BIG FANS? IT'S
A TRUE STORY
James Patterson's fiction can be found atop the best-seller list,
but there's no need to embellish the love his wife Susan,
a former UW student-athlete, has for the Badgers
T
BY MIKE LUCAS • UWBADGERS.COM
here's a line from a James Patterson novel
― "Maximum Ride: the Angel Experiment" ―
that may apply to Wisconsin fans still yearning for the Field Goal Attempt That Never Was at
Arizona State.
Surely, it was not the best-selling author's intention to address the suffering when he wrote, "Because what's worse than knowing you want something, besides knowing you can never have it?"
However it was meant to be interpreted, it resonates today with UW fans. Especially Susan Patterson, who's married to James and her Badgers ― in
that order, except on game days.
"Sue bleeds red and thinks red and sleeps red,"
James Patterson said. "That got us into watching every football game, every basketball game … I'm just
a mini-Badger rooter. She's the real thing."
To those who know her, it's not even open to debate.
"Everybody knows that I'm a crazy Badger fan,"
she confirmed.
In the late '70s, Susan Patterson was a two-time
All-America swimmer at Wisconsin. She still has
her letter jacket and has worn it to football games.
Why wouldn't she?
"Oh, yeah, absolutely, are you kidding me?" she
posed rhetorically. "I also have my letter blanket
proudly displayed (in her home). I have a lot of
Bucky Badger memorabilia."
Her Florida license plate spells it out: "BADGRS."
"Madison is a special place," she said. "My parents
went there (UW) and I had an aunt and uncle who
lived in Shorewood. That's who I lived with when I
swam all those summers."
Patterson trained with the boys in the Badger
Dolphins program leading up to her competitive
swimming days at Guilford High School in Rockford, Ill., a 75-mile trip to Madison.
"When I was 12 or 13, my mom used to drive me
up there; she was such a trooper," she said. "Even
during the school year, a couple of times a week,
she would drive me up there."
Lorraine Solie was a 1946 UW-Madison graduate
in nursing.
"My mom is also a crazy Badger fan," she said.
"She can recite statistics from 50 years ago."
Yes, it runs in the family, and it has been passed
down from one generation to the next.
It's called passion.
Susan and James Patterson have an abundance of
it.
"I feel good about this school and you want to do
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