Pat Summitt diagnosed w/dementia?

Terrific job, especially considering the disclaimer that she counts Pat Summitt as her best friend.

That had to be a horribly difficult story to write. And just as I was thinking what a great son she had raised she ends with him.

Very nice.

 

To say Summitt = good, Geno = bad? My guess is that oversimplifies it. To me they seem incredibly complicated, and like the rest of us, flawed.

Their rivalry is probably one of the best in sports, and it's a story that really hasn't been fully told. This is the next chapter in a probably Adams/Jefferson-esque relationship.

As for what's next, she's earned the right to do what she wants. Which is probably beat Geno for a National Championship.

 

A writer who covered Geno for a few of the championship years described Geno as "a despicable puke masquerading as a human being."

I only dealt with him a couple times and while he wasn't awful, you could see it in his eyes that he would be a fucking nightmare to cover, even though he fills the notebook.

One of his redeeming qualities is that most of the women he recruits are very good people and most think the world of him. So that says something...

 

I don't know her and have never interviewed her. I just hope this doesn't turn out to be a Dick Clark situation where she ends up working long past when she's physically able because she wants to and no one can tell her to stop.

 

It does. My mom was diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment in '09. Two months later, Mayo in Rochester said she had early-onset dementia. Two months later she went into hospice here at home. And then we lost her a few weeks later.

 

I have been thinking the same thing. Sadly, dementia and Alzheimer's are undefeated.

 

couldn't agree more with this and jeff's take, as stated in my earlier post.

 

I was the cub sports reporter, handling the women's basketball beat at my school paper, doing an advance for Tennessee's visit to our school. As you can imagine, the game itself was a 50-point beatdown.

I didn't expect her to call back. My phone rings 30 minutes later and that voice.
"This Pat Summitt..." My jaw dropped. I got plenty from that 20-minute conversation and she remembered my name from then on out. I'm just glad I never had to face that withering stare.

I remember during that game, UT leading by 50 and one of her players went into the bench after a loose ball with just two minutes left in the second half.

She's a total class act and it's a sad, sad day for sports.

 

Same here. What made it worse was listening to him talk about losing his mother to Alzheimer's. Not an emotional man, I could hear the strain in his voice.
"It's never a good day when your own mother doesn't know who the hell you are."
He was diagnosed two years and passed away last May. I miss him so much. Watching him waste away like that hurt like nothing else.