University of North Carolina Athletics
Tar Heels Celebrate 100 Years Of The Patterson Medal
October 19, 2023 | General
Note: This week Carolina Athletics celebrates 100 years of awarding Patterson Medals to its most outstanding student-athletes. Many of the recipients will be recognized at halftime of Saturday's football game vs. Virginia, including Erin Matson,one of the 2023 recipients who will officially receive her medal from Bubba Cunningham members of the Patterson family.
Sometimes the selections are difficult, trying to pick a winner as though someone asked you to rank your children. And then in other years choosing the recipients of the Patterson Medal, the highest award annually presented to a Tar Heel student-athlete, is really a no-brainer.
The latter was the case this past summer, when we sat down to review candidates who would not only receive the 2022-23 medals but would also represent the historic 100th class of Patterson Medal winners.
Erin Matson, field hockey's Michael Jordan and the only five-time first-team All-America and ACC Player of the Year in any sport, and two-time NCAA wrestling champion Austin O'Connor were easily deserving of becoming the 136th and 137th Tar Heels to win Patterson Medals.
The medals are currently given to at least one male and one female student-athlete following the conclusion of all sports competition each year. It honors career achievement, primarily for athletic accomplishments, although sportsmanship and leadership are also considered. The criteria for a student-athlete to be eligible to win the award has changed somewhat in recent decades, which we will cover shortly.
HISTORY OF THE MEDALS
Dr. Joseph Patterson presented the first medal in 1924 to three-sport star Monk McDonald to honor the memory of his brother, John Durand Patterson. His family has subsequently maintained a proud association with the award and the University for a century.
"Since early childhood, the Patterson Medal has embodied my family's love, dedication and pride for the Tar Heels from generation to generation," says Blair Patterson Reeves. Her grandfather, F.M. Simmons Patterson, was vice president of the UNC Class of 1935 and one of the award's early presenters.
"The medal may have its roots in our family, but its true significance lies in the generations of student-athletes who have earned this honor," says Eliza Blackwell, one of many Pattersons who have attended UNC. Family history says a Patterson first matriculated at the University of North Carolina in 1795. "It's a humble reminder of our family's connection to the University and the incredible individuals who have contributed to its legacy on and off the field."
The list of Patterson medalists include many of the most recognizable and legendary Tar Heels, enough to fill a whole range of Mount Rushmores: Charlie Justice (you simply can't write a history of Carolina Athletics without a reference to the great "Choo Choo" Justice, the post-World War II hero of the gridiron), Wimbledon champion Vic Seixas, early Final Four stars Lennie Rosenbluth and Larry Miller, record-setting tailback Don McCauley, sub-4-minute miler Tony Waldrop, the maestro of the Four Corners Phil Ford, soccer phenoms Kristine Lilly and Mia Hamm, future New York marathon champion and four-time Olympian Shalane Flanagan and Tyler Hansbrough to name just a few of the all-time greats.
McDonald, the first recipient, not only lettered in football, basketball and baseball for four seasons but was a standout at quarterback, guard and shortstop on all three Tar Heels teams, a feat rarely matched in the 100 years since. In 1924, he led the basketball team to an undefeated season, which the Helms Foundation later declared to be UNC's first national championship in any sport. He was the basketball team's head coach for a season, went to medical school and is a member of the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame. Right off the bat, the Charlotte native set quite a standard for all future Patterson Medal winners.
McDonald is also one of numerous football and men's basketball players to win the award, a logical historical fact as those programs are two of Carolina's oldest and highest-profile sports. At least 37 football players and 32 basketball players have won Patterson Medals (that accounting includes individuals who played on those teams as either their primary sport or played a significant role on those as a second or, in some rare instances, third sport).
The most recent Patterson Medal winners to play multiple sports were Charles Waddell, an All-America tight end who also played basketball and ran track in the early 1970s, and Danny Talbott, who was the ACC Football Player of the Year in 1965 as a quarterback and was a first-team All-America first baseman in 1966.
WOMEN'S SPORTS CHANGE DYNAMIC
From 1924 to 1979 the athletic department selected one Patterson Medal winner each year and they were all men. That changed with the dawn of the '80s as swimmer Bonny Brown broke the gender gap in 1980 and there were co-winners, albeit both men a year later as linebacker Lawrence Taylor (widely regarded as the greatest defensive player in NFL history) and 2,000-point scorer Al Wood shared the honor.
Eleven-time national champion swimmer Sue Walsh won in 1984 and when two-time women's soccer National Player of the Year Shannon Higgins won in 1990, it began a stretch during which women won Patterson Medals six times in eight years. That also included Sharon Couch, a future U.S. Track and Field Olympian, who was the first Black female to win the Patterson Medal (Charlie Scott, Carolina's first Black scholarship basketball player and a future Naismith Hall of Famer, was the first Black student-athlete to win a Patterson Medal in 1970).
Higgins and Hall of Famers Lilly and Hamm were among five different women's soccer stars to win the award between 1990 and 1997.
As Carolina's women's athletics program, which began in the early 1970s, became one of the most successful in the nation, the time was right to select both a men's and women's winner. A clear example of the necessity to award two medals came in 1995, when four-time first-team All-America, four-time NCAA soccer champion and National Player of the Year Tisha Venturini won the Patterson Medal and three-time NCAA wrestling champion T.J. Jaworsky finished runner-up.
Jaworsky is likely one of the most accomplished Tar Heels who were eligible to win the Patterson Medal but did not. Other legendary Tar Heels also didn't win the award, which led to another change in the eligibility rules.
Future NBA stars and Naismith Basketball Hall of Famers James Worthy and Michael Jordan, golf major champion Davis Love III, B.J. Surhoff, the No. 1 pick in the 1985 Major League Baseball Draft, two-time 1,000-yard back Natrone Means, and 2005 Final Four MVP Sean May weren't eligible to win the award when they played because they left college early for the pro ranks.
REFLECTING THE TIMES
In 1998, Carolina's athletic leadership made two changes, one officially and the other on a case-by-case basis. First, the Patterson Medal Class of 1998 included National Player of the Year Antawn Jamison, who had declared for the NBA Draft after his junior season, and Cindy Werley, who led the Tar Heels to three straight NCAA field hockey titles. That was the first year there would be both a men's and women's winner, and Jamison became the first recipient after having left school with remaining athletic eligibility (he finished his undergraduate degree in the ensuing fall semester after turning pro).
As more players in a growing list of sports entered the professional ranks early, it was clear a whole generation of standout athletes might miss being properly considered for UNC's highest honor. So, in the mid-2000s student-athletes who had competed at Carolina for at least three seasons became eligible for the award.
Fireball pitching ace Andrew Miller (2006), College World Series all-time hits leader Dustin Ackley (2009), men's basketball national champion Justin Jackson (2017) and record-setting quarterback Sam Howell (2022) are among the recipients to benefit from the change in eligibility guidelines.
Nineteen different sports – including boxing, which was discontinued more than 50 years ago – are represented among the Patterson Medal winners, with football and men's basketball having the most. Baseball is tied for third with 14, at least seven of whom played on multiple teams at Carolina, including Albert Long, who lettered in four sports in the 1950s.
Women's soccer, which has won 22 national championships, is also tied for the third most and has the most women's winners with 14, all since 1990. Field hockey (seven), women's lacrosse (five) and women's tennis (three) have dominated the award in recent years producing winners in 12 of the last 13 seasons.
"The Patterson Medal recognizes all UNC stands for – excellence in academics, competition, leadership and sportsmanship," says Kara Cannizzaro, who won the Patterson Medal in 2013 after leading the women's lacrosse team to its first NCAA title that year. "It's the culmination of our academic and athletic careers at UNC, a recognition that we are among the best of the best."
Cannizzaro is one of 10 Patterson Medal winners currently on staff at Carolina Athletics with Hayley Carter, Sara Daavettila, Dwight Hollier, Rob Koll, Jeff Lebo, Marie McCool, Matson, Marcus Paige and Tripp Phillips.
"Having 10 Patterson recipients on staff speaks to our culture and community," says Cannizzaro. "We chose to return home to help impact today's Tar Heels. We are dedicated to cultivating an environment for all student-athletes to be successful, creating opportunities we didn't have, while possessing the unique insight of what it takes to be the best. We have a shared experience with our current student-athletes in that we've worn the jersey and attended classes at the very same university. Carolina has an unmatched culture of excellence and a student-athlete experience that is second to none."
As famous and recognizable as some winners such as Justice, Ford or Hansbrough are, there are even more Patterson Medal winners whose names and exploits even the most fervent Carolina fans might strain to recognize or remember:
Football's Merle Bonner, nicknamed the Rabbit; Harry Williamson, Carolina's first Olympic track athlete, who ran in the 1936 Berlin Games; George "Snuffy" Stirnweiss, who went on to play in two All-Star Games as a New York Yankee, but may best be known at UNC for an 86-yard punt return for a touchdown against The Citadel in 1939; Bill Haywood, who served four years in the Marines prior to enrolling at UNC and not only pitched the 1964 Tar Heels to the College World Series, but earned All-South Region honors in soccer;
Koll, who won a national championship in wrestling in 1988 despite competing with an injured knee and returned 35 years later in 2023 to become the Tar Heels' head coach; Danny Jackson, the first international to win the Patterson Medal, a Leeds, England native who led Carolina to an NCAA title in 2001 and won the Patterson Medal the following spring; Chad Flack, who sent Mike Fox's nine to not one but two College World Series appearances with game-winning home runs against Alabama in 2006 and South Carolina in 2008;
Caroline Price, daughter of Georgia Tech and Cleveland Cavaliers star guard Mark Price, who in 2015 became the first of three women's tennis players to win the award; and William Blumberg, the only 10-time All-America in men's tennis, who is the only Tar Heel to compete for UNC after winning a Patterson Medal (due to NCAA eligibility rules put in effect because of Covid, he decided to return to college for a fifth season, a decision he made after the award was selected in 2020).
One family, the Farrises of Charlotte, claimed two Patterson Medals some 32 years apart. Ray Farris Sr., eloquently described in the prose of his times as a "swash-buckling, hell for leather guard" was captain of the football team, boxed and was a pitcher. He won the award in 1930 after leading the 1929 football team, known as the "team of a million backs," to a 9-1 record. His son, Ray Jr., was a second-team All-ACC quarterback in the early 60s. Two more generations of Farrises have gone on to compete at Carolina, including Ray Jr.'s grandson, Duwe, a graduate student on this year's men's basketball team and a member of the 2022 Final Four team in New Orleans.
So much history, so many stories.
In Matson's and O'Connor's cases last year, certain candidates separate themselves from all the other All-Americas and All-ACC performers, recordholders and champions. However, it is often the case where numerous candidates would be worthy recipients each year. What makes a candidate rise above the rest often is that little extra, that intangible that points to their selection.
Read Patterson describes it well: "The Patterson Medal is given to someone who is passionate for life, someone who leaves it on the field every day, to someone who wants greatness and will work relentlessly to get there, who has influence to inspire others and a student-athlete who represents UNC's unmatched tradition of excellence in everything they do."
Sometimes the selections are difficult, trying to pick a winner as though someone asked you to rank your children. And then in other years choosing the recipients of the Patterson Medal, the highest award annually presented to a Tar Heel student-athlete, is really a no-brainer.
The latter was the case this past summer, when we sat down to review candidates who would not only receive the 2022-23 medals but would also represent the historic 100th class of Patterson Medal winners.
Erin Matson, field hockey's Michael Jordan and the only five-time first-team All-America and ACC Player of the Year in any sport, and two-time NCAA wrestling champion Austin O'Connor were easily deserving of becoming the 136th and 137th Tar Heels to win Patterson Medals.
The medals are currently given to at least one male and one female student-athlete following the conclusion of all sports competition each year. It honors career achievement, primarily for athletic accomplishments, although sportsmanship and leadership are also considered. The criteria for a student-athlete to be eligible to win the award has changed somewhat in recent decades, which we will cover shortly.
HISTORY OF THE MEDALS
Dr. Joseph Patterson presented the first medal in 1924 to three-sport star Monk McDonald to honor the memory of his brother, John Durand Patterson. His family has subsequently maintained a proud association with the award and the University for a century.
"Since early childhood, the Patterson Medal has embodied my family's love, dedication and pride for the Tar Heels from generation to generation," says Blair Patterson Reeves. Her grandfather, F.M. Simmons Patterson, was vice president of the UNC Class of 1935 and one of the award's early presenters.
"The medal may have its roots in our family, but its true significance lies in the generations of student-athletes who have earned this honor," says Eliza Blackwell, one of many Pattersons who have attended UNC. Family history says a Patterson first matriculated at the University of North Carolina in 1795. "It's a humble reminder of our family's connection to the University and the incredible individuals who have contributed to its legacy on and off the field."
The list of Patterson medalists include many of the most recognizable and legendary Tar Heels, enough to fill a whole range of Mount Rushmores: Charlie Justice (you simply can't write a history of Carolina Athletics without a reference to the great "Choo Choo" Justice, the post-World War II hero of the gridiron), Wimbledon champion Vic Seixas, early Final Four stars Lennie Rosenbluth and Larry Miller, record-setting tailback Don McCauley, sub-4-minute miler Tony Waldrop, the maestro of the Four Corners Phil Ford, soccer phenoms Kristine Lilly and Mia Hamm, future New York marathon champion and four-time Olympian Shalane Flanagan and Tyler Hansbrough to name just a few of the all-time greats.
McDonald, the first recipient, not only lettered in football, basketball and baseball for four seasons but was a standout at quarterback, guard and shortstop on all three Tar Heels teams, a feat rarely matched in the 100 years since. In 1924, he led the basketball team to an undefeated season, which the Helms Foundation later declared to be UNC's first national championship in any sport. He was the basketball team's head coach for a season, went to medical school and is a member of the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame. Right off the bat, the Charlotte native set quite a standard for all future Patterson Medal winners.
McDonald is also one of numerous football and men's basketball players to win the award, a logical historical fact as those programs are two of Carolina's oldest and highest-profile sports. At least 37 football players and 32 basketball players have won Patterson Medals (that accounting includes individuals who played on those teams as either their primary sport or played a significant role on those as a second or, in some rare instances, third sport).
The most recent Patterson Medal winners to play multiple sports were Charles Waddell, an All-America tight end who also played basketball and ran track in the early 1970s, and Danny Talbott, who was the ACC Football Player of the Year in 1965 as a quarterback and was a first-team All-America first baseman in 1966.
WOMEN'S SPORTS CHANGE DYNAMIC
From 1924 to 1979 the athletic department selected one Patterson Medal winner each year and they were all men. That changed with the dawn of the '80s as swimmer Bonny Brown broke the gender gap in 1980 and there were co-winners, albeit both men a year later as linebacker Lawrence Taylor (widely regarded as the greatest defensive player in NFL history) and 2,000-point scorer Al Wood shared the honor.
Eleven-time national champion swimmer Sue Walsh won in 1984 and when two-time women's soccer National Player of the Year Shannon Higgins won in 1990, it began a stretch during which women won Patterson Medals six times in eight years. That also included Sharon Couch, a future U.S. Track and Field Olympian, who was the first Black female to win the Patterson Medal (Charlie Scott, Carolina's first Black scholarship basketball player and a future Naismith Hall of Famer, was the first Black student-athlete to win a Patterson Medal in 1970).
Higgins and Hall of Famers Lilly and Hamm were among five different women's soccer stars to win the award between 1990 and 1997.
As Carolina's women's athletics program, which began in the early 1970s, became one of the most successful in the nation, the time was right to select both a men's and women's winner. A clear example of the necessity to award two medals came in 1995, when four-time first-team All-America, four-time NCAA soccer champion and National Player of the Year Tisha Venturini won the Patterson Medal and three-time NCAA wrestling champion T.J. Jaworsky finished runner-up.
Jaworsky is likely one of the most accomplished Tar Heels who were eligible to win the Patterson Medal but did not. Other legendary Tar Heels also didn't win the award, which led to another change in the eligibility rules.
Future NBA stars and Naismith Basketball Hall of Famers James Worthy and Michael Jordan, golf major champion Davis Love III, B.J. Surhoff, the No. 1 pick in the 1985 Major League Baseball Draft, two-time 1,000-yard back Natrone Means, and 2005 Final Four MVP Sean May weren't eligible to win the award when they played because they left college early for the pro ranks.
REFLECTING THE TIMES
In 1998, Carolina's athletic leadership made two changes, one officially and the other on a case-by-case basis. First, the Patterson Medal Class of 1998 included National Player of the Year Antawn Jamison, who had declared for the NBA Draft after his junior season, and Cindy Werley, who led the Tar Heels to three straight NCAA field hockey titles. That was the first year there would be both a men's and women's winner, and Jamison became the first recipient after having left school with remaining athletic eligibility (he finished his undergraduate degree in the ensuing fall semester after turning pro).
As more players in a growing list of sports entered the professional ranks early, it was clear a whole generation of standout athletes might miss being properly considered for UNC's highest honor. So, in the mid-2000s student-athletes who had competed at Carolina for at least three seasons became eligible for the award.
Fireball pitching ace Andrew Miller (2006), College World Series all-time hits leader Dustin Ackley (2009), men's basketball national champion Justin Jackson (2017) and record-setting quarterback Sam Howell (2022) are among the recipients to benefit from the change in eligibility guidelines.
Nineteen different sports – including boxing, which was discontinued more than 50 years ago – are represented among the Patterson Medal winners, with football and men's basketball having the most. Baseball is tied for third with 14, at least seven of whom played on multiple teams at Carolina, including Albert Long, who lettered in four sports in the 1950s.
Women's soccer, which has won 22 national championships, is also tied for the third most and has the most women's winners with 14, all since 1990. Field hockey (seven), women's lacrosse (five) and women's tennis (three) have dominated the award in recent years producing winners in 12 of the last 13 seasons.
"The Patterson Medal recognizes all UNC stands for – excellence in academics, competition, leadership and sportsmanship," says Kara Cannizzaro, who won the Patterson Medal in 2013 after leading the women's lacrosse team to its first NCAA title that year. "It's the culmination of our academic and athletic careers at UNC, a recognition that we are among the best of the best."
Cannizzaro is one of 10 Patterson Medal winners currently on staff at Carolina Athletics with Hayley Carter, Sara Daavettila, Dwight Hollier, Rob Koll, Jeff Lebo, Marie McCool, Matson, Marcus Paige and Tripp Phillips.
"Having 10 Patterson recipients on staff speaks to our culture and community," says Cannizzaro. "We chose to return home to help impact today's Tar Heels. We are dedicated to cultivating an environment for all student-athletes to be successful, creating opportunities we didn't have, while possessing the unique insight of what it takes to be the best. We have a shared experience with our current student-athletes in that we've worn the jersey and attended classes at the very same university. Carolina has an unmatched culture of excellence and a student-athlete experience that is second to none."
As famous and recognizable as some winners such as Justice, Ford or Hansbrough are, there are even more Patterson Medal winners whose names and exploits even the most fervent Carolina fans might strain to recognize or remember:
Football's Merle Bonner, nicknamed the Rabbit; Harry Williamson, Carolina's first Olympic track athlete, who ran in the 1936 Berlin Games; George "Snuffy" Stirnweiss, who went on to play in two All-Star Games as a New York Yankee, but may best be known at UNC for an 86-yard punt return for a touchdown against The Citadel in 1939; Bill Haywood, who served four years in the Marines prior to enrolling at UNC and not only pitched the 1964 Tar Heels to the College World Series, but earned All-South Region honors in soccer;
Koll, who won a national championship in wrestling in 1988 despite competing with an injured knee and returned 35 years later in 2023 to become the Tar Heels' head coach; Danny Jackson, the first international to win the Patterson Medal, a Leeds, England native who led Carolina to an NCAA title in 2001 and won the Patterson Medal the following spring; Chad Flack, who sent Mike Fox's nine to not one but two College World Series appearances with game-winning home runs against Alabama in 2006 and South Carolina in 2008;
Caroline Price, daughter of Georgia Tech and Cleveland Cavaliers star guard Mark Price, who in 2015 became the first of three women's tennis players to win the award; and William Blumberg, the only 10-time All-America in men's tennis, who is the only Tar Heel to compete for UNC after winning a Patterson Medal (due to NCAA eligibility rules put in effect because of Covid, he decided to return to college for a fifth season, a decision he made after the award was selected in 2020).
One family, the Farrises of Charlotte, claimed two Patterson Medals some 32 years apart. Ray Farris Sr., eloquently described in the prose of his times as a "swash-buckling, hell for leather guard" was captain of the football team, boxed and was a pitcher. He won the award in 1930 after leading the 1929 football team, known as the "team of a million backs," to a 9-1 record. His son, Ray Jr., was a second-team All-ACC quarterback in the early 60s. Two more generations of Farrises have gone on to compete at Carolina, including Ray Jr.'s grandson, Duwe, a graduate student on this year's men's basketball team and a member of the 2022 Final Four team in New Orleans.
So much history, so many stories.
In Matson's and O'Connor's cases last year, certain candidates separate themselves from all the other All-Americas and All-ACC performers, recordholders and champions. However, it is often the case where numerous candidates would be worthy recipients each year. What makes a candidate rise above the rest often is that little extra, that intangible that points to their selection.
Read Patterson describes it well: "The Patterson Medal is given to someone who is passionate for life, someone who leaves it on the field every day, to someone who wants greatness and will work relentlessly to get there, who has influence to inspire others and a student-athlete who represents UNC's unmatched tradition of excellence in everything they do."
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