On April 18, 2012, Pat Summitt was named the Women's Basketball Head Coach Emeritus. For nearly four decades, the University of Tennessee Lady Vol basketball program has been among the nation's elite and in the process has changed the way women's collegiate hoops is perceived across the country. No one has done a better job of managing what goes on inside the 94x50 rectangle known as a collegiate basketball court than the UT head coach. Her unfathomable victories, eight NCAA Championships and 32 combined Southeastern Conference titles, directly speaks to her incredible management and mastery of the 4,700 square feet of roundball real estate. And few have even come close to accomplishing what she has done outside the lines for the last 38 years. To her peers, she is forthright, well-respected, ethical, and a winner who serves as a shining example in the sport of collegiate basketball. "She" is Pat Head Summitt, head coach of the University of Tennessee Lady Volunteer basketball team, who has just concluded her 38th season at the helm of the Lady Vols, has a 1,098-208 overall record, and raises the bar in the collegiate basketball world every time she steps out on the court. On Aug. 23, 2011, Summitt might have raised the bar on courage as she bravely revealed the toughest opponent she will ever have to battle, early onset dementia, "Alzheimer's Type," after the doctors at the Mayo Clinic diagnosed her at the age of 59. To be sure, Summitt took on this invisible opponent with her signature game plan. The Tennessee skipper didn't look at it as a bold move; rather continuing her lifelong practice of both herself and her program being an open book. In the 2011-12 season, the most demanding on Summitt and her program, the Lady Vols finished the year with a 27-9 overall record and carried the banner as the 2012 SEC Tournament Champions. UT finished the 2012 season losing to No. 1-ranked Baylor while battling for a spot in the NCAA Final Four. The Lady Vols were stopped just short of their goal to be cutting down nets in Denver, site of the 2012 Final Four. All season long, all eyes were on Summitt and her team. They were greeted in arenas nationwide with standing ovation tributes to Summitt as she guided her team through the nation's toughest schedule and a sea of "We Back Back" t-shirts. The "We Back Pat" campaign sprang up overnight and went viral in the social media world following Summitt's medical announcement. A t-shirt was born with the slogan, and proceeds started pouring into Summitt-picked organizations, Alzheimer's Tennessee and the University of Tennessee Medical Center. In November 2011, Summitt announced the formation of her Foundation, the Pat Summitt Foundation Fund, with the proceeds going toward cutting-edge research. In announcing her diagnosis, Pat was being just Pat, but a number of organizations hailed her courage to come forward. The United States Sports Academy awarded Summitt its 2011 Mildred "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias Courage Award for her indomitable spirit in her public battle with early-onset dementia, Alzheimer's type...On October 4, it was announced that Summitt would receive the 2011 Maggie Dixon Courage Award... Also in October, The Huffington Post named Summitt a 2011 Game Changer - an innovator, leader and role model who is changing the way we look at the world and the way we live in it...The Tennessee Communication Association selected Summitt for its most prestigious award, Communicator of the Year. The incomparable Summitt has built collegiate basketball's "hoopdom" at Tennessee. A program developed tirelessly, diligently and successfully by Summitt, her staff and the 161 student-athletes who have been fortunate enough to don the Orange & White jerseys of the Tennessee Lady Volunteers. Summitt, already the all-time winningest coach in NCAA basketball history (men or women), will enter the 2012-13 campaign just two victories shy from attaining 1,100 career wins. A brief synopsis of Summitt's resume goes like this: A consummate taskmaster, she has kept her elite program in the winner's circle for almost four decades, producing a mind-boggling record of 1,098-208 (.840). During her tenure, the Lady Vols have won eight NCAA titles, as well as an amazing 32 Southeastern Conference tournament and regular season championships. Tennessee has made an unprecedented 31 consecutive appearances in the NCAA Tournament and produced 12 Olympians, 20 Kodak All-Americans named to 34 teams, and 77 All-SEC performers. Along with the success on the court, Summitt's student-athletes have tremendous productivity in the classroom. Coach Summitt has a 100 percent graduation rate for all Lady Vols who have completed their eligibility at Tennessee.
It's All About the Players In so many ways, she is more than just a coach. To her athletes, she is just "Pat" from the minute she meets them for the first time on a recruiting visit to the day they walk across the stage in Thompson-Boling Arena to receive their diploma from UT. To the University of Tennessee she is a goodwill ambassador, taking her teams to play basketball in more than 40 states and 11 foreign countries. And the resume she has created along with an outstanding cast of players and staff is amazing. Thirty-eight seasons as a proven winner, champion, master motivator and role model.
Who is Pat Head Summitt? Her players speak of the opportunities afforded them later in life with a degree in life lessons from Summitt and a diploma from Tennessee. And, of course, there is the incredible graduation rate of her players and the successes they have garnered in life long after their playing days were over at Tennessee. Every Lady Vol who has completed her eligibility at UT has received her degree or is in the process of completing her degree requirements. Summitt instills a pattern of success in her players and constantly challenges them to reach their potential as a student and an athlete. Incredibly, from 1976-2012 every Lady Vol hoopster had the opportunity to play in at least one Final Four during her career at Tennessee. There have even been three classes of players in Lady Vol history to go to the Final Four all four years of their UT tenure. First to do it was the class of Sheila Frost, Bridgette Gordon and the late-Melissa McCray (1986, 1987, 1988 and 1989) - that trio won NCAA Championships in 1987 and 1989. The next player to do it was Laurie Milligan (1995, 1996, 1997 and 1998). Milligan was onboard for three consecutive titles, 1996-97-98. The class of Shyra Ely, Brittany Jackson and Loree Moore also accomplished the feat- they went in 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005.
The Million Dollar Coach
She Gives Back, Too
The Progression of the Winningest Coach Summitt earned her most recent 100 wins (900-1,000) in a span of just three years and 17 days. Her fastest 100-win total occurred between victories No. 500 and No. 600, which she achieved in only three years and two days. Her toughest set of 100 wins? Victories 200-300 took five years and 32 days to collect. Summitt stands alone at the 1,000-victory plateau among all NCAA coaches, having passed the 900-win club members retired Don Meyer (923-324, .746) of Northern State, NCAA Div. II; Herb Magee (922-366, .715; still active at Philadelphia Univ., NCAA Div. II); retired Bob Knight (902-317, .706) and Jody Conradt (900-307, .746). (Gene Bess of NJCAA's Three Rivers Community College, Poplar Bluff, Mo., is still active with a 1,131-302 record; Harry Statham of NAIA's McKendree College, Lebanon, Ill., is still active with a 1,043-401 record).
Two Basketball Courts and a Gym Bear Her Name When Summitt brought her team to play at the University of Tennessee at Martin, on Nov. 23, 1997, her alma mater spent the weekend honoring the Lady Vol coach. UTM designated a street on campus, "Pat Head Summitt Avenue," and named the basketball court in the Skyhawk Arena, the Pat Head Summitt Court, for their former star player. Summitt's Lady Vol team christened the newly-named court with a 73-32 victory. UT in Knoxville also named a campus street after Summitt and to commemorate her reaching the top of the all-time coaching wins list with 880 victories, the University of Tennessee named its basketball court at the Thompson-Boling Arena, "The Summitt," in a surprise postgame ceremony following the win over Purdue on March 22, 2005. She also is the only person to have two basketball courts used by Division I basketball teams named in her honor. She's Won Eight NCAA Basketball Titles "Well, the monkey's off my back," Summitt said at the time. "I do not think I could go without recognizing that it was a tremendous team effort...has been for the last three weeks. This team has played as hard and as smart as I could ask any team to play." With one championship banner in the rafters at Thompson-Boling Arena, the Lady Vols were hungry for more. After failing to defend their title in 1988, the Lady Vols were back in the title game in 1989 as a battle of the SEC powerhouses ensued - Tennessee versus Auburn for all the marbles in Tacoma, Wash. Although they were up against a Lady Tiger team that had made its second straight national championship final, Tennessee took home its second NCAA championship in three years with a 76-60 win. Vindication was finally Tennessee's in the 1991 NCAA final, as the Lady Vols downed a talented Virginia club, 70-67, in the first NCAA Final Four overtime title game. Virginia had eliminated Tennessee before it could reach the 1990 Women's Final Four - which just happened to be held in Knoxville. But the Lady Vols took New Orleans by storm and claimed their third NCAA title in five years. It would be five more years before UT hit title paydirt again. In 1996, it seemed only fitting that the Lady Vols would win another NCAA crown in the "Queen City" of Charlotte, N.C. And it was equally fitting that the Lady Vols' fourth NCAA title would come over a fierce SEC rival in the Georgia Lady Bulldogs, 83-65. A year later, the 1997 Lady Vol team had been through a trying campaign. An HBO documentary crew followed the team all year, filming The Cinderella Season: The Lady Vols Fight Back as Tennessee miraculously made it to the Final Four with a 27-10 record. Despite the rough season, Summitt never stopped believing in that group, and in the end, they came together and accomplished something more highly touted UT teams never did -- they won back-to-back NCAA titles. No team had ever won the NCAA championship coming in with more than six losses. But proving that it's wise to save your best for last, Tennessee took its fifth NCAA championship and second straight title with a 68-59 win over Old Dominion. "Of all our runs to a championship, this one is really the most unexpected," said Summitt. "It came from a team with tremendous heart and desire." With the win, the Lady Vols earned their fifth national title, played in their seventh championship game and became only the second team to win consecutive championships, joining the 1983 and 1984 Southern Cal squads. The 1998 Tennessee Lady Vols will be remembered as history-makers. A perfect 39-0 record and the most wins ever in women's collegiate basketball...an NCAA unprecedented three consecutive titles...and the systematic blowout night-after-night of the opposition. When the team finally reached the NCAA title game in Kansas City against a dear old rival in Louisiana Tech, Lady Techster coach Leon Barmore called the 1997-98 squad "the greatest team ever to play the game." With the win, the Lady Vols earned their sixth national title, played in their eighth championship game and became the first team to win three consecutive NCAA titles. From 1999-2006, a total of eight seasons, the Lady Vols advanced to the Final Four five times and came home with three runner-up finishes and two third-place spots. The critics were tough...when was Tennessee going to hang another banner? It seemed fitting, on the 20th anniversary of the Lady Vols' first NCAA title, that Tennessee once again captured an NCAA title - the school's seventh crown. In a pair of gutsy games, a team known for its high octane performances pulled out defense, boards and some serious tenacity to claim the seventh title. The showdown in Cleveland, Ohio, pitted the Lady Vols against #2-ranked North Carolina in the semifinals and a championship game meeting with #15/18-ranked Rutgers. As the seconds ticked down, Lady Vol sophomore Candace Parker stole the ball from North Carolina's Alex Miller, and the Lady Vols rallied to beat North Carolina 56-50. "At the eight-minute mark, I said, `We don't want to go home; we're not leaving here without a national championship,"' Summitt said. The Lady Vols captured the elusive seventh national title on April 3, 2007, beating Rutgers to the ball for second and third shots in a 59-46 win to reclaim their customary place above all other programs. A year later, Tennessee would find itself back in the 2008 edition of the Final Four in Tampa, Fla., as the defending NCAA Champs. No one liked Tennessee's chances of winning the crown again except the Orange Nation and the players and staff in the UT locker room. In the semifinals, UT and LSU played through a defensive struggle down to the wire as Alexis Hornbuckle connected on her only basket of the night -- a buzzer-beater rebound put back to give UT the 47-46 win. Tennessee entered its 13th national championship game as the underdogs...only one of the media pundits gave the Lady Vols a chance - everyone else had their money riding on Stanford. The Lady Vols had other ideas, as a swarming and badgering team defense stifled the Cardinal, forcing 25 turnovers and allowing just 19 second-half points en route to Tennessee's convincing 64-48 victory. In the end, Parker was voted the Most Outstanding Player of the 2008 Final Four with 17 points, as she played through the pain. She good-naturedly displayed the NCAA Championship trophy on the ESPN Gameday set in her final interview - a not so subtle reminder that the Lady Vols had once again won it all. With a bevy of NCAA title banners decorating Thompson-Boling Arena in Knoxville, it came as no surprise when the NCAA celebrated 25 years of NCAA Women's Championships in 2006 that they would honor Summitt as the Coach of the NCAA Division I Basketball 25th Anniversary Team and named former Lady Vols Chamique Holdsclaw and Bridgette Gordon to the five-woman team.
In the Company of Legends In this elite company of the legends -- of the top NCAA Champion titleholders -- Summitt's teams have played in and recorded the most NCAA tournament victories, winning 112 of 135 NCAA contests. On the men's side, the Lady Vols are trailed by Duke's 102 tournament games and 79 wins under Mike Krzyzewski. Wooden's Bruins played in 57 NCAA games, winning 47 times, while Bob Knight's Indiana Hoosiers played in 60 NCAA games, claiming 41 victories through the years. Rupp's Wildcats won 30 games while making 48 appearances in the "Big Dance." Summitt a living legend? You bet.
She Loves to Dance in March and April
The Perfect Season When the smoke cleared after the 1997-98 season, there was absolutely no doubt that the best team was Tennessee. A 39-0 campaign, capped off with the program's sixth national title in 12 years, resulted in hoops analysts and fans everywhere proclaiming the 1997-98 Lady Vols as the best collegiate women's basketball team of all time. Summitt's team didn't just win games; they dominated opponents, coasting by an average margin of 30.1 points per contest. In the Final Four, where only the nation's top tournament-tested teams advanced, Tennessee dispatched Arkansas (86-58) and Louisiana Tech (93-75) by an average of 23.0 points. The 39-0 mark, at that time, also gave UT the most wins and best record in the NCAA men's or women's basketball history. The Connecticut Huskies tied the Lady Vols' record with their 39-0 finish in 2002.
Inside the Numbers During her career, she has enjoyed 504 of her wins in the friendly confines of a home arena against just 48 losses for a 91.5 percent winning mark. On the road, her teams have fashioned a 360-95 mark (.794) and at neutral sites, she is 234-65 (.781). A quick look at Summitt's season finishes tells the story: 22 trips to NCAA (18 of 31) and AIAW (4 of 5) Final Fours in the last 36 years; 36 consecutive seasons with 20 or more wins; 20 seasons of 30-plus wins and over the last 19 years alone, Summitt's teams have collected 15, 30-plus-win campaigns!
Bringing Home the Gold Her next international challenge was taking the U.S. National Team to the 1979 William R. Jones Cup Games, the 1979 World Championships and the 1979 Pan American Games. Summitt and her team returned home with two gold medals and one silver medal. When the Moscow Olympic Games rolled around in 1980, she was honored as the assistant coach to the late Sue Gunter. Although the United States boycotted the Games, the team still captured the pre-Olympic qualifying tournament title. In August 1982, Summitt was named the 1984 U.S. Women's Olympic basketball coach, and the rush for the gold was on! She coached the 1983 World Championship team to a silver medal finish; but the silver was not indicative of the team's play. The XXIII Olympiad in Los Angeles, Calif., found Summitt's U.S. squad tearing through the opposition by a bundle of points. When the gold medal was a reality, Summitt's team lifted her high and carried the "All-World" coach around the Los Angeles Forum for all to applaud.
Coaching Honors After winning her eighth NCAA title, Summitt received the prestigious John R. Wooden Legends of Coaching lifetime achievement award in Los Angeles, Calif., on April 12, 2008. She became the first ever female recipient of the Legends of Coaching Award, which was adopted by the John R. Wooden Award Committee in 1999. The Award recognizes the lifetime achievement of coaches who exemplify the late Coach Wooden's high standards of coaching success and personal achievement. She was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., on Oct. 13, 2000, the first time she was eligible for the Hall's ballot. At the time, Summitt became just the fourth women's basketball coach to earn Hall of Fame honors when she was inducted with the Class of 2000, which included former NBA greats Isiah Thomas and Bob McAdoo, legendary high school coach Morgan Wootten and contributors C.M. Newton and Danny Biasone. A little more than a year earlier, Summitt was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in the 1999 inaugural class. Summitt's achievements are unparalleled in the collegiate coaching ranks. In addition to her inductions into the Halls of Fame, she was named as the Naismith Coach of the Century in April 2000. She was doubly honored when former Lady Vol Chamique Holdsclaw was selected as the Naismith Player of the Century. Prior to those announcements, ESPN selected her program as the "Team of the Decade" (1990s), tying with the Florida State Seminole football machine. In 1990, Summitt received the most prestigious award given by the Basketball Hall of Fame, the John Bunn Award. Summitt was the first female to receive the award in the Hall's history. In October 1990, Summitt was enshrined in the Women's Sports Foundation Hall of Fame at a gala event in New York City. In the springs of 1994, 1997 and 1998, Summitt was named the Coach of the Year by the Touchdown Club of Columbus, Ohio, and also was a recipient at the 28th, 32nd and 34th Victor Awards (benefiting the City of Hope) as the Women's Basketball Coach of the Year in 1994, 1998 and 2000. In April 1996, she was inducted into the National Association for Sport and Physical Education's Hall of Fame. She was a June 1997 recipient of the Casey Award, which is annually presented by the Kansas City Sports Commission, and a September recipient of the 1997 Governor Ned McWherter Award of Excellence. Summitt has been named the 1987, 1989, 1994, 1998 and 2004 Naismith College Coach of the Year, the WBCA/Converse Coach of the Year in 1983 and 1995 and the IKON/WBCA Coach of the Year in 1998. Earning Southeastern Conference Coach of the Year honors has almost been tougher to acquire than the national accolades. In 31 years of SEC play, Summitt's teams have produced a 458-69 (.872) record and captured a combined 32 SEC titles (16 SEC Championships and 16 SEC Tournament Championships). Despite her success, she has only been named SEC Coach of the Year eight times - 1993, 1995, 1998, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2007 and 2011.
Notable Awards & Community Involvement On November 12, 2007, Summitt was recognized as one of "Americas Best Leaders for 2007" as released by U.S. News & World Report, the nation's leading source of news analysis and service journalism. Summitt, the only sports figure selected, joined such luminaries as James A. Baker III, actor Michael J. Fox, U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, world renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma and Dr. Harold Varmus, President and CEO of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, among others, to be included on the elite list. In July 2007, she was recognized as the 2007 Dick Enberg Award winner by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA). Established in 1997, the Dick Enberg Award is given annually to a person whose actions and commitment have furthered the meaning and reach of the Academic All-America Teams Program and/or the student-athlete while promoting the values of education and academics. At the ESPYs in the summer of 2008, she won the award for Best Coach/Manager (collegiate or pro level), while her team picked up duplicate hardware. Her 2006-07 team won two awards at the 15th annual event, both marking its national championship. The team was named best women's collegiate team and also won the Under Armour Undeniable Award for best women's collegiate team. The New York Athletic Club also recognized Summitt with its "Winged Foot" Award in May 2007 and 2008. In December 2003, she was appointed to the Board of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History/Behring Center. In May 2003, she was honored at GALA XVI as a Woman of Distinction at the biennial event. In February 1997, she was honored at a White House luncheon given by former First Lady Hillary Clinton, recognizing the "25 Most Influential Working Mothers" as selected by Working Mother magazine. In 1996, she co-chaired the United Way Campaign in Knoxville. She gave hundreds of speeches and logged incredible amounts of time visiting the various United Way agencies while recruiting, running camps and continuing to direct the most successful program in the nation. Away from the game she has been involved in a number of community activities. Most recently she became the spokesperson for Verizon Wireless' HopeLine program. HopeLine collects used wireless phones to be recycled or sold and donates the proceeds to nonprofit domestic violence advocacy organizations or uses the proceeds to purchase handsets for victims. At no cost to the recipients, the phones are pre-programmed with numbers such as 9-1-1. Additionally, she is an active spokesperson for the United Way, The Race for the Cure and Juvenile Diabetes. She has been a member of Big Brothers/Big Sisters and was the honorary chair for the Tennessee Easter Seal Society in 1985, 1987, 1988 and 1989. She is still active as an alumna with the Chi Omega sorority. In 1994, she served as the Tennessee chair of the American Heart Association. In January 1996, she was named "Distinguished Citizen of the Year" by the Great Smoky Mountain Council of the Boy Scouts of America. The Lupus Foundation also bestowed an award on Summitt in the winter of 1996. In May 1997, Proffitt's and the Tennessee Lung Association presented her the "Tennessee Woman of Distinction Award". She has been honored as one of the WISE 1999 Women of the Year, the 1999 ARETE Award for Courage in Sports, as one of Glamour magazine's "1998 Women of the Year," and the City of Knoxville's "1998 Woman of the Year." At the February 1999 and 2000 ESPY Awards, she was nominated for Coach of the Year (won by Joe Torre of the N.Y. Yankees) and Team of the Year (won also by the Bronx Bombers). At the 2000 ESPYs, her Lady Vols were chosen as "Team of the Decade", tying for the honor with the Florida State football team. Additionally, she holds or has held the following positions: associate athletics director at the University of Tennessee; a past vice-president of USA BASKETBALL; past Olympic representative on the Advisory Committee to USA BASKETBALL; a member of the Board of Trustees of the Basketball Hall of Fame; and a member of the Board of Directors for the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame, commencement speaker, color commentator for network television, clinician and contributor to a film series. To the CEO of a corporation whose morale needs a lift, she is the perfect motivational speaker - in the past few years she has traveled extensively making motivational speeches to everyone from the Central Intelligence Agency to Victoria's Secret to Federal Express to the Federal Reserve Board. In the summer of 2002, she added WNBA consultant to her vitae as she assisted the Washington Mystics with player personnel and the draft. Not surprisingly, the Mystics earned their first-ever WNBA playoff berth in the summer of 2003 and repeated again in 2004. Summitt stepped aside of her consulting efforts in 2005.
Family and Lifelong Friends Call Her "Trish"; at Tennessee, She Became "Pat" - How Pat Came to Knoxville By the time Summitt graduated from UT-Martin in 1974, she symbolized the prototype player of the decades to come. She was strong ... had great instincts ... was awesome on defense ... took a charge like a greedy housewife ... denied the ball all over the court ... rebounded with authority ... took the ball to the hoop ... and then could knock the lights out over a zone defense. In 1973, she made her first U.S. national team when she represented the United States at the World University Games in the Soviet Union. She returned to UT-Martin for her senior season with loftier goals, such as making the 1976 Olympic team. However, four games into her final season as a Lady Pacer, she suffered a near career-ending knee injury.
She was determined to get the knee back into shape and try out for the Olympic Games, but not many people gave her a chance. The University of Tennessee in Knoxville, though, showed its confidence in her abilities as a coach when the school offered her a graduate teaching assistantship and the reins to the women's intercollegiate basketball team as a 22-year-old. The position suited her needs to a "T" -- she could pursue her career and stay close to basketball as she rehabilitated her knee. The late Helen B. Watson, the former chairperson of UT's Physical Education Department, can be credited for bringing a young Pat Head to Knoxville. Watson asked Head to coach the Tennessee women's team in a letter dated April 30, 1974, when Head was a 21-year old senior at UT-Martin. In her letter, Watson wrote, "we have an excellent potential team, and I believe that they would be happy to have you as their coach.'' At the time, Head was being courted as the assistant coach who would also serve as a graduate teaching assistant in the Physical Education Department at UT while she pursued her master's degree. An enthusiastic Head accepted the position. Imagine her shock two weeks later when Watson called back and informed Head that the women's basketball coach, Margaret Hutson, had decided to take a sabbatical and Tennessee was offering her the job as head coach. Head, who had never run a practice or made out a practice plan or schedule, said she really contemplated her decision because as she put it, "I was absolutely overwhelmed and scared to death." Patricia Sue Head arrived in Knoxville as the new head coach and was practically the same age as the seniors on her team. A little shy at the time, she never corrected Dr. Helen B. Watson or Dr. Nancy Lay, her mentors in the UT Physical Education Department, when they shortened Patricia to Pat, assuming that's the name she went by. Head never mentioned to them that she had gone by Tricia or Trish her whole life. In her first year as a collegiate coach, she led her team to a 16-8 overall record, attended classes as a master's degree candidate, taught physical education classes and stayed in playing shape. As the summer of 1975 approached, she thought the knee was ready for a big test. The knee held and so did Summitt -- held, that is, a spot on the U.S. Women's World Championship team and the 1975 Pan American Games team. After another summer of international experience, she returned home to coach her Lady Vols to a 16-11 record, a second-place finish in the state tournament and a spot for herself on the 1976 U.S. Olympic Team. Playing on the Olympic Team in Montreal at the Games of the XXI Olympiad was the high point of her competitive playing career, as she helped lead the United States to a silver medal finish while serving as the team's co-captain. Little did she know at the time but those first two Lady Vol teams -- with just 16 wins each -- would be the only ones not to record at least 20 wins in a season during her tenure as head coach.
Most of All, She's Tyler's Mom; the Late-Richard and Hazel's Daughter and Sister to Tommy, Charles, Kenneth and Linda Patricia Sue Head Summitt was born on June 14, 1952, in Clarksville, Tenn., the daughter of Richard and Hazel Albright Head. She was the fourth of five children - Tommy, Charles, Kenneth and Linda -- and the first girl. Growing up on the family farm, her late father (he passed away on Oct. 23, 2005) was a no-nonsense disciplinarian. Hard work was the norm from sunrise to sundown and all five children had a variety of chores assigned to them daily. As a youngster, her time was consumed with school work, farm chores, and playing basketball in the hayloft with her brothers. She could chop tobacco, plow a field and bale hay with the best of them. Hard work was the backbone of the Head family success, but being a good student was just as important - "Trish" never missed a day of school from kindergarten through high school. Becoming a mother in 1990, her story of going into labor on a recruiting trip to future-Lady Vol Michelle Marciniak's home is legendary. With her water broken, she still completed the recruiting visit in Macungie, Pa., and then flew home to Knoxville, urging the pilots not to stop so her son would be born in Tennessee. Along with her 21-year old son, a University of Tennessee junior and walk-on guard for the Tennessee men's basketball team, Ross "Tyler" Summitt, and mother-daughter yellow Labrador retrievers, Sally-Sue and Sadie, they enjoy living in the family compound along the banks of the Tennessee River. She spends her get-away time at the beach or relaxing by the pool. She also enjoys cooking, golf, running and boating.
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