The Final Season

FOREWORD INDIES GOLD AWARD, SPORTS CATEGORY, 2016 With 1,098 wins and eight national championships, the University of Tennessee women's basketball coach Pat Summitt established a remarkable tradition of perseverance, leadership, and passion for the game—but her victories on the court aren't the only legacy she left in her wake. From the beginning of her career as the Lady Vols head coach at twenty-two years old, Pat Head Summitt effectively established the University of Tennessee Lady Vols as the top women's athletics program in the nation. She became the winningest coach in the history of NCAA basketball, but the lives she impacted along the way constitute her true legacy. An exemplary role model for young women, expecting nothing but the best from her players and those around her, her stature never faltered—not even during her final season as head coach, when she faced her fiercest adversary yet: the diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer's disease. This tenth-anniversary edition of The Final Season: The Perseverance of Pat Summitt tells the story of Summitt's final coaching season through the eyes of those who knew her best. Coaches, players, staff, friends, and her son share their memories of Summitt's thirty-eight years as head coach. From the championship moments that will be cherished forever to the final goodbyes hours before she died, these new stories—at once sad, humorous, and poignant—capture the essence of a coach whose true legacy isn't measured in wins, but in the enduring Lady Vols family she brought together.