Tennessee’s Pat Summit Leaves Head Coaching Position After Nearly 40 Years

When it comes to basketball’s greatest coaches of all time it’s easy to pick a bunch of men’s names out of a hat but one of the most respected coaches for the last 38 years has been Tennessee Lady Vols coach Pat Summit.

Now after 38 years and eight national titles the championship collecting coach has announced that she’ll be stepping down as the schools head coach.

Instead the 59-year-old Summit will take on a less demanding position as the schools “coach emeritus.”

Pat Summit at this time has not given a reason for her decision to leave the head coaching position but she did say of the move “I feel really good about my decision.” In August 24, 2011 Summit shocked her players and the schools fans when she announced she was suffering from the signs of early onset dementia which may have played a role in this recent decision.

Taking over for Summit will be associate head coach Holly Warlick. When asked by the Associated Press about Holly taking over Pat said of the teams new head coach:

“I feel like Holly’s been doing the bulk of it. She deserves to be the head coach.”

Pat Summit leaves behind the sport as the biggest winning coach of all time and she isn’t quite out of the picture. According to Summit her new position will allow her to attend practices, talk with players and at least partially participate in recruiting new girls to the team. Although despite her hope of dealing directly with the team on some sort of level Summit admits of her “coach emeritus” position:

“I don’t know exactly what it’s going to be.”

We have seen many coaches excel at their craft but very few of them last 38 years at the top of their sport, we wish Pat Summit all the best as she embarks on the next part of her journey.