Pat Summit has passed away

[dont care]

The legendary woman basketball coach of Tennessee has passed away at 64 years old. She had dementia and had to step down from the position in 2012. Over her career which started in 1974 at age 22 she won 8 national championships, 16 SEC championships and had a record of 1098-208 over her career. 

[FiddySicks]

One of my favorite coaches of all time. Women's basketball is a hard sell most of the time, but I was a BIG Lady Vols fan when she was the coach. I got to see them play when Candice Parker was on the team (a double OT loss to Stanford) the year they won their last National Title. Very sad day for UT. 

[OnWis97]

She's among the most important coaches of all-time.  Women's basketball was a glorified club sport when she took over and the sport grew right along with her program.  As much as I don't generally like dynasties (and women's college basket is among the most boring sports at this point because of one), and despite the fact that he program was never as dominant as the UConn program is now, her powerhouse gave us something we could count on and was probably necessary in putting the sport where it is today.  Today it's on the map (televised tournament, some level of Final Four hype on ESPN, random televised games, the existence of the WNBA).  There were several factors in that; and she's one of them.

[Sport]

I saw that she had a 100% graduation rate at Tennessee. That's remarkable.

 

Dementia is a cruel way to go. I've had a few family members taken by Alzheimer's and you really have to say your goodbyes before the person is physically gone.

[OnWis97]

7 minutes ago, McCarthy said:

I saw that she had a 100% graduation rate at Tennessee. That's remarkable.

 

Dementia is a cruel way to go. I've had a few family members taken by Alzheimer's and you really have to say your goodbyes before the person is physically gone.

That just does not sound right...

(Checks...http://www.foxsports.com/college-basketball/story/pat-summitt-s-incredible-career-by-the-numbers-062816)

 

Holy cow!  It said 100% among players that completed their eligibility, but that's probably almost all of them...not too many go pro early.  Aside from that, probably just a couple of transfers and maybe a discipline dismissal or two.  

 

That's really nice to see.  For much of her career, even her all-Americans did not have opportunity to go pro.  I don't know how many would have graduated had their been a different coach, but I doubt it would be 100%. That's a huge feather in her cap, legacy-wise. 

 

EDIT: This story says that the 2015 annual gradation rate for women was 89 percent and 77 percent for men (probably all divisions, but does not say).  Remind me of how we should remove these kids from school and turn them into minor-leagurs for a few years because calling them "student athletes" is nothing but a joke.

[Needschat]

2 hours ago, OnWis97 said:

That just does not sound right...

(Checks...http://www.foxsports.com/college-basketball/story/pat-summitt-s-incredible-career-by-the-numbers-062816)

 

Holy cow!  It said 100% among players that completed their eligibility, but that's probably almost all of them...not too many go pro early.  Aside from that, probably just a couple of transfers and maybe a discipline dismissal or two.  

 

That's really nice to see.  For much of her career, even her all-Americans did not have opportunity to go pro.  I don't know how many would have graduated had their been a different coach, but I doubt it would be 100%. That's a huge feather in her cap, legacy-wise. 

 

EDIT: This story says that the 2015 annual gradation rate for women was 89 percent and 77 percent for men (probably all divisions, but does not say).  Remind me of how we should remove these kids from school and turn them into minor-leagurs for a few years because calling them "student athletes" is nothing but a joke.

 

Not all who play men's college basketball do so for an education.  Look at Kentucky as an example of this.

[pmoehrin]

Passed away at 64, which means she would probably still be coaching today if not for her health issues. She went relatively quick, but anyone who's had a loved one with Alzheimer's and had to deal with it on a day to day basis will tell its not exactly the worst thing to happen. My next door neighbor's wife has been living with it for ten years and he basically has had no life in that ten years. I'm going through a similar situation myself with someone in my own family but thankfully not to that extent. Part of you is sad, but a bigger part is just thankful that its over, because the person you're caring for isn't the same person you once loved. You're caring for an ever diminishing shell of what they used to be and there's nothing you can do to change it and now you can finally go back to having a life again.

 

Like a lot of people I would have loved to see what she could have done in the men's game, but at the same time there was really no reason for her to ever leave Knoxville. She had a job for life and was never going to be as beloved anywhere else as she was in Knoxville.

 

Her story is one of the most incredible in sports history. She got the job simply because nobody else wanted it while she was in her early 20's and still an active player at the highest level of women's basketball that existed at the time. A third of the team was older than her in her first season and they were still playing under the 12 players on the court and no more than 3 players on one side rules. She was basically a glorified Y league coach.

 

Fast forward 20+ years and she still has the same job, but now she's leading arguably the most dominating team in Women's College Basketball history to an undefeated season, while being universally hailed as hands down the greatest women's coach in history and one of the greatest coaches of all-time regardless of the sport. If there's a movie director out there looking for someone to do a screenplay on a sports figure that's never had a movie made about them, she would be near if not at the top of my list of suggestions. This is someone that went from literally having to drive the team bus to games, to receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom without ever having to leave town or even change jobs.

 

Pat Summitt is to women's college basketball as Pop Warner is to college football. Like Warner she was there at the start and was as instrumental as anyone in modernizing the game to where it is today. Without her I have no idea what the state of women's college basketball would be, because she's been such an instrumental part of its development its impossible to imagine what the game would look like today without her. To me that's the true mark of a legend. People assume that just because someone was a great player or even Hall of Famer it automatically makes someone a legend, but to me in order to be considered a legend you need to transcended the game to the point where you can't even imagine what the landscape of the game would look like without this particular person. Pat Summitt meets that definition under any standard. This wasn't just a great coach, people who knew nothing about women's basketball could tell you that Pat Summitt was the head coach of the Tennessee Lady Vols. With the possible exceptions of Bille Jean King and Babe Didrikson I would say she's the most influential women's figure in US sports history.

[OnWis97]

2 hours ago, Needschat said:

 

Not all who play men's college basketball do so for an education.  Look at Kentucky as an example of this.

I am aware of that.  But the going belief among the college sports haters is that none of them do.

[BeerGuyJordan]

One of the greatest and most influential coaches in any sport. A class act and true legend has passed.

[Needschat]

1 hour ago, OnWis97 said:

I am aware of that.  But the going belief among the college sports haters is that none of them do.

 

As someone who played college athletics with academics scholarships, I can say that most athletes, male and female, under athletic scholarships are treated like dirt, unable to earn spending money, not even tutoring - though there are ways around that 

[RockyTopper]

This is a huge loss for sports and especially for UT, though I'm definitely glad she's at peace now and her family need not deal with the terrible effects that Alzheimer's and other mentally-eroding diseases can cause. I know those impacts quite personally. She'll forever live on as a legend of Rocky Top and one of the greatest ever to call themselves a basketball coach, or really a coach in any capacity. RIP, Pat. Thanks for the years of fun, success, championships, and passion.