The first thing I noticed was the stare. I felt it going through me like a laser as I was frantically searching for a seat on the Tennessee charter plane about to leave for Oxford, Miss. She didn’t actually speak but nodded, indicating it was okay for the young sports editor of the Tennessee school newspaper to sit next to the equally young head women’s basketball coach. We talked about her time on the USA Olympic team, about the challenge of getting her program noticed. Back then, the men and women’s basketball program traveled together. Sitting together became a routine over the next few weeks, but the conversation was always different.
Pat Head, as she was known at the time, loved to talk about her time on the Olympic team, on the challenges of being a young coach of a sport that few rarely cared about on the Knoxville campus. I could see as she talked the young woman from Clarksville, TN was going to be successful and she knew it, too. You may have heard before that Pat never lacked in confidence.
A few weeks later, after that first plane ride, I remember getting the news on the teletype from the AP the Tennessee Lady Vols had vaulted to the No. 1 spot in the polls. There was no email, no internet, no Twitter. So I grabbed my notebook and dashed out the door and made the quick run down the street to Stokely Athletic Center, racing past all of the plush football offices, past the suite of offices for the men’s basketball team, down the hallway to I finally found her office. From the outside, it looked like a utility closet. I banged on her door and she screamed, come in. It was so small, there was barely room for both us when I breathlessly told her the news the Vols were No. 1, the steely eyes turned soft and her frown and snarl turned into a wide toothy grin.
“Well, how about that,’’ she said. And the meaning was clear. People were noticing. And everyone was going to have to finally take her seriously.
And did they ever. Today, she may be gone, but her memory will never leave those of us who knew her before she was Pat Summitt, before the eight national championships, the 18 Final Four appearances, the seven times she was picked as the Coach of the Year, before coaching a Gold Medal team and before becoming one of the most beloved figures in the history of the game.
Sometimes, it’s a cliché to say the true measure of a coach isn’t only the titles that he or she has won, but the effect they had on another people’s lives. From that standpoint, no coach has ever stood taller than Pat Summitt.
I have never spoken to a former player of Pat’s – or for that matter – anyone with whom she has ever worked with or come in contact, that didn’t cherish their time together and walk away deeply affected by the relationship.
When the news broke on August 23, 2011 that she was ill, it seemed like the world stood still. And how she so bravely fought back, against all odds, spending time with her former players, continuing to try and enrich their lives. As a journalist, one always attempts to take emotion out of almost all equations. You don’t always win that battle, but you try. With Pat Summitt, today, that is hopeless. There is simply no way to reflect back on her life and her many accomplishments, and not be so terribly sad at what has been lost. One can only hope she had peace in her final days, knowing the impact she had on basketball, and the large number of people who came in contact with her.
Others can argue, but I don’t think any person has ever had a more profound and lasting impact on the sport in which they coached. Her accomplishments, the small gyms and streets, her name on the court and even the statute that bears her likeness are wonderful ways to remember her by. But for me, it was those early years, when everything was in front of her, when she was plotting her course and about the change the game of women’s college basketball forever.
KNOXVILLE, TN - JANUARY 19, 2006 - Head Coach Pat Summitt during the game between the Vanderbilt Commodores and the Tennessee Lady Volunteers at Thompson-Boling Arena in Knoxville, TN. Photo By Tennessee Athletics
