They sat in the waiting room of a San Diego high school like troublemakers waiting to see the principal. After a moment of awkward silence, Lloyd Carr turned to the man sitting next to him.
"Where do you want DeWayne to go?" the Michigan football coach asked.
"Honestly, deep down, I want him to go to Texas," Chuck Patmon replied.
The coach paused, then smiled.
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| Wisconsin's Nick Davis, who grew up near Ann Arbor, has found many a happy return away from home in Badgerland.
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DeWayne Patmon didn't listen to his dad. He didn't listen when his dad, and everyone else with vocal cords, told him that he wouldn't start in the defensive backfield at Michigan - Texas is where to go to get some playing time. He didn't listen to Ricky Williams, his old high-school teammate, who was on the way to becoming college football's all-time leading rusher at Texas, who told him they could be together again. He didn't listen to that third faction, either, the one from South Bend - the one that told him he could play in the shadow of Touchdown Jesus.
Instead, he listened to his heart. For Patmon, who grew up with a Michigan hat on his head and a maize-and-blue T-shirt on his back, that heart said Ann Arbor.
But it shouldn't have surprised anyone. If people said he wouldn't get playing time at Michigan, that's where Patmon would most likely want to go.
When he drives to the airport, he purposely waits as long as he can, cutting the flight as close as he can.
"It's like a challenge," Chuck Patmon said from San Diego. "It drives me
AP PHOTO
09-23-99
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