Even area coaches felt Summitt’s presence
Bryan Harris remembers how quickly the gym fell silent once Pat Summitt spoke.
The Manvel girls basketball coach was a practice player for Summitt and the Tennessee Lady Vols from 1996-98.
He remembers Summitt’s fierceness and tough love, even in practice, and her warm personality off the court. Little did he know that his experience around the legendary figure was prepping him for his own coaching career.
“I’ve been a women’s basketball coach for 17 years now and the reason is because of Pat Summitt,” Harris said. “She just influenced me. I feel like every single time I’m coaching, Pat Summitt is in the huddle with me.
“It’s a pretty powerful statement, but I think it’s true.”
Summitt died Tuesday morning, five years after she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. She was 64.
Fond memories
Summitt won 1,098 games in 38 years at Tennessee, the most by any Division I coach, along with eight national championships. She is credited with helping women’s basketball flourish on the national stage.
Summitt’s influence reached every corner of the globe. Harris said Summitt became a larger-than-life figure who never forgot her roots and treated everyone like royalty.
Even a practice player like him.
“All-American game at camp, I was an official and one of the girls knocked my front tooth out,” Harris said. “Coach Summitt took care of my tooth. She said ‘Hey, don’t worry about insurance, I’m going to take care of it right now.’ Those are the kinds of things she did.”
Vivian Dancy, Galena Park ISD girls athletics coordinator and former North Shore coach, had many encounters with Summitt.
When North Shore had a touted recruit in Danielle Crockrom, Summitt could be counted on to call Dancy.
Dancy will remember what the coach did for women’s basketball, a sport the NCAA didn’t even recognize when Summitt started coaching in 1974.
Before the vaunted Tennessee-UConn matchups there was Tennessee vs. Louisiana Tech. That’s the one Dancy, who coached high school basketball in Louisiana, remembers fondly as one of the first big rivalries in women’s basketball.
Back then, Dancy said Summitt would meet at former Louisiana Tech coach Sonja Hogg’s home to wash uniforms. Women’s basketball teams had to pool their resources during those days. The budget for the sport wasn’t there.
Summitt’s teams forced spectators to pay attention and changed the narrative.
Picking her brain
Dancy never missed an opportunity to attend one of Summitt’s coaching clinics or appearances. She attended so many, Summitt started to recognize her by face.
“She would see me and go, ‘Hey, come over here. Let’s talk,’” Dancy said. “I would pick her brain about something maybe I saw them do. Like, ‘Hey coach, can you explain that out-of-bounds play?’ She always remembered who you were.”
Like Dancy, Cy-Fair girls basketball coach Ann Roubique remembers when there was only one televised women’s basketball game a year — the national championship.
Summitt was always a proponent of growing the game. Just two years before Summitt’s Tennessee career began, Roubique experienced Title IX’s introduction, which empowered women in sports.
Then she watched Summitt and her teams shatter expectations.
“She spoke volumes for a lot of us,” Roubique said. “At the moment, it just transformed anything that we could do as female athletes.”