Avery Patton works in juvenile court office by day, coaches East Nashville basketball by night

Avery Patton has taken his lunch breaks at the East Nashville High School cafeteria for more than a decade.

He pulls lunch duty at a school where he isn't even employed. Patton drives from downtown and picks up a bag of food to eat there. Sometimes he grabs a tray from the cafeteria. After a bite, he enforces the lunch rules for an hour and a half. 

But there’s more to it. He solves conflict. He learns students’ names and forms bonds.

This was all his idea.

“He does it because he wants to,” East Nashville principal Dr. Myra Taylor said. “We said, ‘We’ll give you a chair, a microphone and let you do your thing.’ Everyone is not made like that.”

After lunch, Patton returns to the job he starts in the morning as chief deputy administrator at the Metro Nashville Office of the Juvenile Court Clerk. At night, he changes into tennis shoes and coaches the East boys basketball team. He’s done both jobs for the past six years during a 13-season run with the Eagles, with nine seasons as an assistant and the past four as head coach. 

Patton, one of Nashville’s top high school basketball guards of the 1980s, has consumed himself with helping the city’s kids. He saw too many young people’s spirits get crushed by the Cumberland View housing project he grew up in, also known as “Dodge City.”

“I’ve got a story to tell. It’s not nothing I read about. I was there,” Patton said. “I’ve seen a lot of stuff. It’s easy to relate it to my ball team as well as the kids in school.”

Avery Patton a ‘familiar face’ in complex system 

Six years ago, Lonnell Matthews was elected as Metro Nashville Juvenile Court Clerk and brought Patton on as his second in command. Patton knew the city and its government well. He’d been in Metro’s Assessor of Property office for 30 years prior to that. 

That was the job waiting for him after his basketball career ended. He had starred at Glencliff in high school, became an NAIA All-American at Trevecca in 1987 and gave professional minor league basketball a chance after becoming a fourth-round CBA draft pick. He ended up cold and strapped for cash in Albany, New York, playing for a purpose he didn’t understand anymore. 

He didn’t know it would all lead to a government court system that breaks his heart sometimes. 

Juvenile courts sort through delinquency and status offenses. They deal with issues of neglect, child abuse, child support, custody issues, establishing parentage, visitation, and children’s medical or mental health treatment. Patton oversees the Metro office’s three divisions of clerks and provides administrative support for their cases. He also sits in on trials. 

He loves the job, but it isn’t easy. 

“You’re seeing some 13- to 14-year-old-kids in there for a long time and when they’re 18, they leave the juvenile (detention center) and go to the penitentiary where they serve real time — these are the ones with violent crimes with firearms and whatnot,” Patton said. “That’s the hard part, sitting in that trial, looking at this kid and knowing 40 years of his life is gone from one mistake.

“You have some good (stories) where some of the kids get out … But 80% of the time you’ve got repeaters. The hard part is looking at these kids’ parents who’ve done all they can to raise them the right way, and they fall in the cracks. That’s the part that’s devastating to me.” 

Patton handles it. Sadly, he’s done it too many times. Last year, former East basketball standout Demon Floyd was shot and killed weeks after graduation. He was 18. It brought Patton to his knees, but he made himself speak at the funeral.  

“He grew up in the city,” Matthews said. “He’s able to connect with a lot of the families we serve. People come up to our window needing help navigating the court system, they see a familiar face like Avery’s now and then and it just puts their mind at ease that it won’t be such a negative experience.”

Avery Patton ‘perfect fit’ for East Nashville basketball 

Patton was an assistant under former East Nashville head coach Jim Fey from 2011-19. Candidates chased Fey’s position when he left to coach at Summit, but Fey did all in his power to make sure Patton got the job. 

“He was the perfect fit,” Fey said. “He was the person who needed that job, no question.” 

Patton led East to its first basketball state title with a win over Milan in the 2022 Class 2A championship. East also became just the fourth Metro school to win a boys basketball state championship since the TSSAA went to multiple classifications in 1972. 

He has an 89-12 record since 2019, including a 2020 season that was practically wiped out by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Patton works about 60 hours a week to complete his two jobs. He’s also president of the Dirty Dozen men’s community group, which has done outreach since 1996. Through its Rites of Passage mentoring program, he speaks to students at Margaret Allen and McKissack middle schools once a week about topics from avoiding conflict to managing anxiety. 

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He is in a unique position to tell kids there’s a fine line between the good life and the one behind bars. 

“It’s a part of life,” Patton said. “It’s part of a planet that is good and evil. It’s happy vs. sad. I’m just glad I'm in a position where I can try to help.”

Reach sports writer Tyler Palmateer at tpalmateer@tennessean.com and on the X platform, formerly Twitter, @tpalmateer83.