Unfortunately for Summitt, she had to retire in 2012 from coaching, something no one was ready for, because of being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2011.
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“She would come over there and say something like, ‘am I the only one that thinks that was a walk?’ and I’m sitting there going, ‘Pat, I can’t talk to you, I can’t talk to you, ‘ you know?” Women’s basketball is where it is today because of her and what she accomplished with that program. Shafer said when he left Georgia in 2005 to take the job in Richmond, Summitt wrote him a letter that he still hangs on to.
While stats are meant to be broken, your legacy lives on. Her passion, her fire, her love and knowledge of the game, put her in an elite class of coaches.
“For me, as a young high school coach, it was somebody for me to model”, Aston said.
“I always think I have something to teach them”, she said smiling.
Summitt would win eight NCAA titles at Tennessee.
“Pat Summitt saw things in people that they did not see in themselves”, Pearl said in a statement released by Auburn. “Just an fantastic person”. “Her players, every one of them had their eligibility with her graduated”. “No one would be as far as we are without her”.
On Tuesday, former players at Tennessee took to social media to share their stories of former Lady Vols coach Pat Summitt, who died early Tuesday.
“We played for national rankings…we played for conference championships, we played against each other for conference tournament championships, we played in early rounds of the NCAA”, he said. In the face of adversity she never showed weakness, she never backed down.
Gordon and Adams are forever tied to Summitt, whose influence on her former players is now being passed along to a new generation.
Like many sports fans, Henry has noticed the outpouring of respect for the winningest coach in college basketball history.
JOHN YANG: In her 1998 book, “Reach for the Summit”, she told of turning down an opportunity to coach the Tennessee men’s basketball team.
“(Summitt) taught me that as long as you live in this lifetime, you’re going to have to deal with death”, said Gordon, now an assistant coach as Wichita State. We would all go to Pat’s house, all through the years, and she would cook for us.
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“It’s hard to pinpoint the exact day that I first noticed something wrong”, Summitt wrote.
