Pat Summitt diagnosed w/dementia?

Per Doyle, announcement supposedly coming today and she plans to coach this season. Wow. Only 59. Horrible news if the diagnosis is true.

http://www.cbssports.com/general/story/15473196/vols-summitt-diagnosed-with-dementia-will-try-to-coach

 

Just an incredible woman. I dealt with her once early in my career and I was blown away at how helpful she was. Just a class act across the board.

Very sad...

 

Was Geno spreading more rumors?

Godspeed, Pat.

 

Confirmed in an interview with the Knoxville News-Sentinel:

http://www.govolsxtra.com/news/2011/aug/23/pat-summitt-diagnosed-early-onset-dementia/

 

Terrible. Just terrible.

I was at a coaching clinic in Knoxville several years ago when I was still coaching prep hoops. She was one of the speakers, along with Kevin O'Neill, Bob Huggins, and Gary Williams.

She gave everyone there her office and home phone numbers and told us not to hesitate to call her if she could ever be of help to us.

I got up the courage to call her in the office one day to talk me through one of her zone offense sets. nary expecting a call back once I left the message.

About 45 minutes later, Pat Summit was calling my house and answered every question I could muster during our five minute conversation.

Amazing coach, great woman. Pure class all the way.

 

What are the odds on Geno making a tasteless crack about this at some point this season?

 

He'll take the high road for a week.

 

I can't imagine that even Geno, as un-PC as he can be at times, would do something like that.

 

Wasn't Geno the one tossing out the lesbian rumors on the recruiting trail?

 

My situation was similar... I was just out of school and I was doing a feature on a local coach who had been one of her assistants. I called the SID, told them what I was doing but was told she was on vacation.

If memory serves, she called me, left a message and gave me three numbers to call her back on. We continued to play phone tag and at one point she said, "I'm sorry I keep missing you, but let me tell you a story about (her) and leaves an anecdote that wound up being my lead. I finally got her on the phone, we talked for probably close to an hour and she said, "You know, there's a great picture of her with me. I'll have it sent to you."

This was way before photos were emailed, but she had it FedExed to me the next day. It was a great photo that wound up being the main art for a Sunday feature.

After the story came out, she called me to tell me how much she liked the article.

Just one of the nicest and classiest people ever. I don't pay much attention to women's hoops, but I'm always happy when Tennessee wins and she's the only reason why.

 

He's done that for years...