Health and End of Coaching Career
In August 2011, Summitt announced that she had been diagnosed three months earlier with early-onset Alzheimer's disease. Despite the diagnosis, she did complete the 2011-2012 season, but with a reduced role, while longtime assistant Holly Warlick, an assistant under Summitt since 1985, assumed most of the responsibilities.
In an interview with GoVolsXtra.com, she stated, "There's not going to be any pity party and I'll make sure of that."
After the season, which ended with the Lady Vols losing to the eventual unbeaten national champion Baylor Lady Bears in the Elite Eight in Des Moines, on April 18, 2012, Pat Summitt officially stepped down as head coach, ending her 38-year coaching career. Warlick was named Summitt's successor. In a statement accompanying her resignation, Summitt said, "I feel like Holly’s been doing the bulk of it, She deserves to be the head coach..." Summitt was given the title Head Coach Emeritus upon her resignation. According to NCAA regulations, as head coach emeritus, she will not be allowed to sit on the team bench.
Summitt finished her coaching career with 1,098 wins in 1,306 games coached in AIAW and NCAA Division I play. No other Division I basketball head coach, men's or women's, has more than 927 career wins as of the end of the 2011-12 season.
Read more about this topic: Pat Summitt
Famous quotes containing the words health and, health and/or career:
“Woman ... cannot be content with health and agility: she must make exorbitant efforts to appear something that never could exist without a diligent perversion of nature. Is it too much to ask that women be spared the daily struggle for superhuman beauty in order to offer it to the caresses of a subhumanly ugly mate?”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)
“... work is only part of a man’s life; play, family, church, individual and group contacts, educational opportunities, the intelligent exercise of citizenship, all play a part in a well-rounded life. Workers are men and women with potentialities for mental and spiritual development as well as for physical health. We are paying the price today of having too long sidestepped all that this means to the mental, moral, and spiritual health of our nation.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“I began my editorial career with the presidency of Mr. Adams, and my principal object was to render his administration all the assistance in my power. I flattered myself with the hope of accompanying him through [his] voyage, and of partaking in a trifling degree, of the glory of the enterprise; but he suddenly tacked about, and I could follow him no longer. I therefore waited for the first opportunity to haul down my sails.”
—William Cobbett (1762–1835)