Former Washington Huskies receiver Mark Pattison climbing Seven Summits
Coming out of Roosevelt High School in Seattle in 1980, Mark Pattison was a football star, bound for the University of Washington and the Don James-coached Huskies.
A wide receiver, Pattison was naturally more athletically gifted than the vast majority of his peers. Looking back, he realizes he didn’t have to work that hard to excel on the football field. Those days, there was no mandatory weightlifting in high school football. There was no 7-on-7, no Nike camps.
“You just showed up, all the kids met down in the park, you threw the ball around, got wet, got dirty and went home,” Pattison said. “Coming out of high school, I hadn’t lifted a weight in my life. I didn’t understand what it took to compete, because I was always better than everyone else at that level.”
That would all change when Pattison stepped onto campus as a wide-eyed freshman on Montlake. His time playing for James – on some truly great Husky teams – set the foundation for a work ethic that has stuck with Pattison all these years later.
Pattison, long retired from football, has made it his goal to climb the tallest peak on every continent – known as the “Seven Summits.” They are: Mount Everest in Asia, Aconcagua in South America, Denali in North America, Kilimanjaro in Africa, Mount Elbrus in Europe, Mount Vinson in Antarctica, Puncak Jaya in Australia and Mount Kosciuszko in Australia.
Pattison has climbed six. He planned on doing Everest this year, but he’s pushing his plans back to 2021 due to travel complications caused by COVID-19. If he summits Everest, he’ll be the first NFL player to climb the Seven Summits.
The Dawg days
It didn’t take long for Pattison to realize he wasn’t just going to coast at UW, like he had in his high school days. His first fall freshman football camp in mid-August, Pattison came in at 6-foot-2, weighing just 181 pounds. He couldn’t bench press his weight.
“I looked out on the field and saw these big, strong, physical, 21, 22-year-old guys,” Pattison said. “They were confident, cocky, exuded all this confidence. It became really clear really quick that I was way in over my head.”
James modeled his program based on legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden’s “Pyramid of Success.” For James, there were 25 individual team building blocks with the ultimate goal each year of playing in the Rose Bowl.
“Being in the classroom, lifting weights, running stairs, doing film study,” Pattison said. “There wasn’t anything on that pyramid that I had really done before. It was a hard pill for me to swallow. It was kind of a ‘Come to Jesus’ moment; I had to pick Door 1 or Door 2.”
The way Pattison saw it – Door 1: Quit. Door 2: Dig in, do all the things the coaches were asking of each player and find the road map to success. Pattison chose the second door, and would go on to reap the benefits as a football player and person.
“By doing certain things, it’ll put you in a position to get you to the top rung,” Pattison said.
For the Huskies, his career culminated with a magical season in 1984, a year which many felt the Huskies should have been deemed the national champion. UW posted an 11-1 record that year and finished No. 2 in the AP and coaches polls. Highlights included a 20-11 road win over No. 3 Michigan and a 28-17 win over No. 2 Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl.
Pattison, 58, was selected in the seventh round of the 1985 NFL draft and played for the Raiders, Rams and Saints from 1985 to 1988.
Though Pattison’s stint in the NFL was brief, it allowed him some more connections and a chance to put some cash away.
“That was exhilarating, frustrating, any emotion you could throw out,” Pattison said. “It was all there. I was bound and determined to make the NFL. I was cut, brought back, traded. Every which way. When you’re at the NFL level, it’s the best of the best. It’s hard, super competitive. When it’s good, it’s so much fun to be part of that.”
That said, Pattison said he missed the magic of college football. In the locker room, the bulk of his teammates would talk about their college teams, in their down time.
“You just lose some of that pageantry (in the NFL),” Pattison said “That was the magic at the University of Washington. … But it continued down the path to put myself in the best chance to succeed.”
Life after football
Pattison, who is an executive at Sports Illustrated, went through a divorce seven years ago.
“It was a tough time for me,” he said.
He turned to climbing as a way to help pull himself out of that hole.
“It helped pull me out of the dark place I was in, helped being in nature,” he said. “You’re hours, hours, hours, not talking to anybody. Without my cellphone buzzing, it helped to connect with nature and get my mind right.”
Eventually, he wanted to set a bigger goal, so he set his sights on the Seven Summits. He started with Mt. Kilimanjaro in 2013. He fell in love with the process – everything from the preparation and planning to reaching the top.
“It’s really opened my eyes to all the things I haven’t done,” Pattison said. “I love the whole sense of adventure.”
It’s certainly not for everyone. Pattison has a unique work ethic that a lot of folks would have a hard time wrapping their heads around.
In Sun Valley, Idaho, where Pattison lives, he’ll practice “skinning” as a way of training – attaching a sandpaper-type material to the bottom of his skis and scaling the mountain uphill. While most folks are taking the lift and skiing downhill, Pattison can be seen trudging uphill, through the snow.
“I did that 34 times this year,” he said. “If I felt like I’ve got more and haven’t done more, there’s a guilt associated with that. If I get on a mountain like Everest, you always have to expect the unexpected. There’s always something that has gone down and that you have to deal with. … I mountain bike, do whatever I can do to get work at altitude. The more I push myself, I’m strengthening my mind because I’ve just gone through that hard task. … I train like a crazy man.”
Interested in learning more about Pattison’s adventures? Follow his progress at markpattisonnfl.com or on Instagram.