Pat Summitt

College

University of Tennessee at Martin

Hall of Fame

⭐ Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame

Patricia Sue Head Summitt was born on June 14, 1952, in Henrietta, Tennessee (Claiborne County), on a farm in the mountains of far northeast Tennessee, the fourth of five children. She grew up doing farm labor alongside her brothers, developing the toughness that would define her coaching career, and attended high school in the rural Smith County area. She played basketball at the University of Tennessee at Martin before joining the UT women's basketball program in Knoxville — first as a player and then, at age 22, as the head coach. What followed over the next 38 years was the most accomplished coaching career in the history of basketball: 1,098 wins (the most of any college basketball coach, male or female, at the time of her retirement in 2012), eight NCAA national championships (1987, 1989, 1991, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2007, 2008), and a graduation rate of 100% for all players who completed their eligibility. She was also the co-head coach of the U.S. women's national team at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, winning a gold medal. Summitt was known for a fierce intensity — her "stare" was legendary — combined with a deep personal investment in every player's life and career. In 2011 she announced she had been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease. She passed away on June 28, 2016. President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012. She was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2000. Born in Henrietta, Tennessee.