The call came in three years ago last August: Pat Summitt was going to be in Kansas City for a coaching clinic and had about an hour and half available around lunchtime Saturday if I wanted to talk to her.
|  | | Pat Summitt and son Tyler have had several occasions to cut down nets over the Lady Vols' six NCAA championship seasons. |
Oh, gee, let me check my day-planner, see if I'm free ...
Are you kidding? An hour and a half? Just me?
No TV reporters to ask, "Coach, can you just talk about the growth of women's sports?" No radio dingbat saying, "Well, from what I hear, they play some pretty good basketball down in Tennessee. You all have won a few championships, haven't you?"
Yeah, it was just me ... but then I knew part of that time should go toward getting Summitt out to Kemper Arena, which would be the site of the Women's Final Four the next March, to get a photo for my newspaper.
That's fine, I was told, you can just pick her up at the clinic site and drive her to Kemper.
Now, this doesn't sound like a big deal, going from the University of Missouri-Kansas City gym, where the clinic was, to Kemper Arena. Except:
1. No matter where I've lived, or for how long, I pretty much master the way to and from work but little else.
2. Let's face it, I could get lost in my own house.
3. To get lost, to even appear uncertain where one is going with anyone else in the car is very uncomfortable.
4. To do it with Pat Summitt is unthinkable.
At any rate, after studying the map, carefully printing directions, listening to co-workers say it just wasn't that difficult -- "OK you have to be aware of some one-way streets and who knows if you'll run into some construction detours, but ..."
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I love the game, I love what I do. I know plenty of people who are miserable doing what they do. But I get paid to do something I absolutely love. ” |
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— Tennessee coach Pat Summitt |
I took two dry runs. But remained convinced that when Pat Summitt shut the door, I would immediately forget how to drive.
I didn't tell anyone this, though, because journalists are supposed to be jaded, cynical, sarcastic, bloodless and thoroughly unimpressed by everything.
They are supposed to say, "Big deal, I've talked to Pat Summitt a lot of times and so what?" They are not supposed to say, "This is such a big deal because it's Pat Summitt, one of the greatest coaches in sports history, and she's going to be in my vehicle. God, I've got to vacuum this rug. And that dashboard ... where's the Armor All?"
But then a salvation -- the person who set up the interview, KC Final Four executive director Brenda Van Langen -- met me at UMKC and said she'd be happy to drive while I did the interview.
Now, I just had to ask decent questions. That was the other thing I'd been thinking about a lot, and I had decided upon inquiring about strategic specifics, not all that big-picture malarkey that Summitt no doubt has addressed 4 billion times.
But before the interrogation even started, she mentioned she was writing a book.
"A book about coaching?"
Well, yes, she explained, but not really about Xs and Os or strategy but rather about the things she thought made for successful people whether they were coaches or athletes or whatever.
Sigh. Now how was I supposed to ask about Xs and Os? The heck with it -- just ask about all the stuff I was truly curious about.
When did she not think about basketball?
"Well, there are times," Summitt said. "But writing a book, it's been hard not to think about it all. I think I dreamed about it last night,
actually."
How much had she had to adjust her ways in her 20-plus years?
"I can't see myself being the Pat Summitt of 10 years ago and being successful," she said. "Because kids are different. The game has
changed."
In the 1996 and '97 NCAA title games, Tennessee had to face teams -- Georgia and Old Dominion, respectively -- that it had lost to during the regular season. Summitt talked about the preparation for both: the individual duties of each assistant, how they talked to the players, what they did in practice.
But how had she slept the nights before those two title games?
"Like a rock," she said. "I think it's because I'm so tired when I finally lay down that my head hits the pillow and I'm out.
"The hardest time I had sleeping was in '95, in both those (semifinal and championship) games I had a hard time. I think it was the pressure I put on myself to help that class, which hadn't been to a Final Four and wanted the championship in the worst way possible."
But it didn't happen; Connecticut beat Tennessee for the '95 title. What was it like to have the bar set so high that anything less than a national championship was considered a failure?
"The Final Four is expected and a national championship is the goal. You expect to be there," Summitt said. "I can always look back and second-guess: Do we put too much emphasis on winning, too much on the Final Four?
"But I really believe that you have to expect to be No. 1 to have a shot at it. That's just the way I am. I think our players have to get to that mentality. Because if they don't, then how can you push them so hard every day? What are you working so hard for in October?"
How much did having such a veteran and accomplished staff help in Tennessee's consistent dominance?
"I can't tell you enough of what they mean to me. It's hard to explain that to people," she said. "All I can tell you is I do believe that having that consistency on your staff is just as important as having senior leadership. I've got it every year. We step into practice, and everyone is on the same page. We can all four be teachers."
How much did she break down games play-by-play?
|  | | In December, Pat Summitt, right, receiving a hug from Niya Butts, became the 18th coach to win at least 700 games. Many of those wins came in the last decade. |
"(There are) games that I can almost remember every possession," she said. "I have a photographic memory when it comes to basketball games, probably more so when we lose."
There had been a game the previous season where Summitt had allowed the TV cameras in at halftime. During her talk with the team, she'd said, "We're playing like we're scared out there. 'Mique, not you, but everybody else."
This was back when there was only one "Meek" on the team, Chamique Holdsclaw. I knew Summitt didn't have a problem singling out a player for criticism but was it difficult to single out someone for praise, as far as how the rest of the team would take it?
"No, that's not hard for me at all," she said. "I'm a confronter. I don't tell people what they want to hear, I tell them what they need to
hear. If I go in (at halftime) and one's been doing a great job on the boards, I'll tell her that. And then I may turn to somebody else and say, 'Where are you?' "
Of course, this was 1997 -- before Tamika Catchings, Semeka Randall and Ace Clement actually had played a game, before the 39-0 season. Even so, Summitt was coming off back-to-back national titles and Tennessee was clearly the favorite for the upcoming season. I wondered how Summitt went about passing the weight of the legacy on to each teenaged kid who came into the program.
"Tennessee has a place in history, and we're proud of that. But this isn't about the past now," she said. "Every year is about that team. I tell every team, you don't have to feel the pressure that you've got to do this for Tennessee. This is all about you. You are the team."
Finally, despite all the victories, no team -- not even Tennessee -- can win all the time. Summitt had always said that the 1990 East Regional loss to Virginia -- which kept Tennessee from playing in the Final Four in Knoxville -- was the worst thing she'd been through professionally.
But she'd responded to that by coming back the next year and leading her team to the NCAA title, over Virginia, no less.
Ultimately, Summitt had an ability to deal with disappointment that actually was critical to being able to inspire championships.
"You have to be able to handle success and failure if you're going to stay in this business and keep your sanity," she said. "I tell our
players, 'Nothing is as good as it seems or as bad. Twenty-four hours, enjoy it and move on. Twenty-four hours, handle it and move on. That's our philosophy. Just remember, nothing good or bad lasts forever.' "
This isn't all that Summitt talked about that afternoon -- I got more like 2½ hours -- but that's some of the highlights. It was her 17th wedding anniversary, and she was in Kansas City teaching the triangle offense, posing for pictures, answering questions and seemed like it was just a fine way to spend a blistering hot August afternoon.
Another thing -- we'd had a photo shoot set up near Kemper where they have a bunch of these cow sculptures -- this is Cowtown, USA, you know -- and then we needed to take Summitt about a half-mile up the road to Kemper itself.
Brenda had left briefly to get lunch for Summitt, so our transportation was the photographer's beat-up hatchback.
To my horror, and before I could say anything, Summitt climbed into the back seat of this piece of junk -- we were at the point of the interview where she was talking about telling Holdsclaw that she was doing well while everyone else wasn't -- and squeezed herself and her bad, surgery-scarred knees in.
"Oh, no," I said, "you don't have to sit back there."
Summitt just laughed.
"Hey, it's OK," she said. "I'm fine. Next question."
I thought about it all quite a lot that weekend. Summitt's success was undeniable, inscribed in the record books and symbolized by the trophies in the cases at Thompson-Boling.
But there was something else that made her, well ... "legendary" was the word that kept coming to mind, even though that word -- like so many others in our language -- gets tossed around too easily.
Some coaches and fans in women's hoops begrudge Tennessee the success it has had, and it's human nature to be just a little jealous, just a little sick of the Orange Nation.
Want the truth? Those of us who cover women's hoops get tired of writing about it, too, just because you feel like you've told the same story over and over.
But that day talking to Summitt, I realized more than ever how much of her life she gave to this sport, how genuine her affection for it was, and how that benefited so many people far beyond Tennessee.
And I actually remember wondering what people would think someday many years in the future when they saw her plaque in the Basketball Hall of Fame -- if they'd know this wasn't just a person who won a million games but who climbed into little cars on hot days to promote her sport.
Now Summitt is being inducted into the Hall, the one in Springfield, Mass., and the last thing she said that day in Kansas City three years ago could be on her plaque because it explains exactly how Pat Summitt became the coach she is.
"I love the game, I love what I do," she said. "I know plenty of people who are miserable doing what they do. But I get paid to do something I absolutely love."
Mechelle Voepel of the Kansas City Star is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. She can be reached via e-mail at mvoepel@kcstar.com.
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AUDIO VIDEO
 Pat Summitt on all that has changed in her 25 years of coaching Tennessee women's basketball.
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Hall of Fame coach Pat Summitt talks about the increased popularity of women's basketball.
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Will we one day see Pat Summitt coaching the Tennessee men's basketball team? Summitt answers.
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