[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 60 (Wednesday, April 25, 2012)]
[House]
[Page H2075]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1020
                       HONORING COACH PAT SUMMITT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Tennessee (Mr. Duncan) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, last night I had the privilege 
of sitting with University of Tennessee Coach Pat Head Summitt as she 
received the top award presented by the National Alzheimer's 
Association. This is the Sargent and Eunice Shriver Profiles in Dignity 
Award, and it was presented by their well-known daughter, Maria.
  No one could have been more deserving of this award than Coach 
Summitt. As the Nation knows, she was diagnosed with early onset 
dementia, or Alzheimer's, almost a year ago. She made the decision to 
both go public with this diagnosis and continue coaching her beloved 
Lady Vols. Now she has decided to give up her coaching job after 38 
years to help lead the fight against Alzheimer's. She and her son, 
Tyler, have established the Pat Head Summitt Foundation to carry on 
this battle that is and will be so very, very important to millions of 
people.
  Pat Head Summitt is certainly the most admired and respected woman in 
Tennessee. She is my most famous constituent and a longtime friend. I 
have been honored on two occasions to be her honorary assistant coach. 
The first time was on her 25th anniversary as a coach, and the second 
time was a few years later against Vanderbilt on the last home game of 
the season. Before that game, we were given a scouting report, and 
Tennessee had beaten Vanderbilt in Nashville by 30 points. So it was 
accurate to say that the team was fairly confident about this game. 
However, at halftime, the game was almost tied, and the Lady Vols came 
into the locker room with their heads hanging down.
  That is when I saw Coach Summitt go into action. She got into each 
young woman's face like a baseball manager arguing with an umpire. She 
started with Lady Vol Teresa Geter, and told her in a drill sergeant's 
voice that she was going through a pity party out there and Coach 
Summitt was having no part of it and was giving her 2 minutes to make 
her presence known on that court or she was going to yank her out of 
there so fast it would make her head swim. When we went back out for 
the second half, the first thing that happened was that Teresa Geter 
stole the ball, took it down court, and scored her first 2 points of 
the game. The Lady Vols went on a 20 0 run, and Vanderbilt called a 
timeout.
  A spectator in the stands, whom I had not seen because there were 
20,000 people there, sent his card down to me on the bench, and it 
said, ``Jimmy, great halftime coaching, come again.'' But it was not 
me; it was Coach Summitt. In fact, when she was staring each one of her 
players in the face at halftime in an intensely angry, very loud voice, 
I was just glad I was not one of those players.
  Coach Summitt is the winningest coach in basketball history with 
1,098 victories. Her teams have won 16 Southeastern Conference 
Championships and eight national championships. She has coached in 18 
Final Fours. She has an 84 percentage winning record as a head coach. 
But to me, her most impressive statistic is a 100 percent graduation 
rate, and she did not allow her players to take easy courses. Let me 
repeat that. Every player who has ever played for Coach Summitt in her 
38 years has graduated. She made sure they were prepared for life after 
basketball, and almost all of her players have been successful after 
leaving the University of Tennessee. On top of all this, she has never 
had a question raised about her recruiting or any NCAA violation. She 
has shown through the years that you do not have to cheat in sports to 
win and be very successful.
  She has succeeded at her most important job--being a mother and 
raising her fine son, Tyler, who is following in his mother's footsteps 
and will soon start his first job as an assistant coach for the 
Marquette women's basketball team.
  Coach Summitt is a member of the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame and 
was NCAA Coach of the Year an unprecedented seven times. In 2008 she 
was named the Naismith Coach of the Year. Pat Head Summitt is a woman 
of honor and integrity. She has been a great, great success because of 
her very hard work, dedication, determination, and discipline. Most of 
her success she credits to hardworking parents and lessons learned on 
her family's Tennessee farm. This Nation is a better place today 
because of her work with young people and the inspiring example that 
she has set for all of us.
  Coach Pat Head Summitt is truly a great American, and I'm proud to 
call her one of my constituents and, as I said, one of my very, very 
close friends.

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