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. It was as if she were staring down her disease with the same icy glare she made famous while winning eight national championships and the respect of a nation that didn’t pay much attention to women’s sports when she was growing up.
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Summitt had been battling early onset dementia since 2011.
Wagner got to know Summitt when he was the girls basketball coach at Springfield with one of the nation’s top recruits in Russell, a 6-foot-6 All-American who just completed her redshirt sophomore season with the Volunteers.
In her own career, Summitt played for the University of Tennessee at Martin, and became the team’s assistant coach when she graduated from the school in 1974.
“She was a great coach, but she was an even better person”, Richardson said after making an appearance at Heat’s summer basketball camp Tuesday afternoon.
“Got my time with Pat”, Burdick said.
“Pat Summitt transcended the game of women’s basketball”, Joseph said. A year after the diagnosis, she retired from coaching.
Bucci says the death of legendary basketball coach Pat Summitt is the loss of a powerhouse. “She was always very supportive of my career and I enjoyed seeing her back at a Tennessee football game or when she would come to Indianapolis to see Tamika Catchings play”.
Barron said one of his memorable moments was when he was able to talk with Summitt and take his daughters to visit her practice in the days leading up to her record-setting win. “She will be greatly missed but her positive impact on the game of basketball and on the people she led will last forever”. This is just one of thousands of stories that people have told, and will continue to tell, about one of the most important women in American sports.
Summitt also impacted other North Carolina coaches as well, saying she was a force to be reckoned with on the court.
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Today, a makeshift memorial grew at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, and tributes rolled in, starting with Summitt’s greatest rival, University of CT coach Geno Auriemma.
