I will miss Pat Summitt

This college basketball season, there have been several tributes to the late coach Pat Summitt. The legendary women’s coach at Tennessee passed away in 2016 after a career in which she helped put her sport on the map - literally.
Without Summitt, women’s basketball would not have the television exposure it enjoys today. What made her so great was her love for the entire sport. When Geno Auriemma was starting out with a fledging program at Connecticut, it was Summitt and Stanford coach Tara Vanderveer, who took their programs to tiny Storrs so his Huskies, pre-Rebecca Lobo, could get to play on television.
I watched those games during weekday afternoons on ESPN2. You could see how excited the players at Connecticut were to be on television. They wouldn’t have been if Tennessee and Stanford had not made their way to Storrs, when they didn’t need to or have to.
But, Summitt wanted to grow the sport. It wasn’t enough to have two, three or four big programs. She wanted more schools to spend money on women’s basketball. She wanted ESPN to showcase the sport in all parts of the country, not just the Southeast or on the West Coast.
I don’t know how she felt about it but I’ll never forgive ESPN and the East Coach media for acting like Coach Auriemma and Connecticut invented the sport of women’s basketball. Today, ESPN is televising the Huskies against Tulane and after the game, they will bemoan UCONN’s dominance and talk about how much better Auriemma is than all the other coaches in the game.
If ESPN would look back into its own vault, it could find the sport existed before Rebecca Lobo ever stepped foot in Storrs. Summitt and Vanderveer and Leon Barmore and Jody Conradt and Joe Ciampi and Andy Landers and countless others had the game at a high level. And, it was competitive, too, with talent spread throughout the country. I remember when Virginia had Dawn Staley and Tennessee had Daedra Charles and NC State had Andrea Stinson and Stanford had Jennifer Azzi and Auburn had Ruthie Bolton and LA Tech had Venus Lacy and Western Kentucky had Lillie Mason and Texas had Andrea Lloyd and, of course, USC had the great Cheryl Miller.
That’s what built the sport.
I don’t watch much women’s basketball anymore. What’s to watch? All of the talent goes to Connecticut. ESPN would rather showcase the Huskies murdering Tulane than Kelsey Plum at Washington or Katelynn Flaherty at Michigan or, well, you get the picture.
The sport is all about one team, which is only fun for folks who follow that one team.
I will miss Pat Summitt, who was always nice to me when I called her for interviews. She always called me by my name and insisted I call her “Pat.” She didn’t know me and probably had forgotten she talked to me 10 minutes after she hung up the phone. But, I’ll remember each interview forever.
And, I will remember fondly the sport she built.
I miss her. And, I miss women’s basketball.