Pat Summitt, a college women’s basketball legend, passed away early on Tuesday from what is assumed to be a repercussion of early-onset Alzheimer’s. She was 64.
Summitt was one of the greatest NCAA coaches of all time, winning eight national championships with the University of Tennessee Lady Volunteers basketball team and holding the most wins of any college coach (male or female), at a whopping 1,098 victories, according to the New York Times. CNN reported that her teams dominated the NCAA tournament for 31 years in a row, even breaking a record in 1998 when they went 39-0 to win the national championship.
Her career led to many awards, victories, and honors. She was co-captain of the silver-medal-winning U.S. women’s basketball Olympic team in 1976, and later coached the team to gold at the 1984 Olympics, according to the New York Times. The Tennessean reported that Summitt was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, the FIBA Hall of Fame, and the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame during her career. She was even awarded the nation’s highest civilian honor, a Presidential Medal of Freedom, by President Obama in 2012, according to CNN.
“There may be coaches that win more than Pat, but there will never be another Pat Summitt,” said Kim Mulkey, coach at Baylor University, to the New York Times.
But Summitt was not just an outstanding coach. She stood her ground through thick and thin, graduating every single one of her players at U of T, and paving the way for women’s sports to receive national attention. At 22, when she first began coaching the Lady Volunteers, the NCAA did not sponsor women’s basketball, according to CNN. She had to front the money for uniforms herself and provide transportation herself for her growing teams, but her subsequent wins put women’s basketball on the forefront of college sports.
“I am who I am,” Summitt said in a past interview with the New York Times. “I will not compromise.”
The Tennessean noted that she created a foundation, the Pat Summitt Foundation Fund, to raise awareness about dementia and find a cure for Alzheimer’s, following her diagnosis. Her death was officially announced first on the Foundation’s website.