Summitt, 59, will continue to coach, and that's the part of Tuesday's shocking news that makes it seem as if she is staring down her disease with the same icy glare she made famous while winning eight national championships, 1,071 games and the respect of a nation that didn't pay much attention to women's sports in the days when she was growing up.
Summitt, entering her 39th season as coach at the University of Tennessee, got the diagnosis in May and told the world about it Tuesday afternoon. Reaction was shock giving way to dismay, tempered by admiration for her fighting spirit.
"It's like finding out a close family member is ill," said transportation safety consultant Kevin Galbreath, a UT alumnus and fervent fan.
"Pat Summitt is our John Wooden," Baylor women's coach Kim Mulkey said. "No matter how many national championships (other coaches) win, there will never be another Pat."
Summitt wrote an open letter to the university community Tuesday. "I plan to continue to be your coach," she wrote. "Obviously, I realize I may have some limitations with this condition since there will be some good days and some bad days. For that reason, I will be relying on my outstanding coaching staff like never before."
Born: Patricia Sue Head, June 14, 1952, in Clarksville, Tenn.
Family: Married R.B. Summitt in 1980; divorced in 2007. They have one child, son Tyler, born in 1990. He’s a student at Tennessee.
College: Tennessee-Martin, Class of 1974. An All-America player at UT-Martin, she was on the USA’s silver medal team at the 1976 Olympics. In 1984, she coached the USA to a gold medal, becoming the first in U.S. Olympic basketball history to play on and coach medal-winning teams.
Coaching record: 37 seasons, all at Tennessee, 1,071-199 (.843). The wins are the most for a basketball coach at any four-year college or university, men’s or women’s.
NCAA championships Eight (1987, ’89, ’91, ’96, ’97, ’98, 2007, ’08), most among NCAA Division I women’s coaches and second only to the late John Wooden’s 12 with the UCLA men among all NCAA coaches. Summitt also has 18 Final Four appearances, most among all Division I coaches (men or women).
Of note: Member of Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame. Courts at Tennessee-Martin (Pat Head Summitt Court) and Tennessee (The Summitt) named in her honor. There also are streets named after her on those campuses.
Sources: USA TODAY research, University of Tennessee
Compiled by Craig Bennett
Alzheimer's is not yet curable. That is perhaps the only known quantity in all this. What lies ahead is mostly about the unknown — how her condition might progress, how stress might affect it, how her players might react to all the attention focused on the health of their coach.
"Life is an unknown and none of us have a crystal ball," UT athletics director Joan Cronan said in a statement. "But I do have a record of knowing what Pat Summitt stands for: excellence, strength, honesty and courage."
Beth Kallmyer, senior director of constituent services for the Chicago-based Alzheimer's Association, talked about stress and Alzheimer's generally, not specifically about Summitt's case.
"Like any illness, stress and high stress positions can certainly affect it," Kallmyer said. "If somebody's got an illness, stress can exacerbate that."
Kallmyer said it is important to monitor stress by working with doctors and eating and sleeping right: "It's important to have that support team. Who's going to help and let them know when they need to slow down?"
Summitt told Washington Post columnist Sally Jenkins— who wrote a biography of Summitt and considers Summitt her best friend — that she began to worry about her health last season when she drew a blank on an offensive set during a game. (The Lady Vols went 34-3, won the Southeastern Conference regular season and tournament and lost in the regional finals of the NCAA tournament.)
Summitt learned of her diagnosis at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. Jenkins wrote that Summitt almost punched the first doctor who told her. When a second advised her to retire immediately, Summitt said, "Do you know who you're dealing with?"
Geno Auriemma does. The Connecticut coach is Summitt's chief rival, their feud so bitter that the programs no longer play in the regular season.
"You don't necessarily associate dementia with people our age, so this announcement really put things in perspective," Auriemma, 57, said in a statement. "There is no doubt in my mind that Pat will take on this challenge as she has all others during her Hall of Fame career — head on. I wish her all the best."
Well wishes came in from all over the country. John Thompson, the former men's coach at Georgetown, was talking about the Virginia earthquake that shook Washington, D.C., on his radio show Tuesday afternoon when he switched gears to talk about the shock of Summitt's news.
"She's simply one of the best," Thompson said, adding that he always believed she could have succeeded coaching men's teams, too.
Oddly, Dean Smith, the former North Carolina men's coach who was the winningest coach in college basketball history at the time of his retirement in 1997, suffers from a "progressive neurocognitive disorder" affecting his memory.
No comments:
Post a Comment