INDIANAPOLIS -- If you asked Ron Patterson a dozen years ago where he planned to be in 2024, the chances are remote he would have described the scene in front of him.

That “Buss” Patterson, a senior at Broad Ripple High School, likely would mention something about playing in the NBA – a reasonable goal for a shooting guard with a 6-11 wingspan, ranked the No. 25 player in the country at his position. A dozen years ago, he had signed with Indiana University, part of a recruiting class nicknamed “The Movement” that would put him on a path to stardom from hometown kid to home state star to NBA dollars.

That was the dream, anyway.

“Some people chase a dream,” Patterson said. “But when they say it’s a grind, it’s a grind. Me having a family, I couldn’t chase the grind.”

On a Wednesday evening at Arlington Middle School, a different dream plays out. He smiles and shakes his head as Ana’Marie Griffin runs down the court laughing after making a 3-pointer. He holds his whiteboard over his head and laughs as he watches Vickea Govan jump up and down after banking in a 3-pointer.

“Get your hands up wide!” he yells as the team gets back on defense.

In a folding chair behind Patterson, his 4-year-old daughter, Nori Patterson, occasionally glances up from her YouTube cartoons to watch. Nori does not know it yet, but she is the reason her dad is here, coaching the Arlington Middle School girls basketball team. She is the reason he can do it.

“She taught me how to have patience,” Patterson said. “Before her, I didn’t have none. The girls want to be better. That’s a good thing. They want to work and want to learn.”

Patterson might not have had the NBA career of his dreams. But as Arlington wins its second game in two tries on his 31^st birthday, then runs the wrong way through tunnel back to the court from the locker room and back again, it is easy to see this is exactly where Patterson is supposed to be.

“He has a great rapport with our students,” said Arlington principal Iesha Billups, taking a break from cheering from the front row. “That makes everything easier. He’s investing in our kids.”

'I just played in the park growing up'

Patterson’s path in basketball seems downright old school compared to the current era of structured youth basketball. He played on the outdoor courts at Washington Park, where he would see Broad Ripple star Robert Goff. Though his teammates at Sidener Middle School went to Tech, Patterson went to Broad Ripple for high school.

“I just played in the park growing up,” Patterson said.

His introduction to high school basketball was intense. Broad Ripple won its first game at Muncie Central, then returned home to play North Central. Patterson and D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera were freshmen. “That game was my first time meeting D’Vauntes,” Patterson said of the future Georgetown star. “I’d never felt nothing like that, ever. It was crazy.”

Patterson scored 17 points that night, but it was future Purdue Boilermaker Terone Johnson who stole the show with 44 points in a 107-89 North Central win. Even that early in Patterson’s high school career, Indiana, Purdue, Ohio State and Xavier were recruiting him.

Patterson went on to lead the Rockets to a City tournament championship as a sophomore in 2010, a season marked by tragedy when his close friend and teammate Steven Jamison died from cancer in July of 2010. The first home game of the following season against Cathedral, Broad Ripple retired Jamison’s No. 25 jersey.

“That was probably my favorite moment when we retired Steve’s jersey,” Patterson said. “It was great. He stayed at my house a lot. As a friend, you just didn’t know what he was going through. As a kid, you didn’t know what that was like. Cancer? We lost people when we were younger, but I don’t think we had the chance to grieve properly.”

Patterson, who played for Jeff Brandes as a freshman, Basil Mawbey as a sophomore and Scott Hicks as a junior and senior, broke Broad Ripple’s career scoring record with 1,532 points and led the Rockets to a pair of City championships. As his high school career came to a close, Patterson thought he was ready for IU as part of the much heralded 2012 recruiting class that was ranked No. 2 in the country. It also included Park Tudor point guard Yogi Ferrell, Lawrence Central wing Jeremy Hollowell, La Lumiere standout Hanner Perea and 6-11 Peter Jurkin.

“When I first made the choice, I wanted to go there,” Patterson said. “But here comes another (recruit) and another. I kind of got overlooked with so many of us. After the fact, I kind of regretted it. When I got released, it was like, ‘OK, I’m good with that.’ It was a wakeup call. When I got to campus, I didn’t know how to work.”

Patterson never made it to his freshman season at IU. In August of 2012, after attending classes in Bloomington under a “Faculty Sponsorship Program” that allowed students without sufficient grades to attend school on a probationary basis, Patterson was told he did not make the necessary summer grades.

It did not make sense to Patterson, who instead enrolled at Brewster Academy in New Hampshire. After a year there, he signed with Syracuse. He looks back at the IU situation with only one regret.

“The NIL money,” he said with a laugh. “I couldn’t imagine it. It’s crazy to even think about.”

Patterson considers that detour just part of his journey. In two years at Syracuse, he averaged 2.6 points in 39 games off the bench before transferring to IUPUI. But he considers that time at Syracuse a valuable experience.

“They taught me how to work,” Patterson said of those Syracuse teammates. “It was a different atmosphere. My teammates showed me how to grind and I felt like I got way better.”

After sitting out the 2015-16 season as a transfer, Patterson finished his college career with two solid seasons at IUPUI. His outside shooting became a strength as he averaged 10.3 points and 3.2 rebounds as a senior in 2017-18. More importantly, he earned his college degree.

“I never want to be that guy that is like, ‘Oh I should have done this or that,’” he said. “It was alright. I look back on it like, ‘I could have been better.’ But a lot of kids in our grade say that – I talk to them all the time. They say they should have been better and I’m like, ‘Trust me, I know.’ I was just going off my natural talent. Anything you do, you have to work at it. I learned that.”

Patterson had a couple of dalliances in professional basketball. After he finished at IUPUI, he made the first cut with Wisconsin Herd in the NBA G League and even signed a contract to play in Albania, where he stayed for a couple of months. But his heart was back home with his family, including now 10-year-old son Buss Jr.

“Even when I signed, I was like, ‘Do I really want to do this?’” he said. “Starting out as a rookie, you don’t make that much. So, I thought, ‘I can make more being around my kids and doing something I really love. I had a family back home and wanted to come back and take care of them and be around my kids. So, I stepped away from it.”

But that was not the end of Patterson’s basketball story. Just a new chapter.

Family and the future

At one of his first practices of the season, Patterson gathered the Arlington team, made of up of seventh and eighth grade girls, around and told them he was going teach them how to play a 2-3 zone. “Like we played at Syracuse,” he said.

That might not mean much to these girls, Patterson said. But there are a few YouTube videos he can pull up to show them what he was capable of doing as a player. “He has no problem telling them how he used to play and who he was,” Billups said.

He could still do some of what he used to in the men’s leagues before he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his knee in July in an alumni game against Cathedral.

“Never been hurt,” Patterson said with a laugh. “Jared Drew gave me a little bump and my knee went in and out. I couldn’t believe it. I’m getting better, but I feel like I’m never going to be the same.”

Playing the game is a hobby. Patterson is real job is teaching science at the middle school and coaching. He did not originally set out to be a teacher but being back in school was appealing – if it was an Indianapolis Public School. Patterson is currently working on his Master’s degree at Marian University in biology.

“I knew I wanted be in school and help young kids,” he said. “I never knew I wanted to be teaching. But after the pandemic, so many teachers quit. They needed new African American males to step in. In the inner city, they need us, especially young Black males who have been on the same path they’ve been on.”

Patterson considers himself fortunate. His mother, Terrie Wimberly, and stepfather, Marcus Walton, were always present in his life. His biological father, also named Ron Patterson, was incarcerated for much of his son’s playing career. The first game he saw his son play was in the Eric Gordon Shootout after his senior year at Broad Ripple.

His father died in 2016. “That was hard on me,” he said. “It’s another reason I stepped away (from playing) and wanted to be with my family.”

It further reinforced to Patterson that, if not a father figure, he could “be someone to help” as a teacher and coach. He had that connection with Chris Hawkins, who was his AAU coach and is now coaching at Crispus Attucks.

“My stepfather stepping up and being who he was, that was important in my life,” he said. “I just wanted to be another person kids could fall back on. A lot of kids don’t have a two-parent household, especially in the inner city. They need that person who can be there for them in the classroom, on the basketball court. I can be that person they can talk to when they can’t talk to their parents.”

He jokes that “old” Ron Patterson could probably teach the younger version of himself a few things. But that is why he is here now. To teach. To coach. To make a difference.

“It’s definitely a challenge,” he said. “You have to be a special kind of person. Not many people can take the heat. I’m hard on them. They see me walk through and we’re cool but it’s teacher and student. At basketball practice, I’m the coach. There’s a time and place to have fun.”

He is having fun. How can he not, watching these Arlington girls jump up and down and laugh after making a 3-pointer? He looks right at home.

Call Star reporter Kyle Neddenriep at (317) 444-6649.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Ron Patterson giving back to IPS as teacher, coach