What do you think?
Rate this book
Sum It Up: 1,098 Victories, a Couple of Irrelevant Losses, and a Life in Perspective
Pat Summitt, the all-time winningest coach in NCAA basketball history and bestselling author of Reach for the Summitt and Raise The Roof , tells for the first time her remarkable story of victory and resilience as well as facing down her greatest early-onset Alzheimer's disease.
Pat Summitt was only 21 when she became head coach of the Tennessee Vols women's basketball team. For 38 years, she broke records, winning more games than any NCAA team in basketball history. She coached an undefeated season, co-captained the first women's Olympic team, was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame, and was named Sports Illustrated 'Sportswoman of the Year'.
She owed her coaching success to her personal struggles and triumphs. She learned to be tough from her strict, demanding father. Motherhood taught her to balance that rigidity with communication and kindness. She was a role model for the many women she coached; 74 of her players have become coaches.
Pat's life took a shocking turn in 2011, when she was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease, an irreversible brain condition that affects 5 million Americans. Despite her devastating diagnosis, she led the Vols to win their sixteenth SEC championship in March 2012. Pat continued to be a fighter, facing this new challenge the way she's faced every other--with hard work, perseverance, and a sense of humor.
Pat Summitt was only 21 when she became head coach of the Tennessee Vols women's basketball team. For 38 years, she broke records, winning more games than any NCAA team in basketball history. She coached an undefeated season, co-captained the first women's Olympic team, was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame, and was named Sports Illustrated 'Sportswoman of the Year'.
She owed her coaching success to her personal struggles and triumphs. She learned to be tough from her strict, demanding father. Motherhood taught her to balance that rigidity with communication and kindness. She was a role model for the many women she coached; 74 of her players have become coaches.
Pat's life took a shocking turn in 2011, when she was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease, an irreversible brain condition that affects 5 million Americans. Despite her devastating diagnosis, she led the Vols to win their sixteenth SEC championship in March 2012. Pat continued to be a fighter, facing this new challenge the way she's faced every other--with hard work, perseverance, and a sense of humor.
416 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
8 people are currently reading
148 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
February 9, 2017
Pat Summitt: that prowl along the sidelines of the basketball court, that "I dare you NOT to win," death ray stare. That orange jacket, which Summitt describes as "A bold, aggravating color." That amazing record: eight national championships coaching the Lady Vols at the University of Tennessee.
Before reading Pat Summitt's autobiography, I knew very little about her beyond the fact she was the UT women's basketball coach, and they were a very tough team to beat. I didn't know Summitt reached her full height of five eleven when she was a "self-conscious, skinny" fifteen-year old. I didn't know that the first year she played college basketball for UT-Martin, she—and the other young women on the team—wore flat-soled sneakers made of canvas with metal eyes for laces. I didn't know the game was so sexist then that when the UT-Martin's women's team took the Tennessee State Title championship, winning 16-3, their reward was an invitation to the men's basketball banquet, where the women sat for hours, watching the men receive awards and congratulations. Eventually, Summit and the other young women were introduced and got to stand up for a moment. The men had won a total of three games that season. I didn't know she was named head coach of women's basketball at UT when she was just twenty-two and a college senior.
As one reviewer has noted, Summitt's book offers tremendous lessons for winning, whether on or off the court. It begins with Summitt's comment, "I remember—" and proceeding from there. She remembers her childhood growing up on a Tennessee farm: "I remember a leaning gray barn with an iron basketball rim mounted in the hayloft. At night after the chores . . . my three older brothers and I climbed to the loft for ball games in which they offered no quarter. Just elbows and fists, and the advice, 'Don't you cry. I better not see you cry.'" She remembers "learning to hit back—hard enough to send them through the gallery door into a ten-foot drop to the bales below."
She remembers sitting at the supper table one night, chanting a silly rhyme about eating beans—a ditty her brothers taught her—and how her father—"a towering, unsmiling" man—backhanded her so hard, she went flying out of her chair across the room in a backflip. She remembers the day when she was leaving for college at UT-Martin and told her mother she loved her. As she turned to her father, he said, "Shut up."
Not that Summitt blames her father or anyone else for a hard childhood; in fact, that childhood is what made her tough as a player on the basketball court, and later, as a coach. As she says, that childhood made her determined to prove she was a winner, one who deserved love and praise. In fact, she was supposed to attend high school in Clarksville, TN—where education officials had abolished basketball for girls because it was too rough. When her father heard this, he promptly moved the family just over the Cheatham County line, where she could play for Ashland City High School—which had an excellent team. Pat Summitt earned the stare and the steely, blue-eyed glare.
From "what she remembers," Summitt turns quickly to "Here are some of the things I don't remember." Sometimes, when she first wakes up in the morning, she doesn't remember where she is. When she begins to answer a question, sometimes the subject slips away "like a thread" through her fingers. This is because in the late spring of 2011, when she was fifty-nine and still coaching the UT women, she was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease, the progressive neurological illness that attacks the brain.
She could not—would not—accept this. She's Pat Summitt. But soon she realized that whereas before she had watched ten players at once—the whole court, analyzing patterns and ordering attacks—now she saw only a blur. She became confused in the heat of the game. And so in 2012, her close friend and assistant coach, Holly Warwick, became the Lady Vols head coach.
This is a straightforward, honest look at life through the eyes and experience of a woman who lives hers with dignity and grace. And basketball—Summitt does not hesitate to replay games on the page. The huge wins. (The subtitle is "1,098 Victories, a Couple of Irrelevant Losses, and a Life in Perspective.") The close relationship with her players on and off the court—"a mix of love, fury and manipulation," the "New York Times" said in its admiring review of the book. And one huge and devastating diagnosis. With help from her doctors, Summitt attacked her illness with a "game plan." How to face it. How to stare it down. She now serves as the head coach emeritus of the Tennessee Lady Vols basketball team, and, as of 2012, she had missed only two workouts with the team.
Note: Pat Summitt coached from 1974 to 2012, all with the Lady Vols, and in those four decades, she never had a losing season. She was named the Naismith Basketball Coach of the Century in April 2000. In 2009, the "Sporting News" placed her number eleven on its list of the 50 Greatest Coaches of All Time in ALL sports; she was the only woman on the list. In 2012, the White House announced that Pat Summitt would be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. She died June 28, 2016 at age sixty-four.
Before reading Pat Summitt's autobiography, I knew very little about her beyond the fact she was the UT women's basketball coach, and they were a very tough team to beat. I didn't know Summitt reached her full height of five eleven when she was a "self-conscious, skinny" fifteen-year old. I didn't know that the first year she played college basketball for UT-Martin, she—and the other young women on the team—wore flat-soled sneakers made of canvas with metal eyes for laces. I didn't know the game was so sexist then that when the UT-Martin's women's team took the Tennessee State Title championship, winning 16-3, their reward was an invitation to the men's basketball banquet, where the women sat for hours, watching the men receive awards and congratulations. Eventually, Summit and the other young women were introduced and got to stand up for a moment. The men had won a total of three games that season. I didn't know she was named head coach of women's basketball at UT when she was just twenty-two and a college senior.
As one reviewer has noted, Summitt's book offers tremendous lessons for winning, whether on or off the court. It begins with Summitt's comment, "I remember—" and proceeding from there. She remembers her childhood growing up on a Tennessee farm: "I remember a leaning gray barn with an iron basketball rim mounted in the hayloft. At night after the chores . . . my three older brothers and I climbed to the loft for ball games in which they offered no quarter. Just elbows and fists, and the advice, 'Don't you cry. I better not see you cry.'" She remembers "learning to hit back—hard enough to send them through the gallery door into a ten-foot drop to the bales below."
She remembers sitting at the supper table one night, chanting a silly rhyme about eating beans—a ditty her brothers taught her—and how her father—"a towering, unsmiling" man—backhanded her so hard, she went flying out of her chair across the room in a backflip. She remembers the day when she was leaving for college at UT-Martin and told her mother she loved her. As she turned to her father, he said, "Shut up."
Not that Summitt blames her father or anyone else for a hard childhood; in fact, that childhood is what made her tough as a player on the basketball court, and later, as a coach. As she says, that childhood made her determined to prove she was a winner, one who deserved love and praise. In fact, she was supposed to attend high school in Clarksville, TN—where education officials had abolished basketball for girls because it was too rough. When her father heard this, he promptly moved the family just over the Cheatham County line, where she could play for Ashland City High School—which had an excellent team. Pat Summitt earned the stare and the steely, blue-eyed glare.
From "what she remembers," Summitt turns quickly to "Here are some of the things I don't remember." Sometimes, when she first wakes up in the morning, she doesn't remember where she is. When she begins to answer a question, sometimes the subject slips away "like a thread" through her fingers. This is because in the late spring of 2011, when she was fifty-nine and still coaching the UT women, she was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease, the progressive neurological illness that attacks the brain.
She could not—would not—accept this. She's Pat Summitt. But soon she realized that whereas before she had watched ten players at once—the whole court, analyzing patterns and ordering attacks—now she saw only a blur. She became confused in the heat of the game. And so in 2012, her close friend and assistant coach, Holly Warwick, became the Lady Vols head coach.
This is a straightforward, honest look at life through the eyes and experience of a woman who lives hers with dignity and grace. And basketball—Summitt does not hesitate to replay games on the page. The huge wins. (The subtitle is "1,098 Victories, a Couple of Irrelevant Losses, and a Life in Perspective.") The close relationship with her players on and off the court—"a mix of love, fury and manipulation," the "New York Times" said in its admiring review of the book. And one huge and devastating diagnosis. With help from her doctors, Summitt attacked her illness with a "game plan." How to face it. How to stare it down. She now serves as the head coach emeritus of the Tennessee Lady Vols basketball team, and, as of 2012, she had missed only two workouts with the team.
Note: Pat Summitt coached from 1974 to 2012, all with the Lady Vols, and in those four decades, she never had a losing season. She was named the Naismith Basketball Coach of the Century in April 2000. In 2009, the "Sporting News" placed her number eleven on its list of the 50 Greatest Coaches of All Time in ALL sports; she was the only woman on the list. In 2012, the White House announced that Pat Summitt would be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. She died June 28, 2016 at age sixty-four.
June 3, 2017
Growing up a Georgia fan, I was often envious of the tough, successful head coach of the Lady Vols, who I watched a couple times in person clad in all-orange suits waving her hands up and down the sideline at Stegman Coliseum. Through this book, I got to know more about Pat Summitt. Her relationships with her players, failures and successes as a coach, trouble conceiving, growing up in a small town in Tennessee, the painful experience of deteriorating health. Her story in itself is a devastating example of mortality: no matter how high we climb in life, we all face the same end, told beautifully in the anecdote of Holly Warlick taking over the head coaching position at Tennessee. As a basketball fan, the feud between her and Geno Auriemma interested me, as well as some of her memories of specific players like Tamika Catchings and the other "Meeks." But there are also aspects for non-basketball fans, like her childhood on a farm and health issues. A strong, honest memoir about one of the best coaches who's ever lived.
January 15, 2023
I LOVED THIS BOOK! I am not a sports afficianado but had heard of Pat Summitt's accomplishments in Women's Basketball; I also think I saw an interview with her somewhere and she impressed me very much!
This book was excellent! Even if you are not as familiar with women's basketball, Pat's work ethic and history is recounted in this book and you can understand why she won so many games (1,098 career wins according to the book). But this book is not just about basketball games. It is about Pat Summitt's history in life and basketball. One of the interesting tidbits in this story is Pat recounting her experiences in the Summer Olympics in 1976 as a member of our women's national basketball team. Her book also talks about her health struggles, which was sad.
She was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1999. I recommend you read her book! Her stories are clear and concise and her memory is great!
This book was excellent! Even if you are not as familiar with women's basketball, Pat's work ethic and history is recounted in this book and you can understand why she won so many games (1,098 career wins according to the book). But this book is not just about basketball games. It is about Pat Summitt's history in life and basketball. One of the interesting tidbits in this story is Pat recounting her experiences in the Summer Olympics in 1976 as a member of our women's national basketball team. Her book also talks about her health struggles, which was sad.
She was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1999. I recommend you read her book! Her stories are clear and concise and her memory is great!
July 30, 2014
I hate to see a great basketball mind go to waste. Two of the great basketball minds of all time. Pat Summit and Dean Smith struck down by this dreadful condition. I was inspired and glad that she was able to write her story before she forgot it and the world lost it.
January 28, 2022
This was an excellent read! Pat Summit tells you what it takes to create the excellence that was routine on her team. It's hard to find the words to use to describe her. An amazing person. Her coauther did an excellent job reading the audiobook; I felt like I was listening to Coach Summit.
February 6, 2017
Courageously honest from an inspiring woman. In the end, the relationships were all that mattered to her--but what a legacy.
January 30, 2015
I freakin' loved this book. I've learned so many new things about the game of basketball. But more importantly, I've learned a great deal about motivating myself, to push through major trials, illnesses, and anything else that life can throw at you. Pat Summitt persevered through many different trials. That perseverance came from her competitive drive and positive attitude. She has become my new role model, both in the sports world and as an individual competing against life.
August 21, 2014
Excellent book, this woman had the passion and the drive to make it to the top in her profession. if you're looking for some inspiration this book will have you laughing, in tears, and intrigued throughout this whole book. Pat Summit was more than a leader but also a mom to a lot of young women. It it was good to see that for an athletic program she had a 100% graduation rate, very impressive.
September 20, 2020
A *perfectly* written memoir written by the only person who could write this book - Sally Jenkins.
This book showed a side of Coach Summitt, I, as a lifelong fan, appreciated and made me love her even more. She was one hell-of-a coach, and an even stronger person. This book shows that in a way that is simply masterful.
This book showed a side of Coach Summitt, I, as a lifelong fan, appreciated and made me love her even more. She was one hell-of-a coach, and an even stronger person. This book shows that in a way that is simply masterful.
April 9, 2014
I loved this book. What a woman! Pat Summit is SO strong. I found this book inspirational and deeply moving and highly recommend it. Don't let the basketball background turn you away. This book is so much more. I wish Pat Summit all the best in her fight against Alzheimer's!
April 30, 2020
Good book, well-written. I probably would have given it 5-stars if I were a basketball fan. I still found it well worth the read, but IMO a bit long as far as the number of different basketball games. Still, her story is interesting and inspiring.
May 7, 2017
I spent many years watching Pat Summitt coach the Lady Vols. She was a remarkable woman, facing Alzheimer's as she faced her opponents-courageously.
May 2, 2018
Really good book. Tough coach, yet her players loved her.
March 27, 2022
what a coach!
June 22, 2017
What did I think? I definitely have mixed emotions about this book as I have mixed emotions about Pat Summitt, now that I’ve read the book she wrote about her own life. I had a lot more respect for her before reading this autobiography.
She credits (or excuses) her toughness to the lack of love and human emotion shown her by her father. Time and time again when she would grieve over the fact that he never hugged her nor showed her any love nor told her that he loved her, she would conclude with, “but I knew he loved me.”
She carried this same lack of humaneness not only into her coaching, but into her marriage and rearing of her son, Tyler. According to her own account, her one effort at being a wife and mother was to cook supper every night. However, in the 376 pages of her book, she barely mentioned her husband, RB Summitt. The fact that she started taking Tyler to basketball practice at 8 days old, says a lot about what was most important to her – not Tyler, even though she called him a miracle baby since she had lost 4 pregnancies prior to his birth and 2 afterwards. The joys and responsibilities of motherhood definitely took a back seat to her career.
The bulk of the book consisted of the games, themselves, the players, the scores, the trips, the wins, the losses, her rants, and her demands of the players and coaches. It was about her determination and her can-do attitude. It was about her successes and her failures.
Her coverage of each game and each player was so extensive I had the feeling that this was an exercise in remembering - which she was using to combat the encroaching dementia. For example, she told how tall each player was and where each was from. She also told a little bit about the background of each. Since this covered 37 years of coaching, it got a bit tedious.
On the flip side I appreciate the fact that she chose the name, “Lady Vols,” and insisted that her players act like ladies. During the time of rising feminism and women’s marches demanding equal this, that or the other, her response was that she chose to earn respect by doing her job well, by winning, not by making demands. I can’t now find that quote.
Also I was hoping to read more about her experience and symptoms with Alzheimer’s. Even though each chapter ended with questions to her and her answers concerning her impending dementia, I was looking for a more fleshed out and personal account.
She credits (or excuses) her toughness to the lack of love and human emotion shown her by her father. Time and time again when she would grieve over the fact that he never hugged her nor showed her any love nor told her that he loved her, she would conclude with, “but I knew he loved me.”
She carried this same lack of humaneness not only into her coaching, but into her marriage and rearing of her son, Tyler. According to her own account, her one effort at being a wife and mother was to cook supper every night. However, in the 376 pages of her book, she barely mentioned her husband, RB Summitt. The fact that she started taking Tyler to basketball practice at 8 days old, says a lot about what was most important to her – not Tyler, even though she called him a miracle baby since she had lost 4 pregnancies prior to his birth and 2 afterwards. The joys and responsibilities of motherhood definitely took a back seat to her career.
The bulk of the book consisted of the games, themselves, the players, the scores, the trips, the wins, the losses, her rants, and her demands of the players and coaches. It was about her determination and her can-do attitude. It was about her successes and her failures.
Her coverage of each game and each player was so extensive I had the feeling that this was an exercise in remembering - which she was using to combat the encroaching dementia. For example, she told how tall each player was and where each was from. She also told a little bit about the background of each. Since this covered 37 years of coaching, it got a bit tedious.
On the flip side I appreciate the fact that she chose the name, “Lady Vols,” and insisted that her players act like ladies. During the time of rising feminism and women’s marches demanding equal this, that or the other, her response was that she chose to earn respect by doing her job well, by winning, not by making demands. I can’t now find that quote.
Also I was hoping to read more about her experience and symptoms with Alzheimer’s. Even though each chapter ended with questions to her and her answers concerning her impending dementia, I was looking for a more fleshed out and personal account.
May 25, 2023
My favorite book of all time. Incredible life story of a powerful and tough as nails woman who faced tremendous adversity and came out on top, as one of the most successful women in sports of all time. Moving and beautifully written in light of Pat’s early onset Alzheimer’s diagnosis. I’ve recommended this book to many people who were skeptical about it being just about basketball and who have come away from it loving it as much as I did.
December 4, 2024
If I had ever been talented enough to be recruited I would’ve counted it a great honor to have been coaching by Pat Summit. This is an amazing story of a strong woman who left a long legacy that I greatly admire. She invested in the sport she loved but more importantly in the people she loved.
I’ll probably reread this.
I’ll probably reread this.
January 17, 2022
This is a great book! There is a lot in here…basketball, life, expectation…a lot. It took me awhile to read but was well worth it. Pat’s life was fascinating, and everything about it can serve as a lesson, and motivation, to the rest of us. Truly, an amazing story.
December 19, 2024
This book is sooo good! Pat Summit was a was an amazing woman, coach, and leader!
August 1, 2016
I loved this book. Its one of those books I will have to reread every few years to motivate myself again. I thought it might be hard to get through this book but in actuality I flew through it. I'm a basketball fan so of course I loved this book, but even if didn't like basketball I would still find it to be an incredibly motivating and interesting book.
The book detailed Pat's childhood and early family life and set the stage for understanding where she gets her drive. It talk about her Olympic silver medal as a player and gold medal as a coach and her early days of coaching at UT. I loved hearing about how women's basketball was in the early days when Pat played and started coaching: no college scholarships, half court games, playing in an old drafty gym, no money transportation for the women's teams so the coaches did the driving in vans and station wagons. It talks about her personal life as a mother and her diagnosis with Alzheimer's disease.
The book detailed Pat's childhood and early family life and set the stage for understanding where she gets her drive. It talk about her Olympic silver medal as a player and gold medal as a coach and her early days of coaching at UT. I loved hearing about how women's basketball was in the early days when Pat played and started coaching: no college scholarships, half court games, playing in an old drafty gym, no money transportation for the women's teams so the coaches did the driving in vans and station wagons. It talks about her personal life as a mother and her diagnosis with Alzheimer's disease.
October 20, 2014
I was drawn to this book because of my interest in dementia, not so much basketball. But Pat Summitt is such a large figure in women's college basketball that I couldn't help but be interested in her as well. Her memoir, co-written with Washington Post reporter Sally Jenkins, combines the skill of Jenkins' storytelling with Summitt's surprising life story, rising from rural obscurity to the pinnacle of her sport. It's told with as much honesty as one finds in these self-told tales. The irony of a memoir written by a person with Alzheimer's disease is not lost on her either. And the reader's knowledge that Summitt's memory is slipping away as she takes stock of her life lends even more power to the story.
February 25, 2023
Reading this book reminded me of my own basketball coach, Coach Heba, who embodied many of the same qualities that made Pat such a great coach and leader. She was tough, competitive, and laser-focused on winning, but she also had a deep sense of empathy and a genuine love for her players.
November 3, 2013
Even if you are not a fan of the Lady Vols of TN or basketball in general, this is well worth the investment. A great, inspirational story. This teacher/coach knows her stuff....on and off the court!
February 5, 2015
Incredible story, told with passion and humanity, great read for anyone involved with athletics, teaching.
October 15, 2016
I laughed. I cried. Truly inspirational.
November 23, 2014
Inspirational! But I also love basketball.
June 8, 2015
An inspiring story about a remarkable woman.
April 20, 2017
What a wonderful book! Not only does it feature a strong woman who was a pioneer for women's sports, it also discusses Alzheimer's disease from the patients point of view. I could not have more respect for Pat Summitt after reading this book.
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews