BFFs for more than four decades: Patterson and Carrasco

Longtime best friends, Valerie Patterson, center, and Christine Carrasco track the action at a December Rams boys’ basketball game; that’s announcer Robert Pacheco at left. (Herron photo)

RIO RANCHO – Forever is a long time, so let’s just say gal pals Valerie Patterson and Christine Carrasco have been friends for “almost” forever.

Their roots are embedded in sports, dating back to when they were young girls living in Paradise Hills on the West Side and their mothers were teammates on a softball team.

Now, they’re at a lot of Rio Rancho High School volleyball and basketball games, where they sit next to each other at the scorer’s table; Patterson maintains the scoreboard — “She’s awesome with it,” Carrasco attests – and Carrasco tracks points scored.

In between the softball origins and current time, they were volleyball teammates at Cibola High School and then Eastern New Mexico University, where their husbands were Greyhound football teammates. And the two women combined for six sons (in order, Austin, Brady, Clay and David Patterson; Dakota and Cash Carrasco), all of whom played basketball for the RRHS Rams – and some were football teammates as well.

It’s been an interesting dynamic, according to Patterson, the elder of the two and a 1986 graduate of Cibola High School; Carrasco graduated from CHS in 1987.

“Both of us have probably only moved twice, and only 5 miles from Paradise Hills,” Carrasco said. “The family roots for both of us were pretty strong. I worked for my father for insurance for the last 32 years, (and) Milton and I live in Corrales — 22 years (there). The Pattersons live in Rio Rancho.”

“Our families have been friends for 55-plus years,” Patterson said. “I walked to school; she walked to school. We went to all the same schools – elementary, middle and high school. We really didn’t get to know each other till when she was a junior and I was a senior in high school. We played volleyball together.”

Together? That’s not how Carrasco remembers it: “I was second string to her, and she never came off the court,” she said. “After we got to college, we stayed in the dorms a few years, then moved outside the campus and lived together a few more years.”

Patterson’s husband David played football and baseball at Cibola, where she played volleyball and softball; Carrasco played volleyball and basketball for the Cougars. Carrasco’s husband, Milton, entered the picture at ENMU.

“Milton and I dated throughout college; we married in 1992,” Carrasco said. “Valerie and Dave got engaged the same Christmas we did; they got married a year before.

“My senior year, we played on the same team. I didn’t like her that much – she was loud,” Patterson said. “I mean, I didn’t ever hang out with her; she was crazy.

“She was just laughing all the time; I very was serious,” she said. “I got in trouble for being too mean and serious, mad at my teammates because we didn’t do very well, and she was joking – I didn’t like it. Anyway, we went to college. I was there first, then they recruited her, so we got to know each other really well. In high school, we were both hitters; in college, I started setting.”

Their adventures in Portales set the stage for an enduring friendship.

“We became really good friends in college, and then roommates, I think, our third year,” Patterson recalled.

“Each day goes on and you say 20, years, 30 years and now 40 years … I don’t think we’ve ever had a problem,” Carrasco said. “She’s one true friend; we’re ‘simplified’ friends, and it works well for us. (Someday), we’ll be those old ladies that get together.”

Patterson became less serious and later started to laugh, but “(Carrasco) never got serious.

“We called her our ‘cruise director,’ because on our Eastern volleyball trips, because we drove everywhere. Our coach was our driver on a big bus and she would get up and lead us in games and singing. ‘Cruise director,’ that’s what we called her.”

Carrasco said that habit of hers probably began during family trips and then on high school road games, where she’d lead everyone – that wanted to participate – in song or games.

Married by the time they graduated from ENMU, Patterson recalled, “We were good friends as couples, and then we moved back here, started having kids …

“I had Austin and Brady, and then Dakota and Clay are the same age; and then Cash and David,” Patterson, now a grandma, explained. “And actually, with our kids older than hers, they would follow our kids wherever we went, like AAU tournaments, where they’d show up and watch Brady play. Just loved sports. Dakota and Clay started playing football together when they were 7, playing YAFL and basketball.”

Her connection to the scoreboard gig followed her brother, Vince Metzgar, being named the athletic director at Rio Rancho High School in 2009.

“He got me to do the volleyball scoreboard,” she said. “I didn’t know how to do it, and he’s like, ‘You’ll be fine.’ And since our kids were here, I recruited (Christine) to do it.”

“I enjoyed just getting away (then),” Carrasco said. “Sometimes that’s when we get the opportunity (to catch up). Keeping our minds sharp with the stats, I guess.” (She had been injured at ENMU and started keeping scorebooks for volleyball and basketball.)

Of course, they see each other away from the RAC: “Trips together … birthdays, Christmas, we have lunch all the time (with a third ENMU friend, Christine Harris).”

To Patterson, “She is all about family; she loves family. She is such a good daughter to her parents. She lives right behind her parents; they’re in their 90s. She’s such a good mom, daughter, sister.”

Their husbands, she added, have very strong opinions about a lot of things.

“I do, too, I just don’t have to express them,” Patterson said.

“Everything’s always gone pretty smooth,” Carrasco agreed. “Maybe sometimes we disagreed about something … We’ve gone on vacations, done AAU programs with basketball; we’ve traveled. We’re getting more into our older age.”

She learned long ago when pizza is to be ordered, it better not have olives and mushrooms on it.

That’s OK.

“If you had one true friend, she would be the one,” she said of Patterson.

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