Reaching the Summitt

To win an Olympic Medal is, for most people, a lifetime achievement. Most people pour so much into their efforts to make it to the top that once they reach that stage, the rest of their professional career is an afterthought. Most people settle with that crowning achievement.

Pat Summitt is not most people.

Her Olympic Silver medal as a player in Montreal in 1976 was outdone by her Gold Medal as a coach in Los Angeles in 1984. And she was just getting started. Summitt went on to become the winningest coach in the history of NCAA basketball, winning 1098 games, including a women’s record 8 national titles. And she did it all without ever saying goodbye to the program that she (essentially) created—the University of Tennessee Lady Volunteers Basketball.

A coaching career that has spanned 5 decades, and touched the lives of hundreds of athletes, thousands of fans, and millions of admirers came to an end this week. Coach Summitt stepped aside from her role as head coach of the university she loves, submitting to the struggles that came with dealing with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. She will be dearly missed from a sports landscape that she is largely responsible for shaping.

Pat Summitt has played a pivotal role in the development of Women’s Basketball. She has led with a firm grace that has guided so many young women through the most formative years of their lives. She championed the expansion of the coverage of the sport in national media, including the creation of a professional league for women. She is a committed mother and is an example of a person who devotes equal energy to personal and professional endeavors. Even as die-hard Irish fans, we at Play Like a Champion Today® must credit her with paving the way for Muffett McGraw and the success of the Notre Dame Women’s Basketball Program.

Today, Summitt added yet another medal to her collection. This morning, she joined an elite list of Americans, including Notre Dame’s President Emeritus Theodore Hesburgh, as the latest recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom: the highest civilian awarded to a person for his or her contribution to American society. Her role in the development of young women, as well as the development of women’s sport is undeniable, and we salute her for all she has done.

Even though this accolade surely will not mark the end of her continued positive influence on young women, it is fair to say that she has left the coaching profession where she has been for many years—at the Summitt.