Players, coaches make pilgrimage; say goodbye to Pat Summitt

“She could have coached any team, any sport, men’s or women’s”.

“I was saddened to hear of the passing of Coach Pat Summitt when I woke up this morning”. She became the first NCAA coach to win 1,000 games February 5, 2009, and received a new contract that boosted her annual salary to $1.4 million – far removed from the $8,900 of her first season.

Summitt became the program’s coach at 22 years old.

“I just felt something was different, and you know, at the time, I didn’t know what I was dealing with”, she said. This was the crew that won back-to-back national titles, Pat’s seventh and eighth respectively. “I remember at the first day of camp, she would ask all the campers, ‘Did you make your bed this morning?’ Guess who went back and made their bed this morning”.

Summitt has two streets named after her in Martin and Knoxville.

Sen. Lamar Alexander was president of the University of Tennessee when Pat Summitt coached the Lady Vols to the 1989 NCAA title.

“Pat’s biggest philosophy was you win with people”, she says.

Since her retirement from basketball, she’s helped found the Pat Summitt foundation and the Pat Summitt Alzheimer’s Clinic, which is scheduled to open in December at the University of Tennessee Medical Center.

Needing yet another men’s basketball coach, Tennessee officials turned to the one person they thought would be flawless to take over the Volunteers program. I have always had so much respect and admiration for Coach Summitt. With undivided attention now on me, she wanted to know if I had talked with her mother, Hazel, for the story.

She adds she’s “probably going to cry all day”. It represents the number of players she coached at Tennessee, and the number of players that graduated. She was a super human presence brought down by the most human of conditions.

In 2012, Summitt was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Dozens of coaches, athletes, and players took to social media to express their memories of the legendary coach.

Carolyn Peck, now associate head coach at Vanderbilt, started her coaching career at Tennessee despite having played at in-state rival Vanderbilt.

Summitt said you won with people.

Peck went on to coach Purdue to the 1999 NCAA title.

Thank you coach Pat Summitt. Pat Summitt helped to change that. Pat was the greatest coach of all time; her fierce spirit will live on through her players, and through all of us who were inspired by her on a daily basis. The WBNA’s Tamika Catchings played for Summitt at the University of Tennessee from 1997 to 2001.

“Pat set the standard for success in women’s basketball”. Her players, who all have college degrees, have been enriched by her teaching.

The obituary read, “On Tuesday, June 28 2016, Pat passed away peacefully, following a courageous battle with early onset dementia, “Alzheimer’s Type”. She never wavered. We still have a 100 percent graduation rate”.

It was a homecoming game for Parker, a product of the Chicago suburbs, but she blew curfew the night before while out with family.

Breaking the glass ceiling in the men’s game, political office, that wasn’t Summitt’s motivation. I remember on the screen, it was her eyes – you could see the determination and the passion and the love – it’s all the things you would want in a great coach.

Summitt helped grow college women’s basketball as her Lady Vols dominated the sport in the late 1980s and 1990s, winning six titles in 12 years.

“She was one of the people I consulted with following my junior year when I was deciding whether to turn pro early or stay in college”. She gave me some very valuable advice during that time. My teammates and I went to a lot of Lady Vols games when we were in school, and I really enjoyed watching her teams play. I will miss her dearly, and I am honored to call her my friend. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the Summitt family and the Lady Vol family”. “Working with her at Tennessee was truly an honor, as was competing against her. She was an incredible icon in not only the game of women’s basketball, but in sports in general”. Not only was she trying to prove she could coach, she was also trying to rehab her knee and earn a roster spot on the 1976 Olympic team in Montreal (she did so and won a silver medal).