ANALYSIS/OPINION
Well, if the baby boomers needed any reminders that they are close to the end, they seem to get one on a regular basis from the icons who represented their respective fields.
David Bowie, Muhammad Ali, Prince and now Pat Summitt.
The Hall of Fame Tennessee women’s basketball coach died at the age of 64 from the effects of early onset dementia.
“Since 2011, my mother has battled her toughest opponent, early onset dementia – ’Alzheimer’s Type’ – and she did so with bravely fierce determination just as she did with every opponent she ever faced,” her son, Tyler Summitt, said in a statement after his mother died at Sherrill Hills Senior Living in Knoxville. “Even though it’s incredibly difficult to come to terms that she is no longer with us, we can all find peace in knowing she no longer carries the heavy burden of this disease.”
Pat Summitt was not just a successful women’s basketball coach. She represented the rise in women’s sports during our time.
SEE ALSO: Pat Summitt, winningest coach in D1 college basketball history, has died at 64
She wasn’t just a successful women’s basketball coach. She was the John Wooden of her time.
Summitt won eight national titles at Tennessee, six of them over a 12-year span. She had a career coaching record of 1,098-208 over 38 seasons, and took her teams to 18 NCAA Final Four appearances, and 31 straight tournaments. When she retired, she ranked only behind Wooden in national championships. Since then, her rival, University of Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma, has passed her on the title list.
“From a competitive standpoint, it was the one program, the one game that each year you kind of measured yourself and your team … that hey, when we play this game we’ll know if we’re good enough to win a championship,” Auriemma said Tuesday on SportsCenter. “From a personal standpoint you can see how difficult it was for a woman to do something no woman had done before and try to juggle being a mom, coach and a representative of the game. … She was the first. There were other people that did it, but nobody did it better or did it longer.
“Whoever writes the history of women’s basketball, her name and influence will be all over that book from the mid-’70s until they don’t play basketball anymore. … She was the defining figure of the game. Lots of people coach the game, but very few get to define the game.”
He is right about that – very few get to define their time and place on this earth for a generation. Pat Summitt did just that.
“Pat Summitt is synonymous with Tennessee, but she truly is a global icon who transcended sports and spent her entire life making a difference in other peoples’ lives,” said Tennessee athletic director Dave Hart in a statement. “She was a genuine, humble leader who focused on helping people achieve more than they thought they were capable of accomplishing. Pat was so much more than a Hall of Fame coach; she was a mother, mentor, leader, friend, humanitarian and inspiration to so many. Her legacy will live on through the countless people she touched throughout her career.”
Pat Summitt was more than a women’s basketball coach. She was an American original – someone who cut through the debris of culture to change the traditions of that culture – and create new ones that opened doors for others to follow.
She changed the future for women, and changed the minds of men in the process.
President Obama, who awarded Summitt the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012, issued the kind of statement reserved for someone who came to become a generational icon:
“Nobody walked off a college basketball court victorious more times than Tennessee’s Pat Summitt. For four decades she outworked her rivals, made winning an attitude, loved her players like family and became a role model to millions of Americans, including our two daughters.
“Her legacy, however, is measured much more by the generations of young women and men who admired Pat’s intense competitiveness and character, and as a result found in themselves the confidence to practice hard, play harder and live with courage on and off the court. As Pat once said in recalling her achievements, ’What I see are not the numbers. I see their faces.’”
In 2011, the United States Sports Academy awarded Summitt its Mildred “Babe” Didrikson Zaharias Courage Award for her “indomitable spirit in her public battle with early-onset dementia.”
On Tuesday, she passed away two days after the great Babe Didrikson Zaharias’ birthday – two American originals who created possibilities for women and opened the eyes of men.
• Thom Loverro can be reached at tloverro@washingtontimes.com.
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