Back to the Michigan Wolverines Newsfeed

Dad helped Michigan’s Shea Patterson turn boyhood dream into reality

The bedtime story was told nearly every night to the little boy who clutched either a football or a football helmet in his arms. Sometimes Dad told variations of the fabricated tale, but the constant was the location and scene. It always took place at Michigan Stadium before a raucous crowd watching the Wolverines in a tight game facing a desperate situation.

And the little boy gradually closing his eyes was always, remarkably, the hero. Funny how that works when dad gets to tell the story.

This was special father-son time and Sean Patterson, a Michigan season-ticket holder then living in Toledo raising a family with wife, Karen, to whom he’s been married 32 years, created a magical world of football where his young son, Shea, better known then as “Shea Man,” came from nowhere to lead his beloved Wolverines to victory.