College Sports
“It feels actually rewarding, simply seeing the place all my exhausting work has taken me”
Most of Katie Patton’s earliest reminiscences are set to the soundtrack of college football: the shriek of whistles piercing the air, the crack of shoulder pads colliding, her father’s booming voice directing his gamers as she climbed on sleds like they had been jungle gyms.
Whereas her father coached — making stops at Northwestern, Oklahoma, Pittsburgh, Jap Michigan, Indiana, and Miami (Ohio) — Patton noticed from the sideline. She cheered on her brother whereas he performed at Northern Illinois earlier than he turned a coach, too.
Then she determined it was her flip.
Simply 24 years outdated, Patton turned one of many highest-ranking girls in Division 1 faculty soccer when she was promoted in April to be Harvard’s director of soccer operations. She’s the youngest DFO in Division 1, Harvard’s first feminine DFO, and one among solely a dozen or so girls to carry the place throughout 260-plus Division 1 applications.
DFOs are sometimes liable for overseeing the off-field operations for this system, together with journey, budgeting, compliance, and facility administration. They’re additionally the staff’s major liaison with the tools and coaching employees, in addition to the remainder of the athletic division.
In brief, it’s a giant job for one particular person, particularly one in simply the second 12 months of her profession.
“It’s no secret that soccer is clearly a male-dominated discipline, so it says rather a lot about her that the coaches trusted her on this place,” mentioned Jackson McSherry, the previous DFO at Harvard, who employed Patton as an assistant recruiting and operations coordinator in 2024. “It says rather a lot concerning the confidence that she has and the information that she has about Division 1 soccer.”
Her confidence stems from many years of observing the sport alongside her father, James Patton, who has coached for 3 many years in Division 1 and is now an affiliate head coach at his alma mater, Miami (Ohio).
“She wouldn’t say rather a lot, however she would watch how issues work, and I feel . . . these experiences have helped put together her for this,” he mentioned.
Because the daughter of a journeyman soccer coach, Patton has lived in eight states and attended three excessive faculties in 4 years, every in a special state. The longest the household stayed in a single place was from 2006-12, when her father was an assistant coach at Oklahoma.
As they moved across the nation, Patton and her three siblings — older brother Brayden, youthful sisters Madie and Abbie — had been witnesses to the demanding hours and frenetic life-style that include a profession in soccer. However Patton wasn’t deterred.
“We’ve got lived this recreation for our complete lives,” she mentioned.
Patton started her profession at Harvard in the summertime of 2024, just some weeks after graduating from Michigan State, the place she majored in journalism and labored as a pupil operations assistant for the soccer program for 3 seasons.
She initially deliberate to enter sports activities journalism or PR, however after engaged on the sideline because the Spartans beat rival Michigan in a nationally televised recreation (a 37-33 thriller throughout her sophomore 12 months), she had a change of coronary heart.
“I type of had this realization that I don’t know if I might dwell my life with out soccer,” Patton mentioned.
Crimson coach Andrew Aurich referred to as to supply her the recruiting assistant job simply days earlier than commencement, and her first week at Harvard coincided with the Crimson’s official go to weekend — notoriously probably the most hectic instances of 12 months for the recruiting employees.
She hadn’t even settled into her desk by the point the gamers arrived. Instantly, it was a frenzy: She coordinated the resort rooms for a pair dozen gamers and their households, introduced the coaches in control on the itinerary for the weekend, and managed the bus schedule to move the recruits across the metropolis.
“She actually didn’t even know precisely what was occurring, simply because there wasn’t sufficient time to transient her on your complete weekend, however I actually wanted her assist, and he or she jumped proper in and he or she killed it,” McSherry mentioned.
When McSherry left Harvard within the spring to turn out to be the director of soccer enterprise operations at Boston Faculty, he prompt Patton as his successor. Provided that Patton hadn’t accomplished a 12 months with this system, selling her was of venture, however McSherry had religion in her, and Aurich agreed.
“It feels actually rewarding, simply seeing the place all my exhausting work has taken me,” Patton mentioned.
Harvard will open its season Saturday at 1 p.m. at Stetson (Fla.), and Patton, as has been the case for many of her life, can be on the sideline.
“It’s historic for a faculty like Harvard,” mentioned first-year pupil supervisor Sreenidi Bala, who sought out a task with the soccer staff after studying about Patton on-line. “It’s wonderful seeing what girls can do for this recreation.”
