She was just Pat Head when I was at UT. This would have been the late 1970s. Steve Martin was wild and crazy. The Shah fled Iran. The Camp David Accords became reality. Disco crushed our collective soul.
Women’s collegiate sports was in its infancy, perhaps even still in the incubator. In 1973, the UT women’s teams were such an afterthought that they came under the auspices of the Physical Education Department. Pat Head got the Vols coaching gig in 1974, and only because the previous coach quit unexpectedly to pursue a doctorate. Head’s salary: $8,900.
The uniforms were YWCA prehistoric. You could fit some of the game crowds into your mom’s basement. Tens of people on campus cared about the-then Lady Vols—or so it seemed.
I remember covering a game during the 1976-77 season. I’m fairly certain it was against my will (Paul Finebaum was the Beacon sports editor, so anything is possible). I recall nothing about the game, but I’ll never forget watching Pat Head, who was what, all of 24 or 25 at the time? She coached as if her hair were on fire, as if every player were a soaked chamois and she was going to wring every drop of effort from them. And she did.
Nobody knew she would change the game, change women sports, change perceptions, change lives. This was 10 years before she won her first of eight national championships, 23 years before she was named Women’s Collegiate Coach of the Century, and 34 years before she matter-of-factly told the world she suffered from early-onset dementia (Alzheimer’s type).
As the decades passed, and the last name became Summitt, and the victories piled up like a 1,098-car crash on I-40, our paths occasionally crossed. At some point I interviewed her for an ESPN column in which I tried to convince her to coach a men’s team. I think she politely told me to jump into the Tennessee River. The column idea gurgled to the muddy bottom.
In 2007 I traveled to Knoxville for a Candace Parker column. An audience with Summitt was scheduled—except that Summitt was a no-show. When she finally arrived, Summitt offered an apology and the beginnings of an excuse.
I interrupted.
“What would you do,’’ I asked, “if one of your players showed up late for practice?’’
“Make ‘em run stairs,’’ she said in that hard drawl.
“Well?’’ I said.
I got “The Stare’’—mini-version. For a brief moment I thought she thought I was serious about her running the Thompson-Boling stairs. And during that moment I mentally updated my last will and testament.
But then she burst into a smile, which turned into a laugh, which turned into 20 minutes of basketball insight and stories. Some interviews can’t end quick enough. With Summitt, they couldn’t last long enough.
I’ve gone on record: Summitt was the greatest college basketball coach of all time. At the very least, she belongs on college basketball’s Mt. Rushmore. She created a dynasty out of dreams, elevated women’s sports from irrelevancy to reverence (even President Obama fills out a women’s NCAA bracket), and impacted lives like a meteor impacts a cornfield.
Anyone for another name change? Summitt Arena has a nice ring to it.
Gene Wojciechowski
ESPN Reporter
Class of 1979
KNOXVILLE,TN - OCTOBER 13, 2011 - Portrait of Head Coach Pat Summitt with all eight of her NCAA National Championship Trophies at Thompson-Boling Arena in Knoxville, TN. Photo By Tennessee Athletics
