Hog Calls

Summitt expressed class, grace, humility

FILE - In this March 4, 2012, file photo, Tennessee head coach Pat Summitt waves to the fans after Tennessee defeated LSU 70-58 in the championship game at the women's Southeastern Conference tournament in Nashville, Tenn. Summitt, the sport's winningest coach, is stepping aside as Tennessee's women's basketball coach and taking the title of "head coach emeritus", the university announced Wednesday, April 18, 2012. Long-time assistant Holly Warlick has been named as Summitt's successor. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)

FAYETTEVILLE -- It takes great confidence and great ego to be a great coach but greater humility to be a great person.

Many coaches have the ego part down pat.

Not many have it and the humility all down Pat.

Pat Summitt always did with a capital P. The Tennessee Lady Volunteers women's basketball coaching legend did to her last breath that Alzheimer's stole Tuesday morning.

Dying at only 64, Summitt was diagnosed with early onset dementia, Alzheimer's type, in August 2011. Summitt coached her last season in 2011-2012 after publicly revealing her illness. She fought Alzheimer's until the end.

With the Pat Summitt Alzheimer's Clinic scheduled for a December opening, Pat perseveres posthumously.

An 8-time national champion, Summitt's 1,098-208 record amassed more victories than any NCAA Division I coach, men's or women's basketball. Her impact was eloquently described by Auburn Coach Bruce Pearl on Monday's SEC men's basketball teleconference.

Pearl coached Tennessee's men from 2005-2011. He and Summitt exuded mutual respect.

Pearl and three of his players, all shirtless spelling Vols with orange body paint, attended a 2007 Lady Vols game at Thompson-Boling Arena in Knoxville. Pearl's V started the body of work.

Summitt returned the favor. She attended the men's last 2007 home game dressed as a Tennessee cheerleader and led the crowd singing "Rocky Top."

Summitt championed women's college basketball like no other and always championed basketball whatever the level and whatever the gender. She championed her Lady Vols behaving like champions.

"Pat Summit never apologized for demanding the most of her players and getting it," Pearl said Monday. "She was the best at what she did yet the most humble person I ever knew."

From my wife, Nancy, I learned the Summitt humbleness that Pearl addressed.

Long before the Razorbacks launched basketball's press row into press nosebleed, media at Walton Arena reported courtside where you accurately could incorporate the coaches' words and expressions into the story.

I saw Summitt's competitive side, including a glare withering a heckler into mute mush. The publicly humble side she displayed with perfect press conference decorum.

Nancy met the privately humble Summitt postgame while sitting alone at my assigned seat with the arena cleared as I finished my story back in the media room.

Summitt returned to press row for postgame radio.

"I smiled," Nancy said. "She smiled back and I assumed would be on her way. But she sat down and initiated a very nice conversation."

No big deal, it seems, until you realize how many nowhere near Summitt's stature fancy themselves too big a deal to chat with anyone besides a rich booster or national media much less a lone fan from the opposing school.

In 43 years covering college athletics, no coaches I reported on wielded more influence on their respective sport than John McDonnell, the retired 40-times national champion Arkansas men's track coach, and Pat Summitt.

Gratifying to know that their bigger than life success made neither feel that others' lives were smaller than their own.

Sports on 06/29/2016