J-Speaks: The Loss Of A Legendary Coach and Teacher

In 1974, a Clarksville, TN native was hired as a graduate assistant at the University of Tennessee. On Dec. 7, 1974 this lady at 22-year-old made her head coaching debut for the Lady Volunteers against Mercer University in Macon, GA, an 84-83 loss. Here first victory came one month and three days later, a 69-32 against the Middle Tennessee State Blue Raiders. In the years that followed, this eventual Hall of Fame head coach, who was known for her as cold as ice glare on the sidelines would not only put women’s college basketball and women’s basketball in general on the map, but she set a standard for excellence that her players followed both on the court and in the classroom. More than anything else, each player that went through her program was able to do something that most collegiate athletes fall short of. The only thing that cut her coaching career short was her health, which happened four years ago and last month, we all said goodbye to her.

On June 28, 2016 Patricia “Pat” Sue Summitt, the winningest basketball coach in NCAA Division I Basketball history with 1,098 wins passed away after a five-year battle with early-onset Alzheimer’s. She was 64 years old.

Summitt had retired from coaching following the 2011-12 season because of early stages of the disease.  

She leaves behind her son Ross Tyler Summitt, who according to ESPN.com columnist Gene Wojciechowski was hired to be an assistant coach on the Marquette University Lady Golden Eagles basketball team was the same day that his mom announced her retirement on Apr. 18, 2012.

In an issued statement by the young Summitt said that his mother passed on peacefully at Sherrill Hill Senior Living in Knoxville, TN surrounded by those who loved her the most.

“Since 2011, my mother has battle her toughest opponent, early onset dementia, Alzheimer’s type, and she did so with bravely fierce determination just as he did with every opponent she ever faced,” Tyler said. “Even though it’s incredibly difficult to come to terms that she is no longer with us, we can all find peace in knowing she no longer carries the heavy burden of this disease.”

From the moment Summitt stepped into the head coaching seat in Knoxville, TN, she rewrote the NCAA record books. In 38 seasons as the sideline leader of the Lady Volunteers, Summitt won an NCAA record 1,098 games, compiling a record of 1,098-208. Reached the NCAA Tournament a remarkable 31 straight seasons, coaching her team to the Final Four 18 times and winning eight National Championships.

Among her individual honors, Summitt coached the U.S. women’s national team to a gold medal in the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, CA. In 1999, she was inducted into the inaugural class of Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame and in her first year of eligibility was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame a year later. Sports Illustrated named her the Sportswoman of the Year in 2011 and on five occasions was named Naismith College Coach of the Year

“She’ll be recognized as a great coach no matter what sport,” Duke University Men’s Basketball head coach, Team USA Men’s Basketball head coach and the winningest men’s basketball coach in NCAA Division I Mike Krzyzewski said to WNBC 4 New York’s sports anchor Bruce Beck back in late June.

“She could have been a men’s coach and done really well. But really she put the women’s game on the map. She was the gold standard.

WNBA President Lisa Borders echoed those same sentiments by saying that Summitt was, “A true coaching legend. Pat Summitt rewrote the NCAA record books and left an indelible mark on sports. Even more than her incredible achievements on the basketball court, her legacy will be her passion for her commitment to inspiring the next generation of young athletes. All of us at the WNBA send our deepest sympathies to the Summitt family and Volunteers everywhere.”

In total 34 of the players who played for her went on to play in the WNBA, consisting of Tamika Catchings, Kara Lawson and Candace Parker to name a few. Twenty-one of those players became All-Americans and 14 of them went on to play for the USA National Team.

Aside from what they learned on the hardwood from Summitt, each player said that they learned some serious and life changing lessons that have made them into the strong, determined, tough-minded and diving ladies that they have become.

“One person that definitely inspires me is my college coach Pat Summitt,” Lawson, a Gold Medal Olympian, WNBA champion and current college basketball analyst for ESPN said of her former college coach.

“She’s not only concerned about what we do on the basketball court, but more importantly what her players do in the community, concerned about what kind of women they turn out to be. How they represent themselves,” Catchings, WNBA champion, former WNBA MVP, 10-time All-Star, three-time Gold Medal Olympian and future Hall of Fame forward of the Indiana Fever said. “There was so much more outside of the basketball that Pat Summitt was concerned about.”

Parker, Two-time WNBA MVP, former Rookie of the Year and Two-time Gold Medal Olympian said that Summitt is one of the strongest women that she knows.

“She’s battled everything and just always has a positive attitude. Her message is not just through words, but she actually lives it and I think that’s what so remarkable about her,” Parker said.  

To Pat Summitt, success was the product of outworking people. If you worked harder than anyone else, you were going to be successful.

The best example of this was the often told story of the birth of her only son Tyler when she was on a recruiting trip to Pennsylvania in 1990 when her water broke. She completed that particular visit, caught a flight home telling the pilot not to land the plane until it reached Tennessee, where she wanted her child to be born.

It was that competitive spirit that she instilled in her players and that resulted in a perfect graduation rate of 100%. Every player that wore the Tennessee orange, white and blue earned their degrees and each one even signed a pole as a symbol for players come in of what was expected of them.

Besides having a major reach to her players, Summitt made an impact on many others who were within an arms reach of her in Knoxville to those that only knew her from seeing her coach or from the three books she wrote.

President Barack Obama, who honored Summitt with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor in the U.S. back in 2012 stated that Summitt’s “Hall of Fame career would tell the story of the historic progress toward equality in American athletics that she helped advanced.

“Her legacy, however, is measured much more by the generations of young women and men who admired Pat’s intense competiveness and character, and as a result found in themselves the confidence to practice hard, and live with courage on and off the court.”

When deciding whether to enter the NFL Draft or play his senior season for the Vols football team, soon to be Hall of Famer Peyton Manning sought the advice of Summitt. He did play his final season of eligibility, went on the NFL and we saw all that took place right before our eyes for the next 18 seasons.

“She could have coached any team, any sport, men’s or women’s. It wouldn’t have mattered because Pat could flat out coach,” Manning said in a statement. “I will miss her dearly, and I am honored to call her my friend.”

Former WNBA All-Star guard for the New York Liberty and San Antonio Stars and now assistant coach for the San Antonio Spurs Becky Hammon, the first full-time female assistant coach said that, “When people think of Tennessee more than their men’s coach. More than anything else, they think of Pat Summitt, which is unheard of as you know in the sports world. I don’t know how you can even put into words what she’s done for the Women’s game.”

Comedian and former late night host Arsenio Hall said as guest co-host on the Jun 28 edition of Access Hollywood Live alongside Kit Hoover gave Summitt the highest compliment that a coach of any gender can be given when he called her the Phil Jackson of Women’s Basketball.

He also said that he was watching San Antonio Spurs game during this past NBA postseason and he was looking at coach Hammon, who was hired by Spurs’ head coach Gregg Popovich two seasons ago.

“That’s all because of Pat,” Hall said. “All these changes. All these great things to the game and to our culture have happened because of her greatness.”

To even broaden that perspective of Hall, 45 former players have become coaches, including Holly Warlick, who became the successor to Summitt. At least 25 former players and assistant coaches, including her son Tyler have pursed to become coaches and positions in basketball management.

One person who is thankful for what Summitt did in putting women’s college basketball into the pantheon of the nation is 11-time NCAA Women’s Division I National champion Head Coach of the University of Connecticut Lady Huskies as well as of the USA Women’s National Team Geno Auriemma.  

Their intense rivalry brought an edginess and dramatic flair to the game and it brought an intensity out of the players when they competed against each other.

In their head-to-head matchups, Auriemma’s Lady Huskies were 13-9 against Summitt and the Lady Vols, including 4-0 in NCAA championship contests, but the Vols on their way to back-to-back national titles in 1996 and 1997 eliminated UConn along the way.

You can call her a winner. You can call her a motivator. You can call her an innovator. The best thing to call Pat Summitt, a teacher. She taught us all that when everyone is committed to one common goal and when each does their part, the goal can be accomplished. That the team’s collective effort will reap each person’s on individual reward.

When she won her 1,000 game of her career, she stated to those in the attendance, “Just remember this special night and think about all the people that made it possible and that’s everyone in this building and a lot of people that have been through this program that still love the Lady Vols with all their heart.”

Pat Summitt is the embodiment of Title IX and it is because of her she proved that women’s sports are important. That people, particularly in a part of the nation that steep in a rich tradition of football will show up if the product is worth buying tickets to see. They came to see Summitt and her Lady Volunteers and women’s basketball and women’s sports from amateur to professional is all the better for it thanks to her.

Information, statistics and quotations are courtesy of; 6/28/16 article by Steve Megaree of The Associated Press via www.nba.com “Summitt, Winningest Coach in Division I History, Dies at 64;” 6/29/16 Newsday article “She Never Stood Pat,” by Greg Logan; 6/29/16 New York Daily News article “Pat Summitt,” by Kevin Armstrong; 6/29/16 11 a.m. edition of “Access Hollywood Live” on WNBC with host Kit Hoover and guest co-host Arsenio Hall; 6/29/16 NBATV news crawl; 6/29/16 WNBA Halftime show during the contest between the Connecticut Sun versus the Phoenix Mercury on NBATV commentated by Tom Leander and Hall of Famer Ann Meyers Drysdale; http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Summitt; http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geno_Auriemma; http://en.m.wikpedia.org/wiki/Candace_Parker; http://en.m.wikpedia.org/wiki/Tamika_Catchings; http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kara_Lawson.