When you walk on to Thompson-Boling Arena on the campus of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, you will notice that the court is named “The Summit”. That Summit it’s current women’s basketball coach Pat Summit, and very soon, she is about to ascend to the summit of college basketball.Any day now Tennessee women’s basketball coach Pat Summit will accomplish a feat, that no basketball coach (man or woman) has ever done – win 1,000 career games.
Times have changed for Summit. This is not bad for a woman ,who won her first game 69-32 over Middle Tennessee State on Jan. 10, 1975 in front of an crowd of 53 fans. Now, no matter if Tennessee plays at home or on the road, you can’t find even find 53 empty seats.
When this milestone comes, this will be another accomplishment in Pat Summit’s legendary career. In Summit’s 35-year career at the Tennessee she has put up some staggering numbers: 14 time SEC champions, 13 time SEC tournament champions, seven-time NCAA and coach of the year and eight national championships, just to name a few.
This moment will be history in the making, proving that Pat Summit is one of a kind. It’s very rare to have a coach who has all that success at one school because we live in a day and age where college coaches frequently change jobs or get fired. Summit has stayed in Knoxville and not only been an outstanding coach, but a person who has served as an outstanding teacher and role model to the thousands of kids she has coached.
I know many people do not pay attention to women’s basketball.
Maybe with this amazing feat coming up, people will start to take notice of women’s basketball.