honor in a string of recognitions.

In 2009, TCU posted just the second 12 win season in the schools history, matched only by the 1935 National Championship team which also went 12-1. The Frogs had their first undefeated regular season since their 1938 National Championship season.

Here is a list of the trophies that Patterson received:

(1) National Coach of the Year by the Walter Camp Football Foundation.
(2) Associated Press Coach of the Year
(3) American Football Coaches Association
(4) Sporting News Coach of the Year Award
(5) Bobby Dodd Award
(6) Eddie Robinson Award
(7) Liberty Mutual Coach of the Year Award
(8) George Munger Award
(9) Woody Hayes Award