Reach for the Summit

Pat Summitt was born Patricia Sue Head on June 14, 1952 in Clarksville, Tennessee. She graduated from the University of Tennessee at Martin in 1974 and became head coach at the University of Tennessee's flagship campus in Knoxville. She was a co-captain of the 1976 women's Olympic team, which won a silver medal, then was the head coach at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles, where the United States won a gold medal. As a head coach, she lead the University of Tennessee woman's team to eight national basketball championships and 1,098 victories, which is more games than any other Division I college coach, male or female.

She was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 1999 and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2000. In 2011, she learned she had early-onset Alzheimer's disease and retired as head coach in 2012. She started the Pat Summitt Foundation to raise awareness about dementia and find a cure for Alzheimer's. She received the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the 2012 ESPYs. Her memoir, Sum It Up written with Sally Jenkins, was published in 2013. She died on June 28, 2016 at the age of 64.

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