Cecil Patterson brought success to Jones County schools, both athletically and academically, and he says it is due in large part to the philosophy he learned early in life.
Patterson, 70, retired from the local school system in 2013 after a productive career as baseball coach and administrator. He grew up on a farm outside Haddock along with one brother and four sisters. Chores came first and helped shape his outlook on life.
“When you have to do chores, when you have to feed cows and hogs, work in the fields, do all those little things before you can do anything else, that taught me responsibility of hard work,” he reflected last week. “If you’re going to achieve something in life, nothing is ever given to you; you have to earn it. My parents and grandparents taught me that a long, long time ago, and that has stayed with me to this very day. If you want it, you got to go get it.”
In addition to those many chores, Patterson recalls other activities, such as his grandfather driving his brother and him around the community.
“We used to pedal watermelons to make a little change. My brother and I were in the back of the pickup; ‘Watermelons. Watermelons for sale. Watermelons for sale.’ And you’ll be surprised at the number of people, when they heard that word watermelon, they would run to the truck, almost like an ice cream truck.”
The future college All-American and Hall-of-Famer knew his sport of choice early.
“I love me some baseball,” he said, explaining his first glove came from Sears and Roebuck.
“I thought that was heaven,” Patterson exclaimed. “Couldn’t get any better. I was around five or six years old, and I picked out that glove. Man, I didn’t put that glove down. I slept with it.”
Since Georgia had no professional baseball team, Patterson listened to that famous New York squad on a transistor radio.
“I would find that spot where it would come in, pick up the Yankees game and listen to it and say, ‘Man, this is what I want to do with my life. I want to be a professional baseball player, and, if possible, with the New York Yankees.’“ Patterson never made it to the Yankees, but he successfully played a lot of baseball. He didn’t start in the traditional Little Leagues, however. He was born in 1954, prior to integration.
“We didn’t have the opportunity to play in the Youth League ‘back in the day,’” he recalled.
However, through the efforts of some of the men in the Black community outside Haddock, he and other young boys played every week.
“Every Sunday, we would load up the truck, get all the boys together, go down there to that Haddock baseball field, and go at it. That was my recreational ball,” he shared. “And, we loved it.”
Patterson started high school at Califf prior to integration and played baseball and basketball under Robert Curtis. “We were fortunate enough in 1970 to win the state championship in baseball.”
After playing two years at Jones County High, Patterson earned a baseball scholarship to Middle Georgia Junior College, then a scholarship to Mercer University.
“I thought I had a very productive college career,” he opined. “I ended up being All-American my senior year at Mercer. So, I had all the tools. I just didn’t finish it out with that pro career.”
Patterson, who finished college with close to a .400 batting average and was later named to Mercer’s Hall of Fame, was not drafted by a Major League team and was not offered any opportunities in the pros.
“So, I just said, ‘Well, I guess it’s just not meant to be. God has other plans for me.’ I kind of accepted it.”
An unlikely opportunity did come later.
Following college graduation with degrees in Physical Education and History, Patterson checked around for a job but found nothing that attracted him. He then got a call.
“Coach Curtis, my old baseball basketball coach, called me and said, ‘Would you be interested in being a sub here at the high school?’
“The last thing I wanted to be was a teacher,” Patterson laughed. “Nothing against the teaching profession; I just didn’t see myself as a teacher.”
Upon further consideration, he decided to accept that offer to substitute teach early in the school year of 1976.
A teacher resigned the middle of the year, and Patterson accepted a fulltime position. He returned to school to obtain his certificate to teach.
“So, I got that at Georgia College and State University, and from there, 40 years later, here I am, retired from the Jones County school system.”
Patterson and his high school sweetheart, Janelle Hammock, married in 1977.
“She’s been my rock, my supporter. I mean, I couldn’t ask for anybody any better to join in matrimony.”
The couple have three sons — Cecil Jr., Aaron and Justin — and three grandchildren.
It didn’t take the new teacher long to get on the field. Patterson was approached after his first year and asked if he would be interested in coaching baseball.
“I said, ‘Man that would be perfect. That would put the icing on the cake, if I had the chance to still be involved in baseball. So yeah, sure, I would love to do that.’“ Patterson coached for 12 years and was an assistant in both basketball and football, but his focus was clearly on baseball. His teams compiled a 250-65 record, won nine region titles, went to two final fours and won one state championship, that coming in 1989, his last year at the helm. He was so successful, the high school diamond is now named Cecil Patterson Field.
“We had never had a men’s championship in any sport,” Patterson commented. “Jones County had never had one, to my knowledge, before our baseball team.”
While Patterson had assistants late in his coaching career, it was a different story for the first seven or eight years.
“I didn’t have an assistant for the longest time,” he recalled. “I did it for many years without any help. I drove the bus, I prepared the field, coached anywhere from 25 to 30-plus players with just one coach, and part of that was me.
“I believe in the developmental program,” Patterson explained. “You can’t sustain a program if you’re trying to go from year to year not knowing what you’re going to have on the field. So, I developed a program from the eighth grade to high school, trying to figure out who were gonna be my next players two years from now, and I trained those guys along the way.”
While the head coach did pick up assistants later, the various responsibilities began to take their toll.
“My time was kind of pulling against me, family, coaching, schooling,” Patterson recalled. “I said, ‘Well, something has got to give here.’ When my boy started asking where’s daddy, that kind of grabbed my attention a little bit. I said, ‘I need to devote more time to other places, especially with family,’ so I kind of just let the coaching go.”
Patterson was an assistant principal at Jones County High for 12 years, then moved to Gray Elementary as Assistant Principal in 1995 for two years.
Patterson became Gray Elementary Principal in 1998 and remained there until 2011, when he transferred to the Central Office for two years before retiring. He explained he had varied duties in that job.
“It was a different way to kind of use my expertise for others to kind of learn from what I did, and kind of direct programs to make them better from my experiences,” he summarized.
Twelve years after retirement, Patterson still believes in Jones County.
“I have to give credit to the Jones County School System. It’s one of the top systems around,” he praised.
“We have excellent teachers, students second to none, and administrators doing their job; so it could really be top of the line. If we get that new superintendent in here who has a vision, can see things and do the right things, Jones County could be top of the line. It is primed for that.”
Patterson also noted there was another first for the school system during his tenure. Gray Elementary was named a school of excellence in 2010.
“The State of Georgia has a process in which there’s criteria they put together by achievement test scores, the operation of the school, and other criteria,” Patterson explained. “They look at all those different factors, and they name who they feel like has done that job.
“We’d never been named a school of excellence,” he went on. “I don’t feel like I’m bragging. I’m just being truthful, and I’d do that with anybody. That’s why I say Jones County is primed to be the top of the line under the right leadership.”
Patterson, who has raised cattle for many years and was on the Tri-County EMC Board of Directors for 12 years, says he has had a career he would not have changed.
“The last thing on my mind was being a teacher,” he acknowledged. “But God works in mysterious ways. I think He steered me in where He wanted me to be. I firmly believe that because I had no inclination of being a teacher.
“And now,” Patterson shared, “if I had to do it all over again, it was the best decision I could have made. I wouldn’t want to do anything else. I have no regrets whatsoever. It just gave me the perspective of how a small farm boy through hard work can achieve and do things if you if you believe you can do it.
“And, here I am, a country boy. I got to be a state championship coach. And then, the icing on the cake is to have a school of excellence. Man, what more could you ask for? I mean, that’s it. That’s it.”
