Basketball Coaching Legend and Olympian Pat Summitt, 64

(ATR) Pat Summitt won more basketball games than any Division I college coach, male or female.

She won eight national championships in her 38 years at the University of Tennessee.

But she is also being remembered for her Olympic contributions.

Summit has died at age 64, almost five years after revealing that she had been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s Disease.

U.S. President Barack Obama, who awarded Summitt his nation’s highest civilian honor in 2012, said in a statement "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."

He called her "a patriot who earned Olympic medals for America as a player and a coach."

Summitt was a co-captain of the United States women’s basketball team that won the silver medal at the Montreal Games in 1976. Eight years later, she coached the U. S. team to a gold medal in Los Angeles.

Kim Mulkey, who played for Summitt on the gold medal winning team in 1984, tells Around the Rings "She was exactly like she was when she was coaching at Tennessee. She was intense, she was passionate. She just demanded the most from you. She worked hard and she expected you to work just as hard. She’s an icon, a legend."

Mulkey recalls being worried she would be cut from the squad when she suffered a stress fracture in her foot four weeks before the start of the games in LA. She remembers Summitt telling her "Look, you earned this right, you’re not going to be cut, you’re going to get well. The doctors say this will heal in time for you to play and forget about it."

Mulkey, who would get healthy and help the U. S. win the gold medal, says "I’m forever indebted to her."

Besides receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama, Summitt was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2000.

She never suffered a losing season in her 38 years at Tennessee, winning 1,098 games while losing only 208, a winning percentage of .841.

Her players didn’t only succeed on the court. They also excelled in the classroom. Every one of Summitt's players who completed their eligibility at Tennessee graduated.

For Mulkey, who coached Baylor University to the national title in 2012, her two favorite stories surrounding Summitt have nothing to do with basketball.

She says "When I got pregnant with my first child, I was scared, first of all, and second, I didn’t know if I could do this [coaching] career being a mother because I didn’t want to push my child on somebody else to raise."

"I remember having a conversation with her in a hallway prior to playing them and she calmed me. She made me feel better. She had lived it. She had been through it. I just won’t ever forget that."

Mulkey also recalled helping Summitt when the legendary coach was going through her divorce. Mulkey had just been divorced and says "It was just so many conversations like that, that mean more to me than anything in basketball."

A celebration of life service for Pat Summitt will be held on July 14 at Thompson-Boling Arena, the home of Tennessee basketball. It’s a good bet that there could be a new attendance record set at the 21,678 capacity venue.

Written by Gerard Farek

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