Pat Summitt - Farewell to a Legend

Now retired University of Tennessee Head Women’s Basketball Coach Pat Summitt is the winningest coach in the history of college basketball – men’s or women’s basketball. Last year, Summitt revealed she was diagnosed early onset-dementia Alzheimer’s. She coached the 2011-2012 season, ending with the Lady Volunteer’s elimination in the NCAA Tournament last month.


ONE FOR THE AGES

While coaching the Lady Vols for the last 38 years, the 59 year old Summitt led the Lady Vols to eight national titles. But her on the court success is just one part of Summitt’s legacy. The manner in which she helped vault women’s basketball on to a grander stage during her coaching tenure cannot be understated.

Sports fans like excellence. Sports fans like dominance. Sports fans flock to events that are headline worthy. Summitt’s Lady Volunteers, among a select few other programs (like Louisiana Tech, Connecticut and Stanford), offered that element of attraction to the women’s game. Summitt’s pioneering as a coach bred a climate of interest around the women’s game that made the WNBA – the only major women’s professional sports league in America – possible.


LEGACY
Summitt mentored countless young women into successful careers in playing, coaching, and in post collegiate, non-sporting life. Not yet age 60, it is somewhat tragic that Summitt’s career is ending more on the terms of Father Time and her health than her own professional terms. All good things must come to an end. With 1,098 career coaching wins, her legacy is rock solid and she will, no doubt, be honored and recognized for he life’s achievements for quite some time.

I am not a big women’s basketball fan. But I will tune in to the women’s game when the story gets good. I will usually watch NCAA Tournament games. For a short time in my college days, when I had time to consume everything on the sports buffet, I followed the women’s game quite closely. Pat Summitt is one of a select few people responsible for the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of sports fans like me who attribute credibility and give respect to the women’s game (and women’s sports in general).


 
 
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