Pat Summitt's legacy will live forever, and basketball will never see her duplicate. She defined a university, a conference, a sport. A movement: women's basketball. Summitt was a pioneer and one of the greatest coaches ever.
Summitt has died at the age of 64. In light of her unfortunate death at the hands of one of the cruelest diseases of all, Alzheimer's, let's reflect on all she did. These are just some of the facts, stats and records from her career at Tennessee.
38: Seasons Summit spent as coach of Tennessee. It was the only school where she coached.
38: Postseason tournaments Summitt qualified for. Check the math and you'll realize: She never missed the postseason. Before women's basketball was recognized as a Division I sport, in 1981, UT made the postseason in the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women.
22: The age Summitt was hired when she began at UT in 1974.
1,098: Summitt's win total. They are the most of any college coach in Division I history. When she reached 1,000 wins, on Feb. 5, 2009, she was the first collegiate basketball coach to ever do so. She finished with a win percentage of .840. What makes Summitt's run so amazing is how she did not compile so many wins against mostly bad teams. More than 25 percent of Summitt's victories came against NCAA tournament competition and/or teams ranked in the top 10. And 47 percent of the games she coached came against ranked teams. She won 72 percent of those games.
504-48: Tennessee's record at home from 1974-2012, an astounding win percentage of .913, which is the best over a span of more than 30 years for any college basketball coach at any level.
458-69: Summitt's record in the SEC, a win percentage of .869.
32: Combined number of Summitt's SEC titles: 16 in the regular season and 16 league tournament crowns.
8: Summitt's number of national titles.
7: Summitt's number of NCAA coach-of-the-year awards.
6: Summitt has been inducted into six halls of fame. She was initiated into the most famous basketball hall of fame, the Naismith Memorial, in 2000.
21: The number of No. 1 seeds Summitt earned. An NCAA record.
112: Number of wins in the NCAA tournament. An NCAA record.
18: Number of Final Four appearances. An NCAA record.
15: Number of national title game appearances. An NCAA record.
20: Of Summit's 38 seasons, 20 of them featured 30 wins or more. The figures redefined success at the women's college basketball level, and have only been matched, or approached, since by UConn's Geno Auriemma.
63-4: Summitt's record coaching against international competition. Summitt played for the U.S. women's national team in 1976, which won a silver medal. She coached the women's national team in 1984. That team won gold. In doing so, she was the first American to ever earn an Olympic medal as a player and then coach an American team to the podium.
30: The number of consecutive NCAA tournaments Summitt made, starting in 1982 and ending with her retirement in 2012. That is an NCAA record for Division I basketball. Tennessee reached the second weekend of the tournament every year during that span, save 2009.
2012: In 2012, Summitt earned the honored distinction of being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The only other people with direct ties to basketball to receive the honor: Bill Russell, Dean Smith and John Wooden.
84-83: The final score of Summitt's first game as coach, which was on Dec. 7, 1974, at Mercer. Tennessee lost.
77-58: The final score of Summitt's last game as coach, which was on March 26, 2012, vs. top-seeded Baylor in the Elite Eight. Tennessee lost.
1987: The year Tennessee and Summitt won their first national title.
2: The number of courts named after Summitt. The first of course being Tennessee's. The other? Tennessee-Martin, Summitt's alma mater.
1,045: When Summitt graduated from UT-Martin in 1974, she finished with 1,045 career points, which was a school record at the time.
0: The number of losing seasons Tennessee had in Summit's 38 years there. Not only that, but only twice did Tennessee take on seasons with more than 10 losses. Simply astounding.
161: Number of scholarship players Summitt coached across her 38 seasons.
100: The graduation rate for Summitt's players who completed eligibility at UT. In addition to this, Summitt produced 34 WNBA players, 21 All-Americans and 39 all-SEC players.
