Published: July 16, 2009 11:53 pm      

Remember richness as richness is

The sorrow spread so rapidly with the news of Pat D’Atri’s death on Wednesday. Shock, of course, but the sorrow was immediate and deep, for as Tennyson said, “A sorrow’s crown of sorrow is remembering happier times.”

The next thing that came to my mind was the D’Atri family. “Who’s going to take care of them?” I wondered, “because in times like these they’re the ones who always take care of everybody else.”

Certainly Pat D’Atri was a product and a perfect example of the talent, the loving, the caring and the giving that comes with being a D’Atri. He was a Greg Hare-Todd Martin kind of guy — a great athlete, who met with and earned a great deal of success on and, most importantly, off the field, but such a good, unassuming and generous guy that you would have never known he was a star athlete unless you had just watched him play.

Pat wasn’t going to tell you about it. He never talked about his days as the star football player, first at Fort Hill High School and then at the University of Maryland, unless you brought it up, and even then the subject always seemed to subtly change. In fact, you often times found yourself in conversations with him, learning later into the story he was talking about some of his teammates on those outstanding Maryland teams he played for, such as Bobby DePaul. Pat would say, “My son and I were in Chicago with my friend Bobby,” and somewhere in the conversation the name “DePaul” would come up.

“Bobby DePaul?” you would interrupt. “The director of pro personnel for the Chicago Bears? The guy who played football for Maryland?”

Pat would look at you as though he had to think about it and then said, “Oh. Yeah,” with an expression and tone of voice that almost said, “Yeah, I guess he did play football for Maryland.”

Uh, yeah, Pat, so did you.

But that was Pat. When he would talk about his friends and never mention they were former or current football players it was because that part just didn’t matter to him. Sure, they likely met because of football, and grew together through football, but the bottom line to him was they were his friends, and he loved them all very much. Pat himself was one of the best football players to ever come through these parts, but, you know ... No need to rehash it. No big deal.

Well, it was a big deal to a great many people for a great many reasons. Folks here in our parts just loved to watch him play, whether he was the freshman nose guard or the upper-classman fullback and linebacker at Fort Hill, followed by his four-year football scholarship years at Maryland, playing first for Jerry Claiborne and then Bobby Ross.

Even though it’s not nearly as rare these days for a freshman football player to make the varsity high school football team, it was uncommonly rare when Pat D’Atri did it in the fall of 1977. In fact, when Pat did it, he became one of the absolute few in Cumberland scholastic football history to not only make the varsity as a freshman coming out of summer practice, but to become a varsity starter as well.

Pound for pound, Pat was likely the strongest athlete in the history of Cumberland sports, regardless of what weight room records tell us. Hell, I don’t even know if they had weight-room records at Fort Hill when Pat was there, but they certainly do at Maryland, and Pat not only broke many of Randy White’s marks, there are records there today that still have his name on them.

That he was such a great football player was pretty cool, I guess. But that all was just a very small part of who Pat was. I’ve always felt the three most talented families, top to bottom, I’ve ever been around are the Pratts, the Trimbles and the D’Atris. Everywhere you look through those family trees, you’ll find artists, accomplished cooks, successful business people, musicians, poets, teachers, coaches, media people, models, writers, athletes, you name it. They’re just so talented, well-rounded and rich. Rich in the way they live their lives; rich in what they all have to offer, and are more than happy to share; rich in their feelings for others; rich in their love, care and generosity; rich in their human depth; rich in their loyalty and in their trueness to themselves and to those around them.

Pat was an artist, one of the most recognizable artists we had here as the owner of D’Atri Design. You see his work every day of your life. It’s so good, perhaps you take it for granted, but no more. When you enter Mountain Ridge High School and see the school logo, that’s Pat. When you’re having a meal at When Pigs Fly Restaurant, or any of the D’Atri family restaurants, you’ll see Pat, and that doesn’t begin to scratch the surface.

Somebody asked me if Pat had designed the latest Maryland Terrapin logo for the school’s athletic department. I can find no evidence that he did, and it’s not as though Pat would have told anybody if he had. But the logo is so well done and commands your attention and your pride so much that he probably did design it.

Never knew anybody quite like Pat D’Atri. Don’t figure we ever will again. So lucky to have known him. So grateful to have had him here.

So sorry to see him go. As we remember happier times.

Mike Burke is sports editor of the Cumberland Times-News. Contact Mike Burke at mburke@times-news.com.