slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

Dan Wetzel, Yahoo Sports; The death of Pat Summitt leaves an enduring legacy in women's sports.
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In 1974, two years after Title IX passed, yet decades before it stopped being ignored, Pat Summitt was named the head basketball coach at the University of Tennessee.

She was 22. She got the job because she'd just become a grad assistant, the previous coach quit and there really wasn't anyone else who wanted the position. The salary was $3,000 a year. Duties included driving the team van, washing uniforms and sweeping the practice floor, which was available around men's intramural schedules.

The daughter of a disciplined dairy farmer who believed hard work yields opportunity, the younger sister of three older brothers who never gave her an inch in backyard games, she saw in Knoxville something special. "Just call me Pat," she told her team, because some were no younger than her.

Eight NCAA championships, 1,098 victories and incalculable lives impacted later, Pat was still how she was referred. On Tuesday, Pat Summitt passed away at the age of 64. In August 2011, she announced she had been diagnosed with early onset dementia, Alzheimer's type.
Pat Summitt is one of the greatest pioneers women's athletics will ever know, a force of will wrapped in Southern charm, a coach of such brilliance she did more to legitimize the sport of women's basketball – and, in turn, set a tone of seriousness for all other female sports – than perhaps any other person.

There was never anything second-class about Summitt. Her teams were ferocious, tenacious, disciplined and just a lot of fun to watch. At a time when women's athletics were brushed aside, if not overlooked all together, there was Summitt and the Lady Vols, impossible to discount. That she did it at a large university in the South during an era before the NCAA even ran a national tournament furthered the impact. At the time, the powers that be were smaller schools, such as Immaculata College.

Summitt forever credited her father, Richard, for shaping her. He worked tirelessly on a 1,000-acre farm outside Clarksville, Tenn., and could be so tough on her that she clashed at his relentlessness and struggled with his demands until later realizing it was all out of a love of maximizing her potential.

"My father, to a great extent, made me who I am," Summitt wrote in her autobiography, "Reach for the Summit." "His peculiar combination of love and discipline was hard to take, but in the end I was grateful for it. He gave me strength."

There could be no greater gift than strength, she came to believe. Pass that along, in anyone, but women in particular, and it will never cease to stop returning dividends. Strength creates self-determination, and then suddenly everything is possible.

Her three older brothers were all exceptional athletes, who would play in college. Pat was just as talented. Often in part because she dealt with the same expectations as her brothers, there was no soft handling Pat, or her younger sister, just because they were girls. (Pat was a standout at UT-Martin, when there were no scholarships, and also played for USA Basketball.)

The tone was tough and not always fun, but when Richard changed Pat's high school because her local one didn't offer basketball, it was also a signal that what she was doing carried value.

Beyond all the victories, beyond all the championships, beyond all the sold-out arenas and the way she helped turn NCAA women's basketball into big business, projecting out her father's mantra was Summitt's most significant accomplishment.

This is important. This matters. We demand everything … first from ourselves, but then from everyone else. We apologize for nothing.

She was a taskmaster, seeking out the toughest players in America and then making them tougher. There were still large swaths of the country that didn't believe women could exert themselves fully, where high school girl's basketball was six-on-six and, to stave off exhaustion, players couldn't cross center court.

Summitt, and others, scoffed at the implication. Her teams were so impressive it wasn't long before fans wanted her to coach the Tennessee men's team and instill a bit of that same mentality in them. She famously declined, believing it wasn't a step up, just a step sideways.

And she did it by fighting a stereotype that women interested in sports were just grown-up tomboys or so rough around the edges they belied feminine ideals. It shouldn't have been that way, but it was. Those were the times.

Summitt, no matter her intensity, took the sidelines in style and fashion, a tall and graceful and commanding presence. She disarmed with a personality as folksy and warm off the court as icy on it. She was near impossible not to like.

The Lady Vols were regulars at the Final Four, a familiar presence for casual fans to rally around. From 1976 to 2011, every player who stayed four years reached at least one Final Four. The rivalries she built up, especially with Geno Auriemma and the University of Connecticut, helped propel the sport to unthinkable heights.

The vision of Summitt and her team rippled across the country. Other colleges tried to match her, especially in the SEC. High school kids pushed harder and harder to play for her. Coaches at all levels had an image to sell to skeptical administrators and fans. This is big time. Let us be big time.

The United States dominates in women's team sports these days – from basketball to soccer to softball and so on. Part of that is Title IX, which offered opportunities to American girls. It was also in part because of Summitt, who made being as aggressive as men a positive, who preached that women could be teammates, not just seen as rivals, who couldn't accept anything less than throwing your hair in a ponytail and playing full-throttle.

There will never be another like Pat Summitt, in part because there will never need to be another like Pat Summitt. One of our saddest diseases took her too early, took her at a time when her wisdom and perspective and presence could have continued to inspire even after she retired from coaching.

That's our loss. Our gain, America's gain, was this Tennessee farm kid who saw no difference between boys and girls sports, saw no reason why women should accept anything less than everything. Saw at age 22 nothing in front of her but a chance to work hard and create greatness in herself and others every day of her life.
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Title IX and pioneers such as Pat Summitt helped motivate and inspire young women into obtaining college athletic scholarships while also achieving high academic goals. My granddaughter will be a senior this coming Fall, maintaining a 3.4 grade average in addition to garnering award-winning athletic achievements.

JimMe

I'm 66 years old, and I can remember when I was in high school and college "Girls' Basketball" being played by Girls who could barely dribble, couldn't make free-throws, and their games final scores would be 10-to-6... That's 10 points and 6 points PER TEAM...

But by the late 1970's, there seemed to be a change, and overnight it seems like there was "WOMEN'S BASKETBALL"... Somehow, Women were playing more like the Men... And at the forefront was a Woman Coach by the name of Pat Summitt...

And today, I see Women playing as well as the Men... And in some cases EVEN BETTER...

And Pat Summitt is a HUGE REASON WHY...

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

I couldn't agree more, JimMe. I am 67 (born in '49) and echo your memories of women's basketball, plus women's sports in general. The incredible impact of coaches like Pat Summitt after the passing of Title IX paved the way. Title IX did not take full effect until 1979, as I remember it.

My sisters were quite athletic, but never had the opportunities afforded my granddaughter, who was awarded a full 4-year scholarship as a softball pitcher. This, of course, was after years of preparing with diligence & exposure on travel and select teams for young women in the sport...plus, acknowledgments of her high school performances. Title IX did not take full effect until 1979, I believe.

PoppaGringo Loc: Muslim City, Mexifornia, B.R.

I have always been an admirer of Pat. Great article.

And congrats on your g'daughter.

oldroy Loc: Western Kansas (No longer in hiding)

I have to say that I never did like Title IX because it was misused so many times and I coached boys basketball and felt like the law had hurt in many ways. We were forced to use the gym, for practice, in a school that had closed but came into the district. The girls used it for some time but in 1976 we took turns by the week. I don't think it hurt us a lot other than having only two baskets didn't allow real shooting drills. Now I was coaching girls track at that time and completely changed my mind about the law when the season changed. I was like Summitt in this respect as I was asked nearly every year to take the boys program and turned them down because I just didn't think our boys were as willing to work their butts off to be winners.

I don't ever watch women's basketball when there is a men's game on TV. I never did think that women could play the game like men and don't think they do yet. They aren't as fast, as strong or able to jump like men. The men's game has changed in that it is played above the rim by most teams and women just can't do that. I do understand what was said in that piece about improvements in women's BB but their physical ability hasn't come anywhere close to men and won't soon do that.

I always liked to watch Pat on the bench in games since she didn't ever look like anything but a lady there. There are plenty of coaches, of the female persuasion, in the nation now who have taken Pat's demeanor as a model. I am not much on names but the woman at OU is one of these I am talking about.

slatten49 Loc: Lake Whitney, Texas

Roy...always good to hear from someone who dealt with the realities of introducing Title IX on a daily and career basis.

I believe that, until after 1987, when the Civil Right's Restoration Act passed, there were clearly problems and conflicts to be ironed out with Title IX. As my granddaughter wasn't born until 1995, I would assume that currently, things have t***sitioned into a more reasonable arrangement for e******y in funding women's athletics. Like you, I have been exposed enough...in various ways, to notice the 'coachability' of these motivated young women. I would be less than honest if I didn't admit that having one of my many granddaughters benefit from such a program was/is a factor in my approval of the law. But, I am certain I would feel the same if no member of my family was a recipient of its being law. I had no children when it first came into being, nor grandchildren when it was reinforced by the 1987 law.

Like you, also, I do not see the women's game matching up well with the men's, due to the vast physical advantages of being a male at that level of competition. Though, IMO, that does not diminish the quality of the women's game of today. They will continue to improve.

oldroy Loc: Western Kansas (No longer in hiding)

They will continue to improve and a large part of that depends on more and more girls taking part in other athletic endeavors, like softball and track. Our daughter's son had played baseball every summer till this year and he decided to go to Decathlon this summer. All those events are very foreign to him since he has only hurdled up to now. He got 6th in the first meet, which ain't bad and he pole vaulted just over 11' and had never really vaulted at all but a few times in practice. I bet his dad is a bit more interested in that since he has been in charge of the women vaulters at Arkansas U. for some years. He has had some really great vaulters there but was sure his kid wasn't fit for it. The kid is a 6' sophomore and pretty skinny and I didn't think he could approach that height.

Women's athletics have taken some big strides lately but I don't blame Title IX for it all together. I say that girls seeing others having success has done a lot for it.

JimMe

oldroy...
Do NOT count anyone out in their sophomore year... Male or Female...
And "... girls seeing others having success has done a lot..." IS A DIRECT RESULT OF TITLE IX... Without Title IX today's girls wouldn't be seeing other girls having success BECAUSE THE PREVIOUS ACHIEVERS WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN PARTICIPATING TO BEGIN WITH...

oldroy Loc: Western Kansas (No longer in hiding)

My best runners never mentioned Title IX but maybe nobody ever told them about it. They just came to me as freshmen and worked their butts off for four years and many of them liked it so much that they continued with me through the summer.

JimMe

Love to hear about Hard Work and Dedication by Young Folk... Gives Me Hope That They Will Make It...