Pat Summitt Brought College Basketball to Women

And then fought the biggest battle of her life

Wikimedia: Pat Summitt

Pat Summit made a significant contribution to our world when she brought college basketball to female athletes. Summitt began a coaching tree that still fills women’s basketball today, leading the Tennessee Lady Volunteers (commonly referred to as “Lady Vols”) for 38 years.

In the process, she racked up impressive statistics, including eight national championships and a 100% graduation rate among her players. Of Summitt’s many rules, one was that her players must sit in the first three rows of their classes.

More important than the championships, Summitt saw basketball as a vehicle to help players believe in themselves by preaching self-discipline, hard work, and a religious zeal for the word “can.” The best part?

Summitt’s epic career yielded 63 former Volunteers who coached at the high school, collegiate, or professional levels of women’s basketball, spreading her values.

Summitt faced plenty of adversity along the way. It wasn’t until 1971 that women could play full court, and it took until 1976 for women’s basketball to be added as an Olympic sport. There were also Summitt’s excruciatingly small budgets, which necessitated that her team take buses instead of air travel and motels instead of hotels.

She recalled, “When the men’s team got ten pairs of sneakers, I didn’t storm and demand ten pairs for us. I would ask for two pairs,” wrote Summitt.

All along the way, she made it clear that “can’t” was not a word in her vocabulary. It also explains why she had an unusual preference for recruiting players raised in single-parent households. Summitt believed that those raised without two parents had to be tougher and would naturally assume more responsibility. They would understand why “can’t” did not belong in their vocabulary.

When it was all said and done, Summitt helped the “who’s who” of players become a “who’s who,” and she devoted the same dedication to the journeywomen on her team if they were giving it their all.

The biggest battle of all

With all these accomplishments — and there were many — I believe Summitt’s biggest feat was something completely off the court. When she was only 59, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, which cut short her career and life. When doctors told Summitt she needed to quit coaching, she reminded them that “can’t” was not in her vocabulary.

Summitt continued coaching for one season but noted that numbers had become “slipperier,” making it difficult for her to recall details like game statistics. She sought help from her assistant coaches and instead took a leadership role on the bench, where she didn’t have to call plays.

In her last years, Summitt remained as Head Coach Emeritus while fighting to maintain her cognition through a variety of experimental treatments to stem disease progression. She described the experience of having Alzheimer’s by using the metaphor of footprints being washed away by the waves — memories are erased, as is the sense of self.

She shared her story with the public to build awareness of the disease and to support others fighting the same battle. In the end, Alzheimer’s was the opponent she couldn’t defeat, and five years after her diagnosis, Summitt passed.

Throughout her fight with this pernicious disease, Summit exuded positivity and never allowed herself to become jaded or to feel self-pity. “God doesn’t take away things to be cruel. He takes away things to make room for other things,” she said.

For Summitt, “other things” included establishing the Pat Summitt Foundation, whose mission combines research, awareness building, and support. The Southeastern Conference (SEC) has just completed its 13th annual “We Back Pat” week, where it recognizes the Pat Summitt Foundation and raises funds.

Alzheimer’s has been in the news cycle frequently in recent years. In 2024, almost 7 million Americans aged 65 or older — one in nine — were diagnosed with the disease, and the number is rising. The toll on the patient, the family, and the caregivers is enormous.

We still don’t know the exact cause of Alzheimer’s, though research is ongoing and suggests that a variety of factors — genetic, environmental, age, and lifestyle — contribute.

This was the year that I saw Pat Summitt’s contributions to our society differently. With close family members enduring the loss of cognition brought on by Alzheimer’s, I reread her book to internalize her strength and positivity. Alzheimer’s can strike the mightiest of people and bring them to a level that is unimaginable.

Pat Summitt showed us how, even if she could no longer use the word “can,” she didn’t stop fighting. Of the many battles she took on — equality, women’s sports, raising “kids” with low self-esteem to believe in themselves and do big things — the battle of Alzheimer’s feels the biggest to me and is deeply relevant to so many.

She once wrote, “It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts the most.” Nine years later, we continue to benefit and be inspired by what Pat learned after she knew it all.