The WBNA’s Tamika Catchings played for Summit at the University of Tennessee from 1997 to 2001. She did it well and most of all she did it her way winning National Championships along the way. R. I. She would have had more if she did not have to end her career early due to the early onset of dementia.
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“Pat set the standard for which programs like ours dreamed of achieving, both on and off the court”, Auriemma said.
“Pat started playing college hoops before Title IX and started coaching before the NCAA recognized women’s basketball as a sport”, President Obama said. She put a product out there that made people notice women’s basketball. And after the game ended, Parker’s emotions came pouring out as she conducted a tearful post-game interview with ESPN’s Holly Rowe. Lawson went on to play professional basketball and won an Olympic gold medal.
“It was hard, but I felt a lot of strength from her and the Lady Vol family”.
But as her foundation’s obituary notes, the number that mattered most to Summitt, who died Tuesday morning of complications from early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, was this one: 161, the number of players she coached during her career as the head coach at the University of Tennessee.
Everyone understood that’s how Pat Summitt did things. She graduated from Tennessee in 1985 as the school’s all-time leading scorer. “If you can ever catch her sitting down doing nothing, you are one special person”. “She was such a great lady, and it’s been an emotional week for a lot of us”.
She was hard and employed a “tough love” mentality to keep her athletes on their heels. “We didn’t have to go play with the guys”. She told us about their great abilities and successes. “The professionalism that she demonstrated through the years was second to none”.
Former longtime Lady Toppers assistant of 17 years and head coach of four years, Steve Small, recalls times when Summitt would strike up conversations with him on a first-name basis at clinics and on the recruiting trail.
Mary Jo Wynn, Missouri State’s first director of women’s athletics, organized athletic competitions for women in 1958 and saw the program grow to 11 sports and helped the Lady Bears become a top draw among college basketball programs.
Sheila Frost Anderson was relaxing on the bus after leading Tennessee to the 1989 women’s basketball national championship when she noticed her coach heading her way. As I’m sure [Senator Lamar Alexander] said, Tennessee has lost one of its most beloved daughters. “She just had a rockstar effect on girl’s basketball in the middle 90’s”. But the miracle was her life and her legacy.
A book could not be written on all that Summitt has done throughout her life. She confronted that just as well.
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“Fortunately we get to pass it on thru all her former players, we get to pass that on”, said Haave.
