In Denver, Pat Summitt was more than just her NCAA titles
“The game would not be where it is today without Pat Summitt with what she did and the attention she brought to it”.
Houston, now a Louisville businessman, coached the Tennessee men’s basketball team in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s and it was the same time women’s basketball coach Pat Summitt was dominating the sport.
“You always remember her as a fighter”, Henry says.
Summitt put aside the sting of the fresh defeat to think about her sport’s marquee event.
“You know, Pat was my coach”.
Summitt was 64 years old.
“She exuded this level of confidence”. But administrators Helen Watson and Nancy Lay knew differently.
“She’s touched so many lives in the game of basketball and has grown the game”, Parker said.
So Summitt threw herself into the job with zeal.
The United States didn’t compete in the Olympics in 1980, but Summitt returned, this time as a coach, in 1984 in Los Angeles.
No drill was too tough, no quarter was ever asked.
” Just to have my office two doors down from Pat’s office was really helpful because we’d often talk”, Houston told WAVE 3 Sports. “I was too exhausted to move”.
No. 600: November 23, 1996 – Summitt receives a cake from Vermont Gov. Howard Dean after Tennessee beats Marquette, 83-68.
Not just in the realm of basketball, but it will forever be hard to quantify exactly how much Summitt meant to women in general. “She’s changed the nature of women’s basketball”. Her first national championship happened in 1987, then another one in 1989 and a third in 1991.
There was nothing meek about their sideline leader.
“When I think of who has influenced me the most, you think of your parents, you think of your grandparents”, she says.
Summitt announced in 2011 that she was battling early onset dementia.
“This was the biggest game in women’s basketball, and that’s what I’ve been waiting 19 years to see”, Summitt said.
Kellie Harper broke one of her team rules on Tuesday.
USF coach Jennifer Azzi felt Summitt’s touch after leaving the state of Tennessee in 1986 to play for Tara VanDerveer at Stanford. Summitt also led the Lady Vols to eight national championships and 22 Final Four’s. “She’ll be missed”, he said.
Tennessee vice chancellor and athletic director Dave Hart called her “synonymous with Tennessee” and “a global icon who transcended sports and spent her entire life making a difference in other people’s lives”.
A public memorial service is being planned for legendary coach Pat Summitt at Thompson-Boling Arena on the campus of the University of Tennessee.
Forget the third Saturday in October, when Tennessee and Alabama traditionally play football.
No. 800: January 14, 2003 – Summitt gets a cake during a postgame ceremony that includes fireworks, balloons and flowers after Tennessee trounces DePaul, 76-57.
“We were sitting by each other in a July recruiting period once”, Bollant said Tuesday.