Loss of infant daughter has had a big effect on Sooners' Patrick.
Loss of infant daughter has had a big effect on Sooners' Patrick

By Jenni Carlson

Published: November 23, 2007

NORMAN — Allen Patrick will forever remember Bedlam 2006.

Not because of his 163-yard performance.

Not because of his team's 27-21 victory.

The Oklahoma tailback thinks often of that Saturday last November because it was the day he became a daddy. Mya Elise Patrick came into the world while her father galloped into Bedlam lore. After his big game, Patrick learned the big news.

"On the way home after the game, I was letting everybody know,” Patrick said, his eyes twinkling. "I was just very happy.”

He was scared, too. The baby was born three months premature.

Watching his daughter fight and struggle for the next month changed Patrick forever. So did her sudden death.

"I have something more to play for,” Patrick said.

Perhaps that explains his resiliency. Patrick fumbled on the Sooners' first snap last week and carried the ball only once more. Essentially exiled from the offense, he made an impact instead on special teams with four tackles.

The Texas Tech game was another disappointment in what has been a difficult season. Patrick started the year on the cover of Sports Illustrated, but now he doesn't even lead the team in yards or touchdowns.

But with DeMarco Murray ailing, Patrick might just have a big Bedlam. The disappointments of this football season have not crushed his spirit, not after enduring the loss of his baby girl.

"It just made me look at life a little different,” he said.

But he was eager.

"I was ready to take on what I had to do, the responsibilities and everything,” Patrick said.

His father was never much a part of his life. Patrick's mother, Veronica Bromell, had to provide for three kids, working extra jobs and moving often. Still, she always tried to buy the newest shoes and the trendiest clothes.

She never wanted her kids to want.

Patrick wanted to be the kind of father he never had. He looked forward to girlfriend Laura Harlan's February due date.

Then in mid-November, toward the end of her second trimester, she started feeling weak. Doctors put her on bed rest, but then a couple of days before the Bedlam game, they decided to keep her in the hospital. Just to keep an eye on her. Just to be safe.

That Saturday, the baby could wait no longer.

Mya Elise was so small, so vulnerable that she needed an incubator to survive. Still, Allen and Laura could spend time with her.

Patrick held his daughter.

She fit in the palm of his hand.

"They'd sit her up on my shoulder,” Patrick said, glancing toward his bulked-up left shoulder. "Let her lay right there.”

Every time he went to the hospital, he marveled about Mya Elise.

"That was my daughter,” he said, "and it just uplifted me and brought up my spirits ... just to go in there and say, ‘That's my child right there.'”

Patrick was a proud papa.

Exactly a month after celebrating Mya's one-month birthday, Patrick left Norman for Phoenix and the Fiesta Bowl. He received daily telephone updates about Mya over the next week, and she was doing well enough that Patrick decided to fly home to South Carolina after the bowl.

The day after OU's wacky, wild loss to Boise State, Patrick went home, but not long after arriving, he received a call from the hospital in Norman.

Mya Elise, only five weeks old, was dead.

"I have no idea ... how it happened,” Patrick said. "It just happened.”

He boarded the first flight back to Oklahoma.

Six days later, he buried his little girl.

"I wasn't expecting nothing like that to happen to me,” Patrick said, "but things happen for a reason. You learn from it. You can't do nothing but keep on building.”

She'll always be on his bicep, too, memorialized in one of his 18 tattoos.

"Things didn't work out the way they were supposed to,” Patrick said.

This season hasn't been the dream it was supposed to be either.

"There was a point where he looked a little stiff and tight coming off the Texas game where he cramped up bad,” OU offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson said. "I don't think his body responded well.”

Wilson said Patrick had one of his best weeks of practice last week, but then came the fumble at Texas Tech. Not only did the Red Raiders recover, but Sam Bradford also was injured making the tackle on the play.

This week will need to be better. Patrick and Chris Brown will handle the bulk of the Sooner carries.

"They both need to play well,” Wilson said. "It'll be a good challenge for us.”

Tough circumstances are nothing new to Patrick. Neither fumbling nor fewer carries nor even a couple losses can bring him down.

None of it, after all, compares to losing Mya Elise.

Patrick said, "It's made me a whole lot stronger than what I used to be.”

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