A real trailblazer:
Pat Summitt, who was at the forefront of a broad ascendance of women’s sports, winning eight national basketball championships at the University of Tennessee and more games than any other Division I college coach, male or female, died on Tuesday. She was 64.
Her death was confirmed on the website of the Pat Summitt Foundation.
Ms. Summitt stepped down after 38 seasons and 1,098 victories at Tennessee in April 2012, at 59, less than a year after she learned she had early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.
Over nearly four decades, Ms. Summitt helped transform women’s college basketball from a sport ignored by the National Collegiate Athletic Association into one that drew national television audiences and paid its most successful coaches more than $1 million a year.
“In modern history, there are two figures that belong on the Mount Rushmore of women’s sports — Billie Jean King and Pat Summitt,” Mary Jo Kane, a sports sociologist at the University of Minnesota, said in 2011. “No one else is close to third.”
Too young.
randy khan
Much too young.
And she’s definitely on Mount Rushmore.
I met her briefly at the 2001 Women’s Final Four. It was the day between games, and there was an exhibition between the US National Team and group of senior all-stars who weren’t in the Final Four. She was just walking into the gym where it was played with everyone else. Even though the Lady Vols had lost the night before, she was kind and gracious to everyone who approached her, and she spent the entire game signing autographs when she probably wanted to watch it. (There were a lot of her alums on the national team, as I recall.) She was a great ambassador for women’s basketball.
mike in dc
Less of a trailblazer, but Buddy Ryan also just died.
rikyrah
Thank you, Ms. Summitt.
She truly put a spotlight on women’s athletics.
Elizabelle
Her deserves a thread. Great strong woman. Early onset Alzheimer’s is a bitch.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Elizabelle:
She was truly a traiblazer, and gone much too soon.
PhoenixRising
Pat led the best little ballplayers in the mid-South for a decade before the women’s game had a tournament. She recruited girls whose parents couldn’t afford college, if they would work and had the basics–including 3 of my co-workers at a summer camp in TN who were on the first women’s NCAA championship team.
She led the best teams for 2 more decades after that when there was no path to a pro game. Her players sat in the front row, made their grades, were in their rooms for curfew and became gym teachers and HS coaches all over this country.
Pat Head Summit shaped 2 generations of women athletes and set a standard for what ‘student-athlete’ can mean that very few can meet.
Rest in power, Coach.
eclare
Went to UT, what a loss. My uncle also went there, tells a funny story. Years ago, when UConn women’s basketball was first getting going, he flew out west and rented a car. The car agency told him it would be a Chevy Yukon. He said, “Yukon? No way, anything but a Yukon.”
randy khan
@eclare:
Excellent.
Tinare
@eclare: When I first heard people talking about UConn Basketball I did think they were saying Yukon. I thought maybe it was a college in Alaska.
Anyway, WAY too young. Alzheimer’s is an awful, awful disease.
sherparick
One of the icons of my life. Remember her as young woman coach at the 1976 Olympics. A terrible illness that ended her life far to early. You will always live in annals of women sports Pat Summitt.
P.S. I really, really, hate this year. It seems that not a day goes by without someone important, significant, and dynamic passing.
aimai
This pretty much vanishes African American Women from the discussion–to declare two white women the be all and end all of sports pioneering. I’m not really comfortable with that. Although I admire them both greatly I just don’t see how you can ignore Venus and Serena, or Jackie Joyner Kersee
Paul in KY
I watched her & UT in action from generally front row seats in Memorial Coliseum from 78 – 81. This is when she was named Pat Head. Her teams were brutally efficient & played with great intensity.
Back then, I did not like her, as I felt she intimidated officials & had (IMO) a bit of Bobby Knight in her & I loathed and still loathe Bobby Knight.
I got a more nuanced view of her in later years & she wasn’t quite as ‘intense’ in the 90/00s as she was back then. I can tell you that I would have taken her as UK coach in a 1/2 heartbeat.
She was definitely a trailblazer in women’s athletics & among the top 3 women’s coaches I’ve ever seen (Leon Barmore & Geno being the other 2). My condolences to the Summit/Head family on her passing.
Rey
As a Tennessean and a caregiver of a Mom that is battling this horrible disease, I’m heart broken. If we lived in a world with no such thing as Dementia/Alzheimer’s, at 64 she would have still been coaching. Coach Pat Summitt was truly the greatest of all time. 2016 please take a rest…
rikyrah
@aimai:
True that.
Kersee amazed me. How she was so good for so long.
Venus and Serena…pure lightening. I don’t think people understand the odds of having two athletes of that talent for an individualistic sport, come from one family.
PhoenixRising
@aimai: Tap your brakes there. Pat wasn’t a great athlete. Nor was BIllie Jean King. They were trailblazers and leaders. Pat’s path was open to anyone who would work harder than I’ve ever worked at anything in my life, and she mentored more Black women with narrow life choices than you can imagine.
Aside from which: Neither the Joyner family nor the Williams family would have let their girls get involved in pro sports before the irreplaceable work of Pat & Billie. Due to the timing of Title IX, someone was going to do what Pat did–but it’s not racist to acknowledge that she is the one who did it.
aimai
@rikyrah: Not to mention the abuse that they took and are taking from racist fans. Billie Jean King and other white women took plenty of attacks–some of them physical like the woman who was assaulted for running in the Boston Marathon–and I’m not trying to turn this into the oppression olympics. But we can’t forget the trailblazing women who are fighting, still, to be treated as the great atheletes they are.
aimai
@PhoenixRising: I didn’t say it was racist to acknowledge them, or to praise them. But to say that there is no one else strikes me as very problematic.
Paul in KY
@rikyrah: Jackie still has the top 4 or 5 scores in Heptathlon. Current top women are not all that close to those marks. A world class hurdler & long jumper/sprinter marvel.
A class lady as well.
Paul in KY
@aimai: Obviously Babe Didrikson has one of the other 2. Who would be the 4th?
Villago Delenda Est
WAAAAAY too young. She smashed ceilings. Put the Awe in Awesomesauce.
PhoenixRising
@aimai: But your response implies that great athletes in individual sports were being ignored by an expert in another topic. Which, well, yeah. Neither of the towering figures in the development of sport for and by women athletes in this country was herself a great athlete. That’s a different list.
aimai
@Paul in KY: Babe Didrikson was mentioned in the JJK wiki as the comparison with her. I don’t really have a dog in this hunt as I am not a sports person. I well remember a tear jerking made for tv movie about Babe that made me understand how important she was as a trailblazer.
Mutant Poodle
@aimai: I don’t think Summit and King are there as dominant athletes, but as women who shattered prevailing notions of what women sports were/could be. Because I’d add Althea Gibson to your list, and I’m sure there are others we’re both forgetting. But in terms of an impact on women’s sport writ large, I think that list of two is pretty solid…especially as they intersected with the start of the Title IX era.
aimai
@PhoenixRising: I was specifically responding to the sports historian. You don’t need to beat me up about it. Her comment did not distinguish between atheletes (Bille Jean King) and other kinds of leaders in sports and neither did mine. I stand by what I said w/r/t that comment. I think its problematic to vanish AA women, who had a specific struggle on top of that of White Women, not to call out those stars as trailblazers.
Paul in KY
@Mutant Poodle: Althea Gibson would be a fine choice, as would Wilma Rudolph.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@rikyrah:
I agree, and JJK’s brother Al is another example of two elite athletes from a single family – siblings with medals in the same Olympics. Speaking of those gone far too soon, his late wife Flo Jo was of course a tremendous talent in the days when women’s sports got even less attention.
Paul in KY
@aimai: No problem, aimai. I figured that you weren’t a sports nut. You’re a political nut!
1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet)
@aimai: Not to diminish the achievements of these women, but please don’t forget Wilma Rudolph and the other legendary Tigerbelles, who showed the world what they could do in spite of segregation and Jim Crow at the 1960 Olympics.
Elizabelle
Coach Summitt’s players graduated, too. That’s tremendous.
Loviatar
I’m too young to have seen and to be able to fully appreciate Coach Wooden, Coach Summitt was the best damm coach of my lifetime. That stare says it all.
She’ll be missed.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@aimai: Or wilma rudolph, or Alice Coachman…
Mothra
@Paul in KY: Wilma Rudolph
Mothra
@Comrade Scrutinizer: beat me to it!
Tennessee probably will do something close to Mt Rushmore for Summit – she is revered here
LAC
@aimai: I think you made a great point (it was exactly what I was thinking) and it was just a shame that this is the quote used.
Paul in KY
@Mothra: Can’t disagree there!
maurinsky
I’m pretty sure Venus and Serena were on the path to athletic glory regardless of anyone else’s work – I was a young teenager the first time I saw them, on an episode of Linda Ellerbee’s news show for kids that was on CBS for a short time – they were wee little girls then but already killing it on the courts, under the tutelage of their father.
I live 12 miles from UCONN, so I’m amazed I haven’t seen anything nasty thrown Summit’s way from some of the fanatics, but mostly respectful messages acknowledging her contributions.
My grandmother had Alzheimer’s, but she lived to be 101 – almost 30 years from diagnosis to death. It’s very hard for the family, you lose the person more than once.
Barbara
@aimai: I think it is appropriate to distinguish between the start of the Title IX era and what and who came afterwards. They are great for different reasons. Wilma Rudolph and Althea Gibson are part of that elite group that preceded Title IX — so are several American swimmers, but their sports in the U.S. aren’t top of mind, unlike college basketball and professional tennis. I really hate these kinds of “who most belongs at the apex” discussions. Arguably, a lot of people have a claim to greatness for different reasons, among them the Williams sisters. Regarding longevity — it’s a lot easier to maintain your Olympian level when you can still compete in the Olympics as a professional. That didn’t happen until recently.
LAC
@maurinsky: Tell me about it. My mother was diagnosed with it last year. It has been just real hard. I miss my fun fearless lady. She is still sweet, but it is – words fail me. Of course, it doesn’t help that my father suffers from extreme narcissism and cannot be bothered to remember to help her with her meds. My husband and I go over almost every day to make sure that she has taken them. We moved them closer to us to us two years ago and thank god we did.
eclare
@LAC: I am so sorry, and I respect you so much for what you are doing. I can’t imagine. But I have other friends who have told me. So much more needs to be done for this disease.
OzarkHillbilly
@maurinsky: My father had Alzheimer disease. I can say unequivocally that after having held his hands thru multitudinous tearful prayers for “Jesus to come and take me”, his long overdue death was a relief for all.
Paul in KY
@LAC: You see them slipping away, one day at a time.
My dad has senile dementia & he’s not the same guy/personality as he was 20 years ago.
NotMax
@Phoenix Rising
Can’t let a mention of Title IX go by without mentioning it is now officially called the Patsy Takemoto Mink* Equal Opportunity in Education Act.
*Congressperson from Hawaii (first female of minority descent to be elected to Congress), co-sponsor and co-author of the original bill.
In a sign of how times have changed, Title IX was originally signed into law by Nixon.
Paul in KY
@OzarkHillbilly: Used to visit my Grandma in a rest home. She was my mother’s mother & mom would be with me. She had Alzheimer’s & you knew she was lucid when she would be wishing to die. Man, it was sad.
OzarkHillbilly
@LAC: I could find some of the old spark that defined my father until the last 6 months or so. It can be hard at times but try to keep a sense of humor. Laughter goes with love even more than tears.
pluky
@Paul in KY: Althea Gibson, Wilma Rudolph, or Diana Nyad. Pick one!
LAC
@OzarkHillbilly: thank you. I will (although I just got teary) My husband is a really good gardener and has been taking my mom outside to work on the garden with him. I see her joy when she is there. And she reads a lot. We get her out as much as our work schedule permits. My father will not go out for walks with her (talking about short walks in the nice neighborhood we moved them to) so her physical activity is a concern to me.
maurinsky
When my gran was first diagnosed, she came to live with my mother. She had the same vivacity, but she was in a different time period most of the time – she thought I was her friend who went to school with her, and she thought my husband was a singer and dancer who was popular in her time. She also kept trying to “go home” (meaning to her childhood home in Co. Mayo, Ireland) and thought it was right across the street from my parents. And she really had to be watched – she was quite the shoplifter.
There was still some Winnie there then, but she had to go to a facility – it became too much for my mother to manage, since she still had 3 kids at home. She went to a nursing home where my Aunt worked as a nurse, so she always had family nearby. And gradually, her personality diminished, and I think we all hoped that she wouldn’t have to go on for much longer…but she did.
LAC
@eclare: I know. She is on meds that may slow things down, but her year review is coming up next month and I am not optimistic. Even my husband has noticed a worsening.
Capri
I’m a huge WBB fan, and Summitt was the Wooden of the women’s game. Huge loss.
Paul in KY
@pluky: I would place Ms. Nyad more in the recent era. Also, there are several swimmers I would place above her, as great as she is.
1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet)
@Mothra: I’ve heard more than one person say that if she had been made athletic director, there would have been no problems with misbehaving student-athletes. She simply wouldn’t have tolerated it, and any alumni who were dim enough to argue about it with her would have been exposed to Full Metal Summitt.
justawriter
I was a teenager in the 1970s and remember the misogynist grumblings that accompanied the Title IX era. I have been trying to remember any women of color who were as well known as King in those days. The only one I can come up with is Evonne Goolagong. Certainly there were others but none that penetrated so deeply into the whitebread culture of those days.
Mnemosyne
@aimai:
Not to pile on, but Venus and Serena are a different (younger) generation. Summit and King were/are both old enough to be their mothers, if not their grandmothers. So I think it’s fair to say that Summit and King were trailblazers for their era of women’s sports, and Venus and Serena are trailblazers for their era.
When Venus Williams was born, Summit had already had already had 5 winning seasons as head coach.
grrljock
RIP Coach Summitt. 64 is way too young. What a loss to women’s sports. For what it’s worth, I took Mary Jo Kane’s comment above as signifying
Pat Summitt’s and Billie Jean King’s contribution to the organization and thus recognition of women’s sports, not in their athletic achievements (e.g., fighting for establishing the professional women’s tennis tour, founding the Women’s Sports Foundation, fighting to get women’s college basketball be taken seriously).
RSA
@maurinsky:
My sympathies. Alzheimer’s Disease is also known as The Long Goodbye. The average time from diagnosis to death is less than five years, but for early onset, it’s upwards of ten years; there can also be wide variation between individuals.
SFAW
@Mothra:
I think a better choice — although it’s located in Georgia — would be Stone Mountain. Obliterate the images of certain Treasonous Motherfuckers, and replace those images with the sculpture of someone who ACTUALLY DESERVES to be honored.
Actually, it might be even more appropriate to replace the Treasonous Motherfuckers with images Dr. King, Thurgood Marshall, and a few others. (I happen to like the idea of Morris Dees, too, but that’s because I’m weird.)
Mnemosyne
@SFAW:
Bayard Rustin. He’s a twofer.