Pat Summitt, a True Legend
Pat Summitt grew up in a day when women’s sports were not a priority. In Summitt’s family that was not the case. The Head family moved from Clarksville, Tennessee to Henrietta, Tennessee when Summitt was in high school so that she would have the opportunity to play basketball. While her brothers went on to college on basketball scholarships there were no scholarships at University of Tennessee at Martin for women.
Summitt distinguished herself as a player and was an All-American. Before anyone dreamed of the WNBA and women’s basketball had not even been sanctioned by the NCAA, Summitt and her teammates played because they loved the game. They raised money for uniforms by raising funds themselves. One fundraiser was selling doughnuts.
Upon Summitt’s graduation from UT in 1974, she was offered Graduate Assistant position with the women’s basketball team. Then the Lady Vols’ head coach suddenly retired and twenty-two-year-old Summitt landed the head coaching job. She was coaching some athletes she had played with just the season before. Summitt worked hard; she drove the team van, she washed uniforms, she did whatever needed to be done. She did all of this because she loved the game and believed in women’s athletics.
Pat Summitt in the Olympics
In 1976 Women’s basketball made it to the Olympics. Summitt and two other Lady Vols made the inaugural team. Going with her team to Montreal, Summitt and her team brought back the first Olympic medal in women’s basketball – a silver medal.
The USA’s silver medal finish served a notice to the rest of the world that the United States would be a contender for the gold in 1980. U.S. head coach Billie Moore said it best, ‘I think we’ve closed the gap.
USAB.com
The United States did not compete in the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. In 1984, however, the games were held in Los Angeles and Pat Summitt was back – this time as the Olympic Team’s head coach. This time the American team would prevail and won the gold. This made Pat Summitt the first Olympian, male or female to ever win medals as an athlete and then as a coach.
Summitt: A Force to be Reckoned With
Summitt was a busy woman. In addition to being an Olympian in 1976, she completed her Master’s Degree. In 1978, Summitt lead her Lady Vols to their one-hundredth victory under her leadership. 1978 also marked the program’s first number one ranking and their first trip to the AIAW Final Four. The AIAW, Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women, conducted the tournament because the NCAA wouldn’t begin sanctioning women’s athletics until 1981.
The Lady Vols were a force to be reckoned with, after making four straight Final Four appearances. In 1986, Summitt coached Tennessee to their first National Championship title in Women’s Basketball. She had reached the summit. By the end of January 1990, Summitt had 400 coaching victories and two National Championships under her belt.
Summitt, as the head coach of the University of Tennessee Lady Volunteers Basketball team, had a record of 1098 wins and only 208 losses. Her teams won 84% of their games. Summitt led her teams to 16 SEC Championships, and made 32 appearances. Her teams went to the Final Four a total of 18 times, and won eight National Championships. From 1976 to 2011, every young woman who played for Summitt played in at least one Final Four game. 24 of Summitt’s players or assistants have gone on to pursue careers in coaching basketball. Summitt’s legacy includes numerous WNBA players, including league MVPs and champions.
It’s More than Just the Game
Pat Summitt was more than outstanding, unprecedented statistics. Summitt’s players were not only successful on the court, they were successful in the classroom. 100% percent of the players who played for Summitt and completed their eligibility graduated with a diploma from the University of Tennessee. Summitt believed in the program at Tennessee and gave back to her alma matter.
In 2006, she donated $600,000 to the University, which was to be divided between the women’s basketball programs at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and at Martin. Summitt established a scholarship in honor of her parents, Richard and Hazel Head, for graduate assistants. Summitt created the scholarship with the hope that “this gift will afford other young women the same opportunities that I had as a graduate assistant.” (UTSports.com).
Summitt was loved by her family, her players, her fans and the University of Tennessee. In addition to playing college basketball, playing and coaching Olympic basketball, and winning, Summit found time to start a family.
Her son Tyler was born in September 1990. Less than a year old, Tyler was in his mother’s arms as she cut down the net after winning another National Championship.
Tyler was a fixture for the Lady Vols on the bench, in the bus and pretty much everywhere. Tyler grew up to play basketball at Tennessee, and became a coach himself. Just three years before his mother’s diagnosis of early onset dementia, Tyler talked about the possibility of coaching against his mother one day.
There will likely be another Coach Summitt on the sideline someday, maybe even at Tennessee. She is 56 and nowhere close to retiring, and Tyler dreams of being an assistant to her. He knows he might have to work somewhere else, though, and thinks that will be OK, too. Except, he can’t imagine looking over at the opponent … and seeing his mom.
“Well, I’ll tell you one thing,” he says. “She’d be the last person I’d want to coach against.”
ESPN.GO.com
Tyler Summitt was hired by Marquette as an assistant coach. Tyler Summitt never got to look across a court and see his mom, as she announced her retirement the same day Marquette announced his hiring.
President Barack Obama, who awarded Pat Summitt a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012, had the following to say about Pat Summitt’s passing:
Pat was a patriot who earned Olympic medals for America as a player and a coach, and I was honored to award her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She was a proud Tennessean who, when she went into labor while on a recruiting visit, demanded the pilot return to Knoxville so her son could be born in her home state. And she was an inspiring fighter. Even after Alzheimer’s started to soften her memory, and she began a public and brave fight against that terrible disease, Pat had the grace and perspective to remind us that “God doesn’t take things away to be cruel. … He takes things away to lighten us. He takes things away so we can fly.”
Whitehouse.gov
Pat Summitt was a coach, a mother, a friend, a legend and she will be deeply missed. Summitt changed the face not only of women’s basketball but women’s athletics. She left behind an enduring legacy of players and coaches. She made sure her players got an education and made the most of the opportunities available to them as student athletes. The world is a better place having had Pat Summitt in it.
All the burdens have been taken away Pat, fly high.