Pat Summitt: 20 Career Highlights, Surprises
ABC News' Alison Lynn reports:
Pat Summitt
1. Pat Summitt was 22 when she began her career as head coach of the University of Tennessee women's basketball team in 1974.
2. Summitt had originally accepted a position as an assistant coach but after the UT women's basketball coach decided to take a sabbatical, Summitt was offered the job as head coach instead
3. Her height - 5-foot-11 – earned Summitt the nickname "Bone" in high school.
4. Summitt attended the University of Tennessee-Martin as an undergrad. She was on the basketball team there, but she also played volleyball and joined the sorority Chi Omega.
5. Summitt made her first U.S. national team in 1973 when she represented the United States at the World University Games in the Soviet Union.
6. She was the co-captain of the 1976 U.S. women's Olympic basketball team, which won a silver medal in Montreal.
7. She was the coach of the 1984 U.S. women's Olympic basketball team, which won a gold medal in Los Angeles, the first-ever Olympic gold medal win for a U.S. women's basketball team.
8. In 1974, Summit's team played a "six-on-six" style in which offensive and defensive players never crossed the center line.
9. Summitt was a hands-on coach in more ways than one: In the 1970s, she drove the team van to away games.
10. Under Summitt, the University of Tennessee's Lady Vols have gone to the Final Four 14 times and are eight-time National Champions, the most for any women's basketball team
11. In Summitt's 37 years as head coach, the Lady Vols have posted a record of 1,071 wins, 199 losses, winning more than 84 percent of their games.
12. Summitt takes academics seriously, insisting that her players sit in the first three rows of their classes and never miss a class.
13. Summit boasts a 100 percent graduation rate of players completing their eligibility at UT.
14. Being a young mother didn't slow Summitt down: The Lady Vols won their third NCAA title when Summitt's son Tyler was 6 months old.
15. There are two college basketball courts named in Summitt's honor: one at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, and the University of Tennessee at Martin
16. Summitt has been inducted into both the Basketball Hall of Fame and the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame.
17. Summitt is the author of two books: "Raise the Roof" and "Reach for the Summitt," both published in 1999.
18. Summitt was the first women's college basketball coach to grace the cover of Sports Illustrated.
19. She was also the first women's college basketball coach to make a $1 million yearly salary.
20. Summitt became the winningest college basketball coach – men's or women's – in history in 2005 with her 880th win with the Lady Vols.