Gary Patterson has spent most of his adult life talking football.
But last Monday, inside The Fort Worth Club where the Davey O’Brien Awards gather football’s greats, past and present, the former Texas Christian University football head coach — now the University of Southern California’s defensive coordinator — wanted to talk about mayors.
Patterson ticked through the leadership he worked alongside during his TCU tenure. Four athletic directors. Three chancellors. Four mayors.
Then he explained why he includes them in his count.
“Why mayors? Because I always felt like, not only did we try to make TCU better, we tried to make Fort Worth better,” Patterson said.
Gary Patterson poses with the Davey O’Brien Legends Award after being honored at The Fort Worth Club. The former TCU head coach, now USC’s defensive coordinator, was recognized for his impact on college football and the Fort Worth community. (Matthew Sgroi | Fort Worth Report)
Patterson returned to a familiar ballroom to accept the Davey O’Brien Legends Award, an honor that places him among coaches and quarterbacks who helped define college football eras. The recognition carried a civic dimension for Patterson, serving as a reminder of how closely he has long tied TCU’s rise to the city around it.
At the Davey O’Brien Foundation, that focus is intentional. A national award with a Fort Worth address, designed not only to celebrate quarterbacks, but to draw them back into a community mission that extends beyond athletics.
On a day highlighted by Patterson and National Quarterback Award recipient Fernando Mendoza, Davey O’Brien Jr. — son of the award’s namesake — kept returning to what he said is the foundation’s deepest purpose: honoring high school student-athletes whose achievements reach beyond the field.
“That is the award my father would have loved the most,” O’Brien Jr. said of the scholarship.
From ‘average’ to award winner
The foundation’s $30,000 scholarship recipient was Maile Farden, a water polo player at Carroll Senior High School in Southlake. She said she grew up being labeled “average.”
“Receiving this award really shows me that hard work pays off,” Farden said. “I labeled myself as average growing up. This award made me feel far more than average.”
Farden plans to attend Iona University in New Rochelle, New York, double majoring in finance and economics with a pre-law minor while participating in a church ministry program. Her goal: Columbia Law School.
“The scholarship will help me pay for my law school,” she said, crediting her parents for her priorities and persistence.
Farden will continue playing water polo in college, a sport she said is suited to her competitiveness. She gravitated to it after not being allowed to try out for boys’ football, she said.
“I’m a very aggressive player and water polo really encourages that,” she said.
She hopes her recognition expands awareness of the sport, particularly for girls.
But she has challenges that extend beyond athletics, she said.
“I have dyslexia,” Farden said. “I’ve always felt like I had to work so much harder than everybody else just to be normal.”
Diagnosed in second grade, she said she developed pride in the contradiction at the center of her story.
“Reading’s my favorite thing ever,” she said, advising younger students across North Texas to not let people’s expectations set their limits.
“Average is just a starting point, not a destination,” she said.
The legacy behind the award
The Davey O’Brien Awards’ roll call of winners spans generations of college stars. But O’Brien Jr. said the foundation’s legacy is not defined only by quarterback excellence.
He contrasted the foundation’s approach with college football’s most famous trophy weekend — the Heisman Ceremony.
“I’ve been to the Heisman one time and it is a cattle call,” O’Brien Jr. said. “This is so much more intimate … this is Fort Worth.”
That intimacy, he said, allows the event to elevate students whose accomplishments may never appear on highlight reels.
O’Brien Jr. tied that focus directly to his father, Davey O’Brien, the 1938 Heisman Trophy winner and TCU quarterback whose name anchors the award. O’Brien led the Horned Frogs to the program’s second national championship in 1938.
“He was very active in youth sports,” O’Brien Jr. said. “He was a camp counselor when he was playing for the Philadelphia Eagles, involved in the YMCA.”
Those experiences, he said, shaped his father’s belief in returning opportunity to young people.
Beyond the wins
Patterson said the foundation’s emphasis on academics and leadership — alongside athletics — is part of what drew him to the event.
“I had a job because of kids,” Patterson said. “And so for us, to be able to give back to the community, help with education, all those kinds of things. … I never wanted my legacy to be about wins and losses.”
That outlook has carried into his work off the field, including The Big Good, the Fort Worth nonprofit Patterson co-founded with musician Leon Bridges to support education, health and community initiatives across the city.
He framed his ties to Fort Worth less as a career stop than a permanent home.
“People say, ‘Are you still going to live in Fort Worth?”’ he said. “Yeah. I’ll keep my house and I’ll probably die in Fort Worth, to be honest with you, because the people here raised me.”
Fernando Mendoza, the 2026 Davey O’Brien National Quarterback Award recipient and Indiana University quarterback, speaks with reporters during media availability at The Fort Worth Club. (Matthew Sgroi | Fort Worth Report)
Mendoza, this year’s National Quarterback Award recipient who won the 2026 National Championship with Indiana University, is widely projected as the first overall pick in the 2026 NFL draft, with the Las Vegas Raiders expected to select him.
He spoke about O’Brien’s legacy in terms familiar to quarterbacks: toughness, leadership, competitiveness.
But when asked about the scholarship, Mendoza turned immediately to academics. Before taking business courses at Indiana University during the football season, Mendoza graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a degree in business administration and management.
“Education is something that’s helped me throughout my entire life,” he said. “Although I’ve succeeded in football, education has always been at the forefront.”
He added: “Education has always been 1-A.”
Mendoza described the scholarship as “a fundamental part of the Davey O’Brien” and said it reflects the foundation’s values.
“It’s ‘student-athlete,’” he said. “I try to really embody that.”
He met Farden the night before — and found an unexpected link. His younger brother, Max, plays water polo.
“What a fantastic journey for her,” Mendoza said.
Character over accolades
Patterson, who spent decades evaluating quarterbacks, said what struck him most about Mendoza was not mechanics or production but presence.
He pointed to how Mendoza interacted with young fans. Everybody was important to him, Patterson said.
O’Brien Jr. said that quality — how honorees treat people when attention isn’t required — is exactly what the foundation seeks to recognize across all its awards.
Then he returned to the scholarship and to his father.
“As a legacy for my father, he would be amazed by all of this,” O’Brien Jr. said. “But the high school award — that would be the jewel in the crown.”
In a room filled with football’s familiar names, the foundation’s message was clear, O’Brien Jr. said: The future of sports isn’t only measured in passing yards, touchdowns or trophies.
Sometimes it arrives in a water polo cap. Sometimes with a learning difference. Sometimes carrying the word “average” until someone finally proves to themselves they are anything but.
Matthew Sgroi is an education reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at matthew.sgroi@fortworthreport.org or @matthewsgroi1.
At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
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