Pat Summitt biography
Pat Summitt, née Patricia Head, (born June 14, 1952, Clarksville, Tennessee, U.S.—died June 27, 2016, Knoxville, Tennessee), American collegiate girls’s basketball coach on the University of Tennessee (1974–2012) who led the squad to eight National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) championships (1987, 1989, 1991, 1996–98, and 2007–08) and compiled extra wins (1,098) than every other Division I faculty basketball (males’s or girls’s) coach in NCAA historical past.
She grew up on a dairy farm, the place she developed the toughness that will turn into her trademark. She first performed basketball in a hayloft, and her aggressive and instinctive play on the University of Tennessee at Martin (B.S., 1974; M.S., 1975) earned her spots on nationwide groups. In 1975 she received gold on the Pan-American Games and the next 12 months overcame a critical knee damage to cocaptain the U.S. Olympic group to a silver medal in Montreal. Soon afterward she retired as a participant to focus on teaching.
Named head coach of the Lady Vols on the University of Tennessee at Knoxville in 1974, she posted a 16–8 document in her inaugural season. (In 1980 she married R.B. Summitt; the couple divorced in 2008.) Driven and uncompromising, Summitt demanded one of the best from her gamers and was identified for her strenuous practices and the legendary “look” that will ship athletes for canopy. In 1987, months after incomes her three hundredth win, she guided the Lady Vols to their first NCAA championship. With Summitt on the helm, the group went on to assert seven extra titles. In 1996 Summitt notched her 600th victory, changing into solely the second lady to tally that many wins on the courtroom. Two years later she led Tennessee to an unprecedented third consecutive NCAA championship, capping an ideal season (39–0). The title got here simply days after she obtained the Associated Press’s Coach-of-the-Year award. In 2005 she earned her 880th victory, breaking Dean Smith’s document. Four years later she turned the primary NCAA basketball coach to register 1,000 profession wins.
In 2011 Summitt was recognized with early-onset Alzheimer illness. Although she continued teaching for another season, lots of her duties have been dealt with by her assistants. Summitt stepped down as head coach in April 2012, however she remained part of the Lady Vols’ teaching employees in an advisory position below the title “head coach emeritus.”
In addition to collegiate basketball, Summitt additionally coached on the worldwide stage, main the U.S. girls’s group to gold on the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. A famous motivator, she launched two self-help books, Reach for the Summit and Raise the Roof (every with Sally Jenkins), in 1998. Summitt obtained quite a few honours. She was named NCAA Coach of the Year seven instances (1983, 1987, 1989, 1994, 1995, 1998, and 2004), and in 2000 she was declared Naismith Women’s College Coach of the Century. She was additionally inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame (1999) and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame (2000). In 2012 Summitt was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Her memoir, Sum It Up (cowritten with Jenkins), was revealed the next 12 months.