Sum It Up: A Thousand and Ninety-Eight Victories, a Couple of Irrelevant Losses, and a Life in Perspective

by Pat Summitt

  It was an encouraging trip—we beat DePaul handily and then made a big comeback against Rutgers after trailing by 11 points in the second half. Afterward, Vivian gave me a huge hug, and told the press graciously, “They’re playing in Pat’s image. It’s a tribute to her.”

  A day later we flew out to California for a two-game swing against UCLA and Stanford, and between contests I met up with Billie for a day trip to the Banner Alzheimer’s Institute in Phoenix, for yet another consultation. At first I was reluctant to go—“What else are they going to tell me?” I asked. But I won’t ever question the value of a third opinion again.

  Banner is a nonprofit, outpatient care and research facility devoted exclusively to Alzheimer’s, and its goal is to think and act boldly. It’s run by Dr. Eric Reiman and Dr. Pierre Tariot, whose mission is “to end Alzheimer’s disease before another generation is lost.” They emphasize innovation and “immediately applying discovery to patients”—meaning that if something seems to help, they do it, and don’t hem and haw. From the moment I set foot on the premises, I loved them. They believed that “hope and help are possible now” when it came to Alzheimer’s, and they were talking my language.

  I spent a half day with them and left with new recommendations to think about. What impressed me most was their combination of optimism and specificity, their willingness to address my personal goals and professional challenges in dealing with Alzheimer’s, rather than to make cookie-cutter pronouncements. They recommended that I get further neuropsychological testing to discern the individual pattern of strengths and weaknesses in my brain. “We’re going to give you a scouting report of the opponent,” Dr. Tariot said. “And we’re going to give you a game plan.”

  Some of their recommendations were basic. There was a possible connection between Alzheimer’s and vitamin B12 deficiency, so they suggested I get supplemental shots, which no one had mentioned before. They suggested that I drink loads of water—if Alzheimer’s is an autoimmune disorder, then hydrating would help. They proposed that I think about my brain as an athlete: I should train for optimum performance. Sometimes my circuits would work, and sometimes they wouldn’t—what circumstances were most conducive to them working? They recommended that I concentrate for ninety minutes at a time, and then take ninety minutes off, with periodic naps. Rest was as good as medication, they said.

  Some of the advice was startling. I asked about the effect of stress: they responded that a certain amount of stress was actually good for people. Challenge, pressure, releases chemicals that sharpen the senses and invigorate us, helps us perform more efficiently, and actually improves the memory. Far from being something I needed to eliminate, some stress could stimulate me. But I had to be careful and not overdo it. The greater enemy was sloth, inactivity.

  We also discussed emerging treatments; but I eventually decided against participating in any clinical trials, primarily because my arthritis regimen conflicted with some of the medications. We agreed that I would continue to explore and consider other treatments. I wanted to think “aggressively,” I said.

  What I liked best about the people at Banner was that they talked about working with Alzheimer’s—working around it, working despite it, working against it. Dr. Tariot had seen a range of professionals stricken with the disease who continued to do what they loved—including doctors, dentists, lawyers, and CEOs of large companies—gradually refining their roles to accommodate the effects. Just because I might have to throttle back on some of my responsibilities, he suggested, didn’t mean I had to throttle back on everything. There was a whole range of possibilities, and one size didn’t fit all.

  “When you got arthritis, you had to change some things, right?” he asked.

  I said, “Of course.”

  “You adapted.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “This is the same. You can adapt to it.”

  He said, “You are still Pat. You’ve got a new normal, you have a chronic illness, but it doesn’t mean you have to curl up in a ball and die. It does not need to be the social kiss of death. You have new weaknesses but also many strengths you can capitalize on.”

  This is a very slowly progressive condition, and people progress at different rates; it’s not like something is going to happen overnight. In her case she invited total candor about the pros and cons of her high-profile, high-pressure role, and we were able to talk about positives and negatives of that. There’s a whole spectrum, and it’s interesting because professional organizations and corporations are beginning to have to come to terms with this. When does a trial lawyer with mild Alzheimer’s have to have his or her competency called into question, and why? Or a doctor? These are real issues.

  —DR. PIERRE TARIOT

  I left Banner feeling more optimistic than at any time since I’d been diagnosed. I had a game plan, and I had a team.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t capitalize on my strengths in our next game—and neither did anyone else. I caught up with our team at our hotel just off the Stanford campus, and our staff headed to dinner at a small restaurant just down the block. Mickie had on a new pair of boots, and as we walked, one of her shoelaces came untied. She glanced down and decided she would deal with it when we got to the restaurant. But about thirty feet from the front door, I accidentally stepped on the shoelace—and Mickie went sprawling. She fractured her right arm and wound up in a cast.

  It was just the latest injury to our staff; a few weeks earlier, Holly had fractured her hand when the heel of her shoe caught as she was stepping off the plane after the media day in Birmingham. She was in a cast too. The next day we went over to Stanford’s Maples Pavilion for practice, and Tara VanDerveer and her staff wandered out to the floor to greet us.

  “What happened to you?” Tara said to Mickie.

  “I got hit by a bus,” Mickie said.

  “You need to stay away from us,” Holly said. “Summitt’s the only one in good shape.”

  We were in no condition for a fight; Stanford killed us that night, 97–80. It was the start of a terrible stretch in which our season appeared to be going down the drain. On January 12, 2012, we went to Kentucky and lost by a single point, 61–60, on a last-second shot when we got bitten by our lack of enthusiasm for defense, a chronic problem with our team for four years.

  A week later LSU came to town led by Nikki Caldwell, who had become a superb head coach and also, to our collective joy, was pregnant and due in March. As I hugged her, I couldn’t help but think back to my own radiance when I was pregnant. Nikki strolled into Thompson-Boling looking gorgeously self-satisfied, and everybody gathered around and patted her stomach. We studied whether she was carrying the baby low or high and discussed whether it would be a girl or a boy. Girl, we decided. That night there was a baby shower at a local hotel, and her team came in to say hello, a bunch of gangly-armed kids with lighted-up expressions when they looked at their coach, whom they clearly loved. One of them did a dead-on impression of Caldwell for us: she stalked around and then folded her arms and blasted the kids with her intense gaze and said, “Don’t PUT something on my board you can’t back up!”

  I surveyed apprehensively how big and athletic LSU looked—and dreaded having to play them the next day. “Pool party at my house,” I told them. “No curfew.”

  I was right; the next day was no fun at all. Nikki’s coaching style was very much like ours, with an emphasis on physical defense, and it was a stalemate of a game that left both teams absolutely battered. Somehow, we won, 65–56, but in the locker room I heard one of the kids say, “I feel like I’ve been in a prizefight.”

  The Lady Vols were bruised and beat up. Shekinna, never the most energetic of players, was hobbling and sore. Taber was not practicing full court because of lingering knee pain. Glory had tape all over her shoulder. And Vicki was wearing a brace on her twice-repaired knee. They limped as bad as me. In the next game, Notre Dame killed us, 72–44.

  Everything I feared about trying to coach with illness seemed
to be coming true. We went to Vanderbilt and got crushed by the always-sharp Melanie Balcomb’s team, 93–79. The worst part was, we were tied with twelve minutes to go, only to give up 40 points in twelve minutes. Forty.

  I was sick as a dog—and not just because of the game. Mickie had come down with a terrible stomach ailment and passed it on to me. That morning I wasn’t sure I could make it to the sideline, but Jenny Moshak gave me something that calmed my insides. I sat on the bench pale and trembling, and I don’t remember much about the day, except making it home to Knoxville, just in time to go into my darkened bedroom and begin throwing up again.

  A day later, a columnist for the Nashville paper said I looked disoriented on the sideline, that I wasn’t the same coach I had been, and that it was time for me to step down because my health was affecting the Lady Vols.

  I was aware that cameras were homing in on me, and that observers wanted my old demeanor back, the spirited bench coach, twitchy, exercised, up and down out of my chair. I also knew that any sign of vulnerability would be blamed on Alzheimer’s. I didn’t care; I had surrendered my vanity when I decided to coach with an illness. I was more engaged than they realized—and I wasn’t quite sure what they expected. I didn’t see things as well as I used to, which was why I turned the play calling over to Holly. I was trying to conserve my energy and manage my stress, and the arthritis made it hard to move around. Acting like a madwoman just wasn’t a realistic performance anymore.

  But I was still the big gun in the locker room. The players responded when I mustered my voice and told them what needed to be done with my old adamant, contagious certainty. We were at a juncture where things could go either way. On February 13, Kentucky came to Thompson-Boling for a rematch, with our entire season on the line. We badly needed a defeat of a ranked team to position ourselves for a postseason run. Dean gave a great, sharp pregame talk. “We’ve been uneven and we’ve had our ups and downs,” he said. “But there is one thing I know. All we got is in this room. Look at the person next to you.”

  The kids all turned their heads. “That’s what we got,” he said. “Each other.”

  Now I stepped to the front of the room. There was no point in dodging the subject. Instead of avoiding it, I decided to go right at it.

  “Y’all, we got to have this one,” I said. “It’s a must win.”

  The kids nodded. “Last time it was their turn,” I said. “One-point loss, on their floor. But now we’re at home—and we’re not losing. Guess what. It’s OUR TURN!”

  That sent them out the door flying. Meighan hit two huge threes and blocked a shot, Stricklen made a stunning spin move in the lane, and Vicki Baugh leaped up around the rim like she was on a pogo stick.

  We beat ’em by 40.

  We were back in the national conversation and had rescued our self-respect, and we were starting to look like a traditional Tennessee team again. Our problems weren’t solved by a long shot, but we were headed back in the right direction.

  We won two games in Mississippi to climb back into first place in the Southeastern Conference. It was a relief to us all—except for young Isabelle Harrison, who started crying on the bench because she wasn’t getting enough playing time. Izzy was a beautiful young talent who ached to be great, but she was playing behind Glory Johnson and Vicki Baugh, experienced seniors and WNBA draft prospects. She was impatient to get on the court to the point of tears.

  I sympathized, but the coach in me couldn’t afford to show it. Izzy hadn’t cried when Notre Dame slaughtered us, because she got to play a lot in that one. But she was in tears when we beat Ole Miss? Unacceptable. After consulting with Holly, Mickie, and Dean, I stalked into the locker room. “Are you sick?” I demanded. “What’s the matter with you?” She sobbed something about not getting to play.

  “If you don’t quit crying right now, it’ll be a lot more than one game you don’t play in.”

  But the next afternoon I sat down with Izzy for a quiet talk and explained that court time had to be earned with maturity and consistency. Part of the reason for our streakiness was that our team had some lingering immaturity; even our seniors had a childish streak trapped in their big bodies. They carried around stuffed animals as good luck charms, and they named them. Ariel clutched a bear named “Kaiden.” There was a lion cub named “Leo.” Glory carted around a large, limp monkey that she named “Ralph.” Ralph? College women, with stuffed toys. I rolled my eyes, but I couldn’t help laughing. They drove our staff to cross-eyed distraction, but they were tremendously entertaining, and I adored them—in a funny way.

  At a team breakfast in Mississippi, they argued over whether or not they were “grown.” It was a debate that had raged all season, thanks to Daedra, who liked to scold them by saying, “You think you’re grown, but you’re not.” Harston contributed by taking the players’ side and whipped them into a frenzy.

  “How many of you pay taxes, raise your hands?” Daedra asked at breakfast.

  No hands went up. “See. You’re not grown.”

  Harston jumped in to defend them.

  “How many of you worked summer camp and got W-2s?”

  Hands went up. “You’re grown,” Harston announced.

  “No, they ain’t!” Daedra came back. “They’re not grown until they have a car and a house payment.”

  “How many of you have cars?” Harston asked.

  Hands went up. “You’re grown,” she announced.

  Daedra shot back, “How many of your mamas and daddies pay your insurance?”

  By now things were getting loud; kids were whooping and hollering and banging their silverware on the table, insisting they were grown. Harston kept ratcheting it up and getting sillier.

  “How many of you eat your steak medium rare?” Harston demanded.

  Hands went up.

  “You’re grown,” Harston announced.

  Daedra said, “How many of you don’t think you’re grown?”

  Ariel’s hand went up. Ariel still let her mother do her hair.

  A-Town’s hand went partly up. Glory gasped. “A-Town! You’re a senior! You have to be grown.”

  Harston said, “Okay, here’s the deal. You’re grown if the coaches don’t have to yell at you one more time this season, ‘You need to GROW UP!’ ”

  All of a sudden there was dead silence. Shekinna shrank back in her chair. The coaches erupted in laughter.

  They never made anything easy. But in the final home game of the season, we started our five seniors, and they walloped Florida 75–59. We sensed that our team had turned an emotional corner, and after talking with them, we decided to go with the all-senior lineup the rest of the way. I wanted to let them play it out.

  As we approached the postseason, the tension drained away from me. I felt thoughtful, clear, and completely in the moment, which was where I wanted to be. I knew that I had a decision to make about whether to stay on as head coach after the season, which had been visibly hard on our staff. Holly was working so frantically on the bench that she’d sweat until her blond hair turned dark with moisture. Mickie had ongoing problems with her stomach. Harston had a theory about that. “Mickie needs to learn that chips and salsa are not a fiber,” she said. But I didn’t want to consciously address the question yet, for fear of distracting or torpedoing our team. I wanted all of us to get through the tournament without that pressure, to enjoy it without thinking about the future.

  I walked through those last few games full of emotion, in a good way. I was suffused with a heightened sense of love for the game, the glorious action, the magnificent shapes of the players flying through the air, and the steadfast friends who stood beside me on the sideline. Our team gathered itself and gave me one more climb up a ladder to cut down nets. We swept through the Southeastern Conference tournament with our best three games of the year, mowing down Vanderbilt, South Carolina, and LSU in that order.

  Holly texted Nikki Caldwell on the night before the SEC title game. “I hope your water breaks,” she
wrote.

  Nikki texted back: “It already did and I have a little point guard ready to go.”

  After the trophy and net cutting, I climbed back down the ladder with a piece of silk net in my hand and made my way to the locker room, where I told our kids what was in my heart. It had been a long season, with seven losses, but I wanted them to understand that they could never disappoint me. They were my perpetual remedy, and my cure. “You are one of my favorite teams ever,” I said. They jumped around and screamed with joy like they’d just won the lottery.

  Two days later we went back into the gym to get ready for the NCAA tournament, and we heard that Nikki’s baby had been born: little Justice Caldwell had come into the world. Her mother carried her around much as Tyler had been carried as a newborn; Justice attended her first practice when she was just a few days old. It was an inexpressibly sweet turn of the generational wheel.

  The NCAA tournament was full of bookend moments like that for me. When the brackets were announced, of all schools, we drew UT-Martin for our first-round opponent. “Isn’t that precious?” I said to our coaches. A handful of my Chi O friends drove to Chicago to see us play, including my old teammate Esther Hubbard, who teased me by telling everybody, “I had to stay on her ass. All she wanted to do was shoot.”

  “That’s why we won,” I said.

  Dean gave our kids a motto for staying focused on one game at a time in the tournament: “If you chase two rabbits, you won’t catch one.” It was an old proverb that, given their love of stuffed animals, spoke to them. We blew Martin out, 72–49, and steadily worked our way deeper into the tournament. We defeated DePaul, 63–48, to get to the Sweet 16. We moved on to Des Moines, Iowa, where we dispatched Kansas, 84–73.

  “Good win,” Holly said. “Caught a rabbit.”

  “Got the dinner,” Glory said, clapping.

  “Silly rabbit,” Kamiko said.

  But there was no rabbit waiting for us in the Elite Eight; there was a competitive monster: Baylor, coached by my former point guard on the ’84 Olympic team, Kim Mulkey. Baylor was undefeated thanks to the marvelous coaching job Kim did with her six-foot-eight prodigy, Brittney Griner, who was having a Player of the Year season. I sat with Holly and we devised the only game plan that made any sense: we’d attack them from the outside, with four players on the perimeter to try to stretch them out. It was our only chance against “the Griner Factor,” as I called it.