Chicago native Patty Viverito has seen plenty of growth in her tenure as commissioner of one of the nation’s leading FCS conferences. (Photo by Missouri Valley Football Conference)
(Editor’s note: This is the first in a two-part series on outgoing Missouri Valley Football Conference commissioner Patty Viverito.)
By Dan Verdun
Patty Viverito grew up in the Roseland neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side during the 1960s. St. Willibrord, her high school, closed its doors long ago.
“That was pre-Title IX. I didn’t have sports opportunities like women do today,” Viverito told Prairie State Pigskin.
As a college student, she witnessed the winds of change with Billie Jean King’s landmark victory over Bobby Riggs in 1973’s “Battle of the Sexes,” an internationally televised tennis match.
“What a wonderful event that was. I really did identify with that early time,” Viverito said.
Yet it was her own lack of sports participation that fueled Viverito’s future.
“That’s what motivated me to get into college sports to begin with,” she said.
Next summer, Viverito will wrap up a four-decade term as the commissioner of the Missouri Valley Football Conference, viewed by many as the nation’s top FCS league.
But, as with most success stories, the triumphs of Viverito and the MVFC didn’t just happen overnight. Those successes came from past experiences along with hard work and dedication.
How it began
After earning her bachelor’s degree in marketing from Northern Illinois University in 1974, Viverito began working in corporate America.
“I worked in sales for Procter & Gamble right out of college. That wasn’t much fun, so I went back to grad school and got a sports management degree (from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1979).
“My motivation at that time was to market women’s sports, because I thought there would be all these new opportunities for women that weren’t available prior to that,” she said.
As her new career took flight, Viverito worked as an account executive for the Tidewater Tides in baseball’s minor leagues and as special projects director at the University of Texas from 1979 to 1981.
While in Austin, Viverito coordinated activities for the women’s athletic program in the areas of promotion, sports information, fund-raising and event management.
That experience led her to the 1982 creation of the Gateway Collegiate Athletic Conference, a women’s only multi-sport league with charter membership featuring 10 Midwestern universities, half of which were based in Illinois.
“You look at what’s happened to women’s sports over just the last couple of years, and it’s been really satisfying to know that I was part of the building blocks,” Viverito said. “I hope, at least in some small way, it helped get us to this point (where women’s athletics are today).”
After getting the Gateway off the ground and established, Viverito seized another moment.
“It was three years into the Gateway that I had the opportunity to add a football division,” she said.
In 1985, the Gateway added its only men’s sponsored sport with Eastern Illinois, Illinois State, Northern Iowa, Southern Illinois, Southwest Missouri State and Western Illinois as charter members. Indiana State, previously a then I-AA independent, joined a year later.
Growth and change
In 1992, the Gateway merged into the Missouri Valley Conference. The league’s football side spun off into the standalone Gateway Football Conference, changing its moniker to the Missouri Valley Football Conference in 2008.
The MVFC went through some membership changes along the way, including Eastern Illinois leaving for the Ohio Valley Conference in 1996 and Western Kentucky, a member from 2001-2006, moving to FBS in 2007.
“There’s been a lot of change, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t say how much has remained the same, especially for our football league since 1985,” Viverito said.
A major shift occurred in 2008 when North Dakota State and South Dakota State joined the football league. Subsequently, the Gateway Football Conference became the MVFC.
This change aligned the conference with the Missouri Valley, a league in which five of the nine football schools were all-sport members.
The conferences continue to share the “Missouri Valley” name, and space in the same building in St. Louis, but remain separate administratively.
The University of South Dakota joined as the 10th member in 2012.
Murray State entered the MVFC in 2023. Meanwhile, charter members Western Illinois and Missouri State each left the league. WIU joins the Big South-OVC this fall, while Missouri State will play one final season before heading to Conference USA in the FBS for the 2025 season.
Whatever changes have occurred, the MVFC has remained in the national consciousness.
“We do have two ESPN linear games (this fall),” Viverito said.
Standing on top of the (FCS) world
Over the course of the league’s 39-year history, 11 different schools have been crowned football champions.
While charter member Northern Iowa has won the most league titles (16), it has been a Dakota-dominated conference for the past 13 years.
North Dakota State won the FCS national championship nine times in eleven seasons (2011-21) and put together a 22-game playoff win streak.
South Dakota State has won national titles the past two seasons.
Both schools have hosted ESPN’s “Game Day” college football program on campus. Preseason polls have SDSU and NDSU as the top two FCS teams this summer.
So, what have been her proudest moments?
“That’s an interesting question. I haven’t been that reflective of late,” Viverito said.
“When I see the camaraderie and the like-mindedness of our athletic directors, I’d like to believe that leadership gives the opportunity for that to happen. So, I think the proudest moment might be something that is hard to pinpoint in time, but instead is more like an overall achievement.”
Viverito outlined the avenue for that success to continue.
“Keeping us focused on our mission and what is, quite frankly, a pretty narrow path to strive to be the best FCS conference in the country. And especially over the last decade and a half, we’ve demonstrated that time and time again,” she said.
As she has attempted to do during her tenure, Viverito plans to make the rounds to each MVFC campus this fall.
“I really try to meet with every president, athletic director, head coach and faculty representative on an annual basis,” she said. “I guess this will be my farewell tour. I relish this opportunity to get to every campus one more time.”
The pioneer trail
Viverito also served as the commissioner of the Pioneer League, a non-scholarship football conference that receives an automatic bid into the FCS postseason. Most of the PFL’s members are private schools.
Thus, Viverito has seen FCS from both ends of the scale.
“They each offer very different and important ways for student-athletes to participate at the Division I level,” she said. “There’s a really important place for both of these leagues. They are on opposite ends of the spectrum, (but) because of that, there never really was a conflict of interest, which allowed me to do both.”
Viverito will remain involved with the Pioneer League until her retirement.
Greg Walter, who has long been associated with both leagues, took over last summer as Pioneer commissioner.
What the future holds
Viverito will officially retire June 30, 2025.
“It’s come full circle. I began with women’s sports and am ending exclusively with football,” she said.
With a year to go before her retirement, Viverito hasn’t fully taken the time to reflect on her career and the power conference she helped to create and shape.
There’s still work to be done.
“The change is what has occurred outside of our league and the challenges that we have in managing that,” she said. “Certainly conference realignment is an ongoing carousel of changes that we need to be really mindful of.
“But again, given our commitment to being a geographically sensible, highly committed FCS conference in the Midwest, which is our mission statement, has served us well.”
After all, though collegiate athletics are indeed at a crossroad, Viverito maintains a strong view of where the MVFC currently resides.
“That goes back to 1985 when we formed the league, and as we’ve added new members and even lost a couple along the way, we’re been a model of stability. And I think that’s unusual in today’s college sports world. We’ve benefited from that,” she said.
Yet, Viverito is also a realist about the volatility of collegiate athletics and its effect on FCS.
“I have a lot of thoughts, but they’re mostly in question form, not in answer form,” she said. “So I guess we’re playing Jeopardy here, so I’ll answer with a question. It’s going to depend on how Division I unfolds. I will always believe that the NCAA will offer a postseason opportunity for a level of Division I, and we want to make sure that we’re competing at the highest level where that (opportunity) might be.”
Though today’s collegiate athletic world is unprecedented, Viverito can draw from the past.
“I harken back to the ‘90s when there was a lot of conversation within our league of aspirations to go FBS (then I-A) and there were other schools that were looking to build a lower-cost model,” she said. “We had a strategic planning session where our presidents came together and said we’re being pulled in a lot of different directions. What is it that we want to be? What is it that we need to be for all of us to be successful?”
That was the springboard for the MVFC’s mission statement, Viverito said.
“We need to be committed to each other first and foremost in order to create that stability,” she added. “And then from that stability is the outgrowth to the commitment to this level of football that reaps really amazing results.
“That’s our challenge, to keep doing that.”
Personal time
Viverito has worn many hats and titles during her life. While the public has seen those of her professional life, she’s looking forward to those in her private life.
“I’m a new grandmother. My granddaughter is four months old,” Viverito said. “My son (Greg) and his family live in New York, in Brooklyn. This gives me more opportunity to head east and visit my kids and my granddaughter.
“I’ve got another son (Matt) down in Florida. He and his wife both work for Florida State (University). Maybe I’ll see some football at Florida State,” she said with a laugh. “Since 1985, it’s been tough to find open football weekends. I might have some time to sample some football outside the Midwest.”
There’s also more time to spend with her husband Frank, who recently retired as president and executive director of the St. Louis Sports Commission.
“We’ve already done a good bit of traveling, and I suspect that will continue,” she said.
Dan Verdun is a co-founder of Prairie State Pigskin. He has written four books: NIU Huskies Football, EIU Panthers Football, ISU Redbirds Football and SIU Salukis Football.
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