Patty Viverito was feeling anxious going into her first meeting with the head coaches of the newly formed Gateway Football Conference in 1985.
Viverito had just been named commissioner of the new league after running a women’s only college athletics conference for three years. She was also six months pregnant.
“(It was) a world where I didn’t have a lot of experience and I never got my hands in the dirt. I never played a single down. How would I be accepted?” Viverito wondered at the time.
Viverito said her husband, Frank, who would become a longtime sports executive in St. Louis, tried to assure her.
“He said, ‘Patty, these are traditional male coaches. They are not going to pick on a pregnant woman.’ I took that as a sign that I had a honeymoon period to prove myself,” she said in an interview on WGLT’s Sound Ideas.
Viverito proved herself over the next four decades, helping to build the Missouri Valley Football Conference (the league rebranded in 2008 to pair with the MVC) into the premier mid-major football conference in the country.
Viverito has been the MVFC’s only commissioner in its history.
That will change after this season. Viverito will retire after her 40th season at the helm.
The MVFC has dominated its level of college football, winning 17 national FCS (Football Championship Subdivision) championships, including 11 titles in the last 13 years.
Viverito credits university administrators for keeping the Valley strong.
“Decades ago, we were kind of in a quandary about where we fit into the Division I football landscape,” Viverito recalled. She said the university presidents created a league mission statement in which its schools would strive to be nationally competitive every year rather than flock to the brighter lights and bigger dollars of FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision).
The pact has largely held, though the MVFC faces two defections over the next two seasons. Missouri State will join Conference USA next year. Western Illinois bolted for the Big South-Ohio Valley Conference.
The Valley’s top football schools have stayed put.
Viverito acknowledges the enticement that the more lucrative FBS conferences can offer and said recent changes to college sports make it harder for mid-major schools to compete with schools from the top conferences.
Viverito said relaxed student transfer rules and student endorsements through Name, Image and Likeness have also widened the gap between the two levels.
“We used to be comparing apples and oranges, now we’re comparing – I don’t know – apples to dogs,” she said with a laugh. “It’s like different species. It’s crazy.”
Viverito said the league doesn’t have immediate plans to replace either school and would be fine to drop back to 10 schools long term. She said that enables Valley schools to play nearly every conference opponent each season, which she said keeps rivalries strong.
Mediating success
Viverito said she felt the job of a commissioner is more of a mediator than as a leader.
“It’s finding the sweep spots where everybody can align and agree on the direction that a conference takes,” Viverito said. “I’ve been able to mediate a group of very reasonable and dedicated individuals and it’s made by job pretty easy.”
Viverito was one of the first top female administrators in college sports. Others have followed in her footsteps over the years. She said funding disparities between men’s and women’s sports still exist, but she’s grateful to see college sports have become inclusive over the years.
“It opened the door for me certainly, but I’m really happy to say that there are many women in the commissioner’s room for Division I conferences. It’s nice to have company.”
Viverito, who lives in St. Louis, said retiring after 40 years provided a nice round number to end her career, but she’ll enjoy making one last stop to each of the league’s campuses to meet with the coaches and administrators she’s worked with over the year.
“(It's) sort of a farewell tour and I’m going to relish every minute of it,” she said.
