The Santa Barbara Athletic Round Table will be inducting seven new members into its Hall of Fame on Monday, Sept. 15, at 5:30 p.m. The Induction Class of 2025 includes five athletes, a coach and a special achievement honoree.
This is the sixth in a series of stories about this year’s inductees.
Homegrown.
That’s part of what makes journalist Mark Patton such a special person in our local sports community. There’s no one better to take us down memory lane of the area’s rich sports history.
Since the late 1970s, he’s treated readers to emotional, entertaining human-interest stories and thorough, insightful game coverage — first in the News-Press and, since 2021, in Noozhawk.com.
With his induction, Mark joins his late father, former News-Press Sports Editor Phil Patton (Community Leader in the Class of 1977) and eldest brother Greg (coaching honoree in the Class of 2023) in the SBART Hall of Fame.
He is the fourth member of the sports media to enter the hall, with his dad and sports-writing colleagues John Zant (2023) and the late Dave Loveton (2024) holding the door open for him.
Mark grew up in Santa Barbara, attended Washington Elementary School, La Cumbre Junior High, Bishop Diego and SBCC. He married his high school sweetheart, Theresa, and they raised four daughters (Amy, Kara, Megan and Caitlyn), all of whom played sports at Dos Pueblos.
His parents, Philip and Rita Patton, were impactful, community-minded people. Their love of community and their involvement rubbed off on their inquisitive, sports-loving, storytelling son.
Sports journalism was in Mark’s DNA. He absorbed the passion of our local sports scene and marveled at the number of quality athletes our small community produced. He relished tagging along with his dad to many of the biggest sporting events in the community.
He attended the opening of UC Santa Barbara’s Robertson Gym in 1959. The Gaucho men’s basketball team played host to defending national champion Cal, and his dad was covering the game and calling the play-by-play on radio station KTMS.
“I was only 5 at the time, but I clearly remember joining him in the gym’s overhanging press box. It was the first of a thousand times that he would let me tag along,” wrote Mark in a Father’s Day column for Noozhawk.
“The game was close throughout, stirring the sold-out crowd to roar with each Gaucho basket. Dad laughed out loud when he noticed me covering my ears. He removed his headset during a commercial break, leaned in close and said, “Take it all in, son … You need to remember this night.”
Fast forward to another memorable night of men’s basketball in 1990. Mark was sitting courtside at the Thunderdome covering one of the greatest triumphs in UCSB basketball history, a 78-70 triumph over No. 1-ranked UNLV. It was an electric atmosphere, where the noise level reportedly reached an ear-splitting level of 110 decibels. It was the only loss by UNLV that season, which went on to win the national title.
Mark is still covering Gaucho men’s basketball as well as an assortment of other UCSB teams.
Mark started his sports writing career at La Cumbre Junior High. He and buddy Scott Cathcart, the son of legendary Santa Barbara High football coach Sam Cathcart, worked together on the weekly Lancer and the school Yearbook as members of the journalism class.
“Mark was born to be a sportswriter,” said Scott Cathcart, who went into sports administration and served as athletic director at Alan Hancock College and Palomar College.
“After honing his skills at City College, USC and the Santa Maria Times, he realized his destiny to become Santa Barbara’s best-ever sports columnist. He lived many of the wonderful stories he wrote and, in the very footsteps of his father, built with a natural, easy-going style an adoring following in his own hometown.”
Mark attended Bishop Diego, where he played a variety of sports and continued writing. He served as sports editor for the school paper, the Red Press, and the Cardinal Yearbook. His talent was recognized as he won writing awards at high school journalism conferences.
After graduation, he was encouraged by SBCC football coach Bob Dinaberg to attend the community college and study under Ray Canton, a legendary journalism professor and the faculty advisor to The Channels school newspaper. Dinaberg and his wife, Joan, were friends with Mark’s parents.
Coach Dinberg gave Mark a recruiting tour and informed him that Canton’s top student always received a scholarship to USC, which was Mark’s dream school. He earned that scholarship and wrote for the Daily Trojan. He also became a father for the second time. He, Theresa and their first-born daughter, Amy, welcomed Kara to the family.
“I didn’t sleep much,” said Mark about those years of juggling classwork, the paper and fatherhood while at USC.
Mark’s first professional job was at the Santa Maria Times, where he did double duty as a news and sports reporter.
He then got the call for his dream job as a sports staff writer for the News-Press. He lived the dream for 45 years, including a 10-year run as sports editor. He retired from the paper in the spring of 2021 and later that year joined Noozhawk as a weekly sports columnist and correspondent.
In his distinguished career, Mark covered the UCSB men’s basketball team for 42 years (1983-2021). He also served as the beat writer for UCSB baseball and covered the Gaucho men’s soccer team, winning the NCAA championship over UCLA in freezing-cold St. Louis in 2006.
Other major career highlights include the 1984 Olympic Games; both the Los Angeles Dodgers and Los Angeles Angels in the World Series, the Los Angeles Lakers in several NBA Finals, and the Los Angeles Rams in the Super Bowl.
Like his parents, Mark gave his time and energy to the community. He served on the Santa Barbara Special Olympics Leadership Council, was the vice president and a coach for the Goleta Valley Girls Softball Association; he helped in the construction of the softball complex at Dos Pueblos High; he also coached girls basketball at the Page Youth Center.
In his articles, Mark has documented the notable achievements of many of the athletes and coaches who’ve represented our community, including several who are in the Hall of Fame.
It’s only fitting he gets to join them.
