Strength is defined as the power to overcome outstanding circumstances. Next to this definition you will find the name, Pat Summitt. In her novel, Sum It Up, Summitt shares her experience as a mother, a friend, and a coach. It gives an inside look at all that went into building the University of Tennessee women’s basketball program into the empire it is today. Former players, family members, and her closest friends tell about how much of an impact Pat has had on their life and the impact she left on others. This book highlights some of Coach Summitt’s greatest traits: strength, determination, and her love for those around her. Considered one of the greatest basketball coaches of all time, Pat Summitt has a lot more than just 1,098 wins and 8 national championships under her belt. As one of …show more content…
Pat worked to put women’s sports on a bigger platform in a “man’s world”. In an interview with the New York Daily News, UConn basketball coach Geno Auriemma said, “I laud her for her ‘relentless drive’ to push the game forward -- whose impact will be felt for generations” (Augustine 1). 161 women have played under the legendary coach, each of them learning something different from her. One thing Summitt taught her players was to ‘anticipate’, but what she could never anticipate for herself was being diagnosed with early onset dementia, alzheimer’s type. After 38 years of coaching, Pat Summitt finally met her toughest opponent. In 2011, Summitt revealed her diagnosis to the public, but vowed to not let it stop her from doing what she loved most. She wrote about how difficult it was dealing with the disease in the beginning, but realized she could not let this control her life more than it already was. During the 2012 season, 1 year after the diagnosis, she was asked how she kept a positive attitude about her condition, Coach Summitt replied, “Attitude lies somewhere between emotion and logic. It’s that