OT: Pat Summit Has Early Onset Dementia

Submitted by andrewG on

http://espn.go.com/womens-college-basketball/story/_/id/6888321/tenness…

While I routinely rag on the quality of watching women's sports with my friends, I think we can all agree that Pat Summit is one of the best coaches ever, for any sport, men or women. This is truly sad news for college sports, and I hope she can get as many more years in coaching as humanly possible.

MGoBrewMom

August 23rd, 2011 at 5:54 PM ^

her players and teams.
people can rag on womens sports all they want, but compared to mens (not really a fair comparison) womens sports are in their infancy...different games that clearly appeal to different audiences.
howeva..Pat Summit's teams are so fundamentally sound. she gets great athletes and is such an amazing coach. i hope the news of this allows the appreciation of her abilities to be more broadly appreciated.
thanks for posting this...it is very sad news indeed.

Brewcityitalian

August 23rd, 2011 at 6:12 PM ^

i'm waiting for e gordon gee to say he has it too to make emmert and the tsio look even more sympathetic

 

as for pat summit, thats a daam shame, great coach, even if its womens basketball, which is boring beyond belief. in her prime, i bet she could of coached with the best of them in college, even on a mens level, recruiting might of been a different story. thats why we may never see a female coach coach a mens d 1 basketball team at a high level.

KBLOW

August 23rd, 2011 at 6:37 PM ^

She says she'll coach this year but early onset Dementia got bad pretty fast for my dad that first year.  Good luck to her and her family. 

RONick

August 23rd, 2011 at 6:41 PM ^

For as much as I cannot stand watching women's basketball, I am truly saddened to hear about this.  Great coach, good luck to her.

mgowin

August 23rd, 2011 at 7:00 PM ^

Also a huge loss for UT sports. After all of the Pearl and Kiffin negativity, continuing to have a legend with the character and integrity of Summitt on campus is huge. I hope that she can defy the odds and coach/enjoy life for years to come. Summitt is also a native East Tennessean, from Alcoa, I believe.

Brewcityitalian

August 23rd, 2011 at 8:23 PM ^

i guess thats why i lost 500 pts

which is some serious fuckin bullshit, just take em all at this point.

I guess people just can't handle it from my other post

i didn't say anything bad about her, well besides womens b ball is boring !

either that post regarding gee, or my other one about gee in regards to the guy not handling the post .

oh well , fuck it !

Volverine

August 23rd, 2011 at 9:11 PM ^

Here is the text of a letter she sent to the team, and then Chancellor Cheek sent it out to all the students at UT. She's an icon on campus, and in sports in general, and she'll have massive support from our community.

 

 

Dear All–

Throughout my career, I have always made it a point that my life and my basketball program were an open book.

With that in mind, I have something I’d like to share with my Tennessee families—the university, boosters and fans of Lady Vol basketball.

Once last season concluded, I addressed some ongoing concerns regarding my health. After consulting with my local physicians, I decided to visit the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

Earlier this summer, the doctors at the Mayo Clinic diagnosed me with early onset dementia ("Alzheimer's Type") at the age of 59.

I plan to continue to be your coach. Obviously, I realize I may have some limitations with this condition since there will be some good days and some bad days.

For that reason I will be relying on my outstanding coaching staff like never before. We have always collaborated on every facet of Lady Vol Basketball; and now you will see Holly Warlick, Dean Lockwood and Mickie DeMoss taking on more responsibility as their duties will change significantly.

I love being your coach, and the privilege to go to work every day with our outstanding Lady Vol basketball student-athletes. I appreciate the complete support of UT Chancellor Dr. Jimmy Cheek and UT Athletics Director Joan Cronan to continue coaching at the University of Tennessee as long as the good Lord is willing.

I've been honest and shared my health concerns with you and now we’ll move forward to the business at hand…coaching a great group of Lady Vols. For the time being, I hope you will respect my privacy regarding this matter.

Thank you.

Go Lady Vols!


Pat Summitt

 

mgowin

August 23rd, 2011 at 10:15 PM ^

Nice post. Apparently she took enough time away from winning championships to raise her son the right way too. I've always really admired Summitt. I think its because her personality has always seemed more old-school football coach than that of a women's basketball coach.