On Thursday night got a call from a friend in Knoxville telling me that my childhood idol had entered hospice care. Yesterday she passed away following a mercifully short battle with early-onset Alzheimer's. I wasn't totally functional for most of the day so I apologize if you didn't receive feedback on your workouts.
It is difficult to articulate how large a presence Pat Head Summitt was not only in the state of Tennessee but to every girl who touched a basketball. The NCAA didn't even recognize women's basketball as a sport when she took the reins at UTK. By the time she retired, women's games would be regularly televised and Coach Summitt would be compensated as well as her male counterparts; a rarely-mentioned first in college athletics since she never made speeches about equal pay or leveraged her incredible media power in negotiating with her employer.
I could go on and on about her legendary coaching style, and may do so in a future post, but suffice to say that my heart is broken. That said, it wouldn't be fair to her legacy to cancel tonight's workout, and we have work to do before the next training season starts.
We will start at the usual time of 6pm and we will aim to finish by 7. We will meet in front of the check-in desk at Life Time and head to the hills. I will disappear pretty quickly after the workout; I want to make it home in time to show my daughter the ESPN 9 for IX special on Coach Summitt and try to get my head together so I can be back to work by Thursday.
Below is a fantastic article about Coach Summitt if you aren't familiar with her legacy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/29/sports/ncaabasketball/pat-summitt-tennessee-coach-college-basketball.html
You are coached, you are loved, you are welcome.
MK