Summitt, Patricia Head

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Patricia Head Summitt

1952-

American college basketball coach

Patricia Head Summitt is one of college basketball's greatest coaches. In 2003, during her 29th season with the University of Tennessee Lady Volunteers, Summitt earned her 800th win. She is the first women's basketball coach and one of four Division I coaches to hit that mark. Summitt's six National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) championships are surpassed only by UCLA men's coach John Wooden 's ten. Summitt is an inspiration in her childhood hometown of Henrietta, Tennessee, where the city limits sign proclaims: Welcome to Henrietta, home of Pat Head Summitt.

Learns Discipline on Farm

Summitt was born into the Henrietta farm family of Richard and Hazel Head. She grew up northwest of Nashville, in a part of the state dotted with tobacco barns, lean-tos, and one-lane blacktop roads.

Summitt, or Trish, as she was known back then, learned about the payoffs of hard work as she came of age on the family dairy and tobacco farm. From her father, Summit learned about disciplined guidance, about how to prod people beyond their potential. It's a lesson she learned well. Summit has often retold how at 12, her father dumped her off in the middle of an endless hayfield, gestured toward the tractor, and left. Completing the task was grueling, but Summit learned about her own potential, and also about expecting the maximum out of people. Consequently, she has become known as a demanding coach.

Plays on Barn-loft Court

Despite the endless chores, Summit and her three older brothers found time for play. They would climb to the top of the barn loft and play two-on-two basketball on the makeshift court, shooting jump shots among the rafters. Summit took her skills to Chatham

County High School in Ashland City and played from 1967-70. Her senior year, she was an All-District 20 Tournament choice.

In the fall of 1970, the 5-foot-11Summitt began playing basketball at the University of Tennessee-Martin, where she established herself as a defensive ace and accurate shooter. Over four seasons, she led the team to a 64-29 record and graduated in 1974 as the school's all-time leading scorer with 1,045 points.

However, during Summitt's senior season, she tore her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), and a surgeon told her to give up the sport. At the time, sports rehabilitation was in its infancy, and ACL tears forced most professional athletes into retirement. Summit, however, had her sights set on the 1976 Olympics. Women's basketball was new to the Games that year, and Summit yearned to make the inaugural team.

Builds Basketball Powerhouse

Over the next two decades, Summit modeled her basketball empire after her father's example of steady, disciplined guidance. She demands a lot—players must sit in the first three rows of the classroom, and if they skip a class, they're benched. On the court, she demands even more, and though playing for Summitt is tough, her players concede she changes their lives in positive ways.

"She makes you feel there's nothing to be afraid of in life," Michelle Marciniak, Most Valuable Player of the 1996 Final Four for the champion Lady Vols, told Sports Illustrated. "If you want something, you go after it as hard as you can, and you make no excuses."

Summitt's methods have worked. Her teams have won six NCAA titles (1987, 1989, 1991, 1996, 1997, 1998). Her 1997-98 squad had a perfect season of 39-0, and won the NCAA championship. Summitt has also produced 11 Olympians and 16 Kodak All-Americans. At the end of the 2001-2002 basketball season, Summitt had a phenomenal collegiate record of 788-158, a win percentage of .833. Win No. 800 came on January 14, 2003, a 76-57 victory over DePaul at home. Under her direction, the Vols have also captured 21 Southeastern Conference tournament and regular-season championships. She also coached the 1984 women's U.S. Olympic basketball team to its first gold.

Along the way, Summitt also found time for a family. She married banker R.B. Summitt in 1980. A decade later, she gave birth to Ross Tyler Summitt, a fixture alongside the Lady Vols' bench. Summitt's son, incidentally, was almost born in an airplane because even though Summitt was in labor, she insisted on making a recruiting visit to Pennsylvania because she feared losing an All-American to Notre Dame.

Record Hard to Beat

Still going strong, Summitt has raised the bar for women's coaches. As former UCLA coach Billie Moore told USA Today, "She's going to set a standard that I don't want to say will be impossible to beat but it will be very, very difficult to duplicate."

Years from now, Sports Illustrated 's Gary Smith writes, "her players will tell of this woman who never rased a placard or a peep for women's rights, who never filed a suit or overturned a statute or gave a flying hoot about isms or movements, this unconscious revolutionary who's tearing up the terrain of sexual stereotypes and seeding it with young women who have an altered vision of what a female can be."

Chronology

1952	Born June 14 in Henrietta, Tennessee
1970	High school All-District 20 Tournament selection
1970	Graduates from Chatham County High School in Ashland City, Tennessee, and enters the University of Tennessee-Martin
1974	Receives bachelor's degree in physical education from UT-Martin; becomes head coach of the University of Tennessee-Knoxville Lady Volunteers
1975	Receives master's degree in physical education from UT-Knoxville
1976	Plays for United States at Montreal Olympic Games
1980	Marries RB Summit
1990	Gives birth to Ross Tyler Summitt on September 21

Summitt is also active in many community endeavors. First Lady Hilary Rodham Clinton honored her at the White House in 1997 as among Working Woman magazine's 25 Most Influential Working Mothers. Summitt's name was also in the news in the late 1990s as a possible candidate for U.S. Senate. She says her book, Reach for the Summit: The Definite Dozen System for Succeeding at Whatever You Do, is for everyone, not just coaches.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Address: 117 Stokely Athletics Center, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, 37996. Phone: (865) 974-4275. Email: [email protected]. Online: http://ath.utk.edu/womens/info/volinfo.htm.

SELECTED WRITINGS BY SUMMITT:

(With Debby Jennings) Basketball. Dubuque, IA: William C. Brown, 1991.

(With Debby Jennings) Basketball: Fundamentals and Team Play. Madison, WI: Brown & Benchmark, 1996.

(With Sally Jenkins) Raise the Roof: The Inspiring Inside Story of the Tennessee Lady Vols Undefeated 1997-98 Season. New York: Broadway Books, 1998.

Awards and Accomplishments

1973	Captures silver medal as member of U.S. World Games team
1975	Earns gold medal as member of U.S. basketball team at Pan American Games
1976	Earns silver medal as member of U.S. basketball team at Olympics in Montreal
1979	Coaches U.S. women's basketball team to gold at the Pan American Games
1984	Coaches U.S. women's basketball team to its first Olympic gold
1987, 1989	Leads Lady Vols to NCAA championship; named Naismith College Coach of the Year
1990	Receives the Basketball Hall of Fame's John Bunn Award
1991	Leads Lady Vols to NCAA championship
1993	Named Southeastern Conference (SEC) Coach of the Year
1994	Named Naismith College Coach of the Year
1995	Named SEC Coach of the Year
1996-98	Leads Lady Vols to three consecutive NCAA championships
1997-98	Leads Lady Vols to a perfect 39-0 record
1998	Naismith College Coach of the Year and SEC Coach of the Year
2000	Inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame inaugural class
2000	Named Naismith Women's Collegiate Coach of the Century
2003	First women's college basketball coach and fourth overall to win 800 games