Monday, March 12Summitt shows more than glares, stares
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She loves to cook. Country music relaxes her. She lets her players call her Pat. That's her name, after all. "Whatever they're comfortable with," said Pat Summitt. Yes, that Pat Summitt, she of the granite glare, relentless drive and six national championships as coach of the University of Tennessee women's basketball team. You think you know a person. But in the case of Summitt, you may only know part of her. You may know the steely-eyed leader, but not the quick-to-smile friend, the shouter but not the joker, the one-track mind but not the multifaceted personality. This is a story about the Pat Summitt you know but also the one you don't told through the eyes of those who have played and coaches with her and for her. Mickie DeMoss, 16th-year assistant under Summitt: "I don't even know if there's a word to describe it, the level of commitment she has. I would have to say it's off the charts." Summitt: "Off the chart. I'm off the chart." DeMoss: "Somehow, she has this extra fuel tank. When we're all through with our first -- our only -- tank, she has this reserve tank she flips on." Summitt: "As a kid growing up, I didn't have a lot of what my peers had. When you live in a log cabin and you sleep in a baby bed until you're 6 years old and you have to work every day from sunup to sundown, I think you learn to survive and compete. "So when I see kids that have that mentality, I thrive on that." University of Denver coach Pam Tanner, who served as a UT graduate assistant and later assistant coach from 1990-93: "There's not anybody even close to her in terms of what she puts into it. Part of it's her personality, and part of it's the way she was raised." DeMoss: "I really cringed when she told me, about two months ago, that she'd started taking all these vitamins. I thought, Oh, no! Oh, no!" Summitt's sense of humor
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| Players and coaches know Pat Summitt has a fun side that the camera doesn't always catch. |
Summitt: "Players at first don't see it as a sign of affection. There's nothing loving in their minds about volume 10." Nikki McCray, Kodak All-American for UT in 1994 and '95: Asked if Summitt's toughness ever made her question her decision to attend UT, she said, "Oh, probably all the time. I think every player goes through that. But at the end of the day, she'll always call and make sure you're all right." Jody Adams, point guard on the 1991 national championship team: "She threw me out of practice, sophomore year. She'd gotten on me about not being vocal." The next day, Adams returned to practice with an I'll-show-her attitude and the words "Be Vocal" written on her kneepads. "She knew how to push my buttons, probably more than my parents." Summitt, on whether she's ever too tough: "That's one reason I tape practices, so I can see it. I think in practice sometimes my emotions can get the best of me. And if a player repeats the same mistake over and over or they're not giving effort, I can get a little impatient, and I can be tough on them." Summitt's softer side
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| Pat Summitt loves spending time with her son Tyler, including cutting down championship nets. |
Adams: "Pat can do whatever she wants to do. As long as she loves doing it, she can sell anything." DeMoss: "Just about anything. Nothing that requires a lot of patience, now. I could never see her being an accountant or something like that, where she has to sit there and crunch numbers all day. That would drive her nuts." Lawson: "It would have to be a competitive atmosphere. She thrives on competitiveness. She thrives on working with people to beat another group -- not necessarily in a bad sense, but being competitive and working toward goals." DeMoss: "Everybody says, 'Pat you ought to run for governor.' And I think she'd be a great politician." Summitt: "I don't think I'd be happy in politics, for the fact it is politics, you know? Nothing's going to happen right away, so many other people are going to control your destiny or whatever decision you're going to make. I'm not about that. "I'd like to believe that within the next 10 years, if I'm retired, I could enjoy retirement and not feel I had to work." And the last words? Jackson: "I couldn't imagine her not being a basketball coach."
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