Tennessee women's basketball icon Pat Summitt dies at 64

Another American sports icon now belongs to the ages in legendary University of Tennessee women's basketball coach emeritus Pat Summitt, who died Monday at age 64 in Knoxville, Tenn., after a nearly five-year battle with early onset Alzheimer's disease.

Her condition had declined in recent weeks, and a television station in Knoxville reported that she was moved Saturday night from an assisted living facility she entered in late March to a hospice, where Ms. Summitt's final hours were spent. She died of complications from Alzheimer's, according to family spokeswom Erin Freeman.

Ms. Summitt's Hall of Fame head coaching career spanned 38 years, from 1974 to 2012. She compiled a 1,098-208 record - with more victories than any NCAA Division I coach, man or woman - and her teams captured eight NCAA titles.

Close friends and many of the 138 players Ms. Summitt coached were given word of her situation Friday night. By Sunday morning, the Knoxville News Sentinel and the Pat Summitt Foundation website indicated that her condition had become grave.

South Carolina women's basketball coach Dawn Staley, who grew up in North Philadelphia and also coached at Temple, posted on Twitter to her thousands of followers "to lock hands and #PrayForPat."

Ms. Summitt's ex-husband, R.B., a banker, and son, Tyler, were by her side when she died, as well as her mother, Hazel Head. She was predeceased by her father, Richard. The Summitts married in 1980 and were divorced in 2007.

Ms. Summitt was the first men's or women's collegiate basketball coach to reach 1,000 victories. She coached the United States to an Olympic gold medal in 1984 and produced 21 coaches' all-Americans, 12 Olympians, and 34 WNBA draft picks (15 in the first round).

In 1997 and 2001, it was reported that Tennessee had asked Ms. Summitt to coach the Volunteers' men's team.

Ms. Summitt's reach across the national and global landscape went beyond her sport. She often was asked by business organizations to speak on leadership.

University of Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma, whose Huskies have surpassed some of Ms. Summitt's records, winning 11 NCAA crowns, referred to her death as the end of an era.

Villanova women's coach Harry Perretta struck up a friendship with Ms. Summitt in 2003. "This is not just a loss for women's basketball," Perretta said, "it's a loss for humanity."

Auriemma, the coach of the U.S. women's Olympic team, spoke in a somber tone Sunday in New York after a WNBA game.

"You think of people who become synonymous with their sport . . . so professionally, it is the end of an era," Auriemma said. "You created something that is going to last forever.

"And then personally, anytime you get to know somebody and compete against them and had so many great moments with them . . . When I heard the news, the first thing I thought about was all those incredible moments and it's a shame she never really had a chance to reflect back on those moments, but it's a sad day for basketball and the coaching profession as well."

In 2009, Ms. Summitt was 11th in a Sporting News ranking of the 50 greatest coaches ever in all sports.

In August 2011, Ms. Summitt stunned her admirers with the revelation of her disease. However, she told the nation through a local website, "There's not going to be any pity party and I'll make sure of that," and vowed to coach another three or four years while she began the Pat Summitt Foundation, aiming to find a cure for Alzheimer's.

Auriemma reportedly wrote the first check, donating $10,000.

Ms. Summitt is in eight Halls of Fame, including the Women's Basketball Hall in Knoxville and Naismith Memorial Hall in Springfield, Mass. The courts at Tennessee and at Tennessee-Martin, her alma mater, are named after her.

Her courage after her diagnosis brought many accolades. The United States Basketball Writers Association named its women's award for courage after her, President Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and she was given the Arthur Ashe Courage Award by ESPN.

Sports Illustrated made Ms. Summitt its Sportswoman of the Year in December 2011.

Ms. Summitt was a miracle worker in 1997, taking a 10-loss Tennessee team to the NCAA title. A year later, she directed a powerhouse squad - including Chamique Holdsclaw and freshmen Tamika Catchings and Cardinal O'Hara's Kristen "Ace" Clement - to a 39-0 record and another championship. The title was Tennessee's third straight.

The Volunteers returned to glory when Candace Parker led the Vols to back-to-back NCAA crowns in 2007 and 2008, giving Ms. Summitt her eighth and final championship.

At Tennessee, 122 of Ms. Summitt's players who completed their athletic eligibility went on to graduate.

She was born as Patricia Sue Head in Clarksville, Tenn., in 1952, the daughter of a farming couple.

After graduating from Tennessee-Martin in 1974, Ms. Summitt earned a master's degree in physical education at Tennessee. At age 22, she was hired at Tennessee, being promoted from graduate assistant after the departure of the previous coach.

Eventually, she became the first million-dollar women's coach, but Ms. Summitt began at a monthly salary of $250. In those days, cake and cookie sales helped to pay for travel and uniforms, which Ms. Summitt personally washed.

Reflecting on the early days in a 2009 interview with Time magazine, Ms. Summitt recalled, "I had to drive the van when I first started coaching. One time, for a road game, we actually slept in the other team's gym the night before. We had mats, we had our little sleeping bags.

"When I was a player at the University of Tennessee-Martin, we played at Tennessee Tech for three straight games, and we didn't wash our uniforms. We only had one set. We played because we loved the game. We didn't think anything about it."

She played on the 1976 Olympic squad in Montreal as a cocaptain when women's basketball was introduced to the Summer Games.

Before that she was on the 1975 Pan Am Games squad coached by Immaculata's Cathy Rush and consisting of such notables as Nancy Lieberman and Ann Meyers.

"There's nothing like being in a locker room with Pat, there's nothing like being in that foxhole," Lieberman said Monday from Sacramento, Calif. "She was fine on Wednesday, from what I was told, then suddenly took a turn for the worse the next day.

"Doctors are stunned she made it through the weekend, but that's Pat. She's always been a fighter. I've known her since I was 15 as a teammate, as an opponent, as my coach. . . . She always told me not to let anything derail me from pursuing my dream."

When Philadelphia was the host city for the NCAA Women's Final Four in 2000, Ms. Summitt made a trip to the city during the season in December to headline a fund-raiser for the tournament.

"We were scrambling to raise money," recalled Cathy Andruzzi, head of the local organizing committee. "I asked Pat Summitt if she would do us a huge favor and be our keynote speaker at the Bellevue. She did not hesitate when she knew the cause. We quickly sold out 400 tickets and raised $30,000 while Pat made a great speech for gratis.

"Pat loved the game of basketball and was always there to help the game in any way she could."

Even though she had mostly receded from public view by the 2014-15 season, Ms. Summitt made a trip to Cincinnati to help present the USBWA award in her name to Lauren Hill.

The player at Division III Mount St. Joseph's College was terminally ill with brain cancer but managed to play in the season opener, her first collegiate game, at Xavier's sold-out, 10,000-seat arena. Ms. Summitt presented her award at halftime.

"That was perhaps the most special thing to Lauren, for Pat to show up and do that," Hill's mother, Lisa, said Monday. "This is so sad, but now God is getting someone who will watch over my baby on the court in heaven."

Another former rival from Connecticut praised the Tennessee icon.

Diana Taurasi, who now plays in the WNBA, said, "If it wasn't for her, we wouldn't be playing in Madison Square Garden, Connecticut would have never been Connecticut. She really made people take notice of women's basketball, and at a time when it probably wasn't easy.

"But she forced it. She forced the hand. She was the one. And it's really sad. I'm sure family, friends, the basketball family, everyone's hurting right now."

Taurasi recalled when Ms. Summitt went into the Huskies' locker room to salute them after they had taken down her Vols one more time in a championship.

"It showed in 2002 what a person she is to go into someone else's locker room after all the success she's had, and how much she did for the sport, to come in and congratulate us," Taurasi said. "She was always the better person. She's going to be missed and there's going to be a big hole in women's basketball."

Brittney Griner, another WNBA star out of Baylor, recalled being recruited by Ms. Summitt.

"I thought it was cool getting all those letters, every time after Candice Parker dunked or something," she said. "I still have all those letters back in my parents' house."

Candice Dupree, a former Temple star, spoke of playing against Tennessee twice, especially the first time in Knoxville, where the Owls under Dawn Staley led until the last minute before Ms. Summitt 's team came back to win.

"It was huge for us at the time," Dupree said. "Damn, we almost beat Tennessee and no one knew who we were."

Former St. Joseph's coach Jim Foster, now at Chattanooga, and Ms. Summitt were national as well as Southeastern Conference rivals when he was at Vanderbilt.

"Just a lot of great memories that get better the older you get," Foster remembered. "It was a privilege to be up that close to watch someone operate, to aspire and be that successful."

Ms. Summitt's survivors include three older brothers, Tommy, Charles, and Kenneth, and a younger sister, Linda. Funeral arrangements were pending.