Michaela Mabrey, a Manasquan High School graduate and captain on this past season’s Notre Dame women’s basketball team, honored Summitt on her @mmabrey23 Twitter account Tuesday. And in death, she is again drawing attention to the fearless struggles facing many middle-aged Americans diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease.
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“She was an inspiration“. FILE – In this February 28, 1999, file photo, Tennessee head coach Pat Summitt cheers her players on during the championship game of the SEC women’s tournament in Chattanooga, Tenn.
Summitt was such a competitor that she refused to let a pilot land in Virginia when she went into labor while on a recruiting trip in 1990.
She married banker R.B. Summitt in 1980, had a son a decade later and got divorced in 2007.
“Coach Summitt was one of the indisputable matriarchs of our game”. It turned into a career to which Skyhawk’s Interim Athletic Director Kevin McMillan said coaches nationwide can only aspire. Plummer’s team lost by “a lot” but it was after the game ended that she got to meet the legendary coach.
Summitt finished her 38-year coaching career with 1,098 wins and eight national titles for the Lady Vols.
Pat Summitt, who died Tuesday morning after a battle with Alzheimer’s, leaves behind a legacy of excellence and achievement that will never be matched, both personally and professionally. Pat Summitt will forever be known as a trailblazer.
UT Martin alumni and friends are starting to place items to remember Summitt outside Elam Center on the Unversity’s campus.
Fargas says many Tennessee players in the past five days came to say goodbye to Summitt in Knoxville.
Barmore said the 1990 Women’s Final Four was set for Knoxville’s Thomas Boling Arena and was supposed to include Tennessee. “My prayers are with her family today”. “That’s the thing that is so fantastic about her. No matter how many awards she received or how many celebrities she knew, whenever she came back she still was the same girl and made us feel very special”. Gardner said she couldn’t believe she was just touched by Summitt.
In addition to her son Tyler, Summitt is survived by her mother, sister, three brothers and three sisters-in-law.
LSU coach Nikki Caldwell Fargas played for Pat Summitt at Tennessee and worked alongside her on the Lady Vols’ staff before matching wits against her mentor on the sideline. 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. “Not only did she bring out the best in her players, she brought out the best in everyone associated with the game”. “She lifted our sport to a place no one could of ever envisioned”. She and Summitt were teammates during tryouts for the World Games basketball team.
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Barron, a Tennessee-native, was well involved with the men’s program at the University of Tennessee.
