You’re going to see a lot of words used to honor former University of Tennessee women’s basketball coach Pat Summitt over the next few days. You’ll see “legend,” “Icon” and “Hero” and none of them will do her justice. Summitt was unparalleled in her sport, the best of her generation and long after. She not only changed the game of women’s basketball, she put the sport on the map. There’s no comparison for what she was and meant to women’s athletics and college sports. She was a super human presence brought down by the most human of conditions.
Summitt died Tuesday after a lengthy battle with Alzheimer’s disease. For someone like Summitt, such a brilliant strategist and thinker, it’s a cruel irony that early onset dementia would take her from us. Sometimes that’s how the world works. And it’s terrible.
Growing up, when you saw womens college bball you thought of TENN, and when you thought of TENN you thought of Pat Summit. #legendsneverdie
— Julian Edelman (@Edelman11) June 28, 2016
I first met Summitt in 2006 as part of my first newspaper job. She was already a legend then with six NCAA women’s titles already in her trophy cabinet and one more coming. It was maybe the third or fourth game of the season and the Lady Vols were a juggernaut. I remember writing that the only question about the UT women was, exactly how great were they going to be?
Pretty great it turns out. This was the crew that won back-to-back national titles, Pat’s seventh and eighth respectively. They were loaded with Candace Parker, Nicky Anosike, Shannon Bobbitt, Ashley Shields, Sidney Spencer and Alexis Hornbuckle. They went 72-4 over those two seasons. Those would be Summitt’s last national titles, but not her last hurrah. Until her diagnosis caused her to step down as the Lady Vols’ coach she led the team to a Sweet 16 and two Elite Eight appearances. Every player that completed their athletic eligibility with Summitt graduated. All of them.
Greeny with the highest of praise for the legend that is Pat Summitt. pic.twitter.com/erYIbK5CLb
— Golic and Wingo (@GolicAndWingo) June 28, 2016
Here’s what you may not know about Summitt’s eight national titles. It could have been 12. Summitt’s teams played for it four more times and lost, including a 72-61 loss to USC in just the team’s third season as a member of the NCAA.
Summitt’s career record of 1,098-208 is unmatched in all of Division I basketball, not just women’s basketball. She was named the Naismith Women’s Collegiate Coach of the Century in 2000 and was elected to the Hall of Fame the year before that. She led Team USA to a gold medal in the 1984 Olympics, won 16 SEC regular season titles, 16 SEC tournament titles, was SEC Coach of the Year eight times and won the national coach of the year award seven times.
We have lost a legend. Our deepest condolences to Coach Summitt's family, friends and fans: https://t.co/2SANNoOcx7 pic.twitter.com/wXlhy6Es55
— NCAA (@NCAA) June 28, 2016
If you don’t live in Tennessee, you have no idea the towering figure she was here. She has not one, but two Division I basketball courts named after her. The main one, of course, “The Summitt” is inside Thompson-Boling Arena where both the UT men’s and women’s teams play their home games. The second is at UT-Martin, where Summitt went to college. It’s called “Pat Head Sumitt Court.”
Summitt has two streets named after her in Martin and Knoxville. For about four generations of high school girls basketball players in Tennessee, she was the only person on earth they wanted to play for. They problem for those girls, of course, was that recruiting net went far wider than Tennessee. Summitt had her pick of players for a reason. She was the best. Everyone knew it.
Coach #PatSummitt, you were the reason I started following Women's College Basketball.
— Earvin Magic Johnson (@MagicJohnson) June 28, 2016
Her passing Tuesday resonated far beyond the sports world. Summitt was a feminist icon. A woman who competed against men every day and beat the daylights out of them. She was a force on and off the courts. She was born on a little farm in Crossville, Tenn. in 1952 and when she died she was one of the most famous women on the planet.
She was a mentor to many, not just her players. Former Denver Broncos and Tennessee Vols quarterback Peyton Manning shared a friendship with Summitt and talked about it with ESPN Tuesday.
“Pat was a great friend to me and a great resource, even though I never played for her,” Manning said. “I always felt she was kind of one of my coaches. I used to lean on her for advice. …I miss her, I love her very much and it’s a very sad day.”
Summitt was 64 years old.
