Patricia Sue Head was born in Clarksville Tennessee on June 14, 1952. She was the daughter of two farmers and had 3 older brothers (Pat Summitt Fast Facts). Growing up on the farm, she would play basketball against her brothers in the family barn (Walker). Throughout Pat’s lifetime, she placed a huge emphasis on her family- and basketball (Walker). She went on to play basketball at the University of Tennessee- Martin. Since this was before Title IX, she did not receive any scholarship money to attend college or play basketball like her 3 older brothers (Pat Summitt Fast Facts). In 1976, she was co-captain of the USA Olympics basketball team where she came home with the silver medal (Pat Summitt Fast Facts). In 1974, at just age 21, Summitt was named the head coach of the University of Tennessee Women’s basketball team (Pat …show more content…
However, her legacy will live far beyond the records and numbers. For starters, during her time at Tennessee, she had a 100% graduation rate (Pat Summitt Fast Facts)- every single one of her players graduated. She gave the girls in this sport a purpose. She gave them confidence and taught them how to fight what they want. Summit said, “I want to keep doing the right thing for women all the time (Walker).” Because of Pat, people pay attention to women's basketball (Walker). She demanded the media to cover their games- she was determined to give women’s basketball the same respect as men’s (Schnell). By 1993, she worked to have the first ever sold out women’s basketball game in history (Walker). Coach Lindsay Gottlieb said, “Everything that this game has comes from the people who were willing to coach and invest in it before there were shoe contracts, before there was big salary money, before TV, my generation and younger don’t know anything else but this, but it’s our obligation to remember the people who did it when they were making maybe $30,000 [a year]. Pat legitimized the sport