KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Pat Summitt’s doctors are lucky they are still standing.
When the first neurologist told her she had symptoms of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, she almost dropped him with one punch. When a second one advised her to retire immediately, she said, “Do you have any idea who you’re dealing with?”
Three months ago, Summitt, 59, the blaze-eyed, clench-fisted University of Tennessee women’s basketball coach who holds the NCAA career record for victories, men or women, visited the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., seeking an explanation for a troubling series of memory lapses over the past year. They were small, baffling glitches: a woman who was always highly organized had to ask repeatedly what time team meetings were scheduled.
“She lost her keys three times a day instead of once,” her son Tyler said. She was late to practice. On occasion, she simply stayed in bed.
“Are you having trouble with your memory?” friends began asking, puzzled.
“Sometimes I draw blanks,” Summitt finally admitted.
Her first clue that something was badly wrong came last season, when she drew a blank on what offensive set to call in the heat of a game.
“I just felt something was different,” she said. “And at the time I didn’t know what I was dealing with. Until I went to Mayo I couldn’t know for sure. But I can remember trying to coach and trying to figure out schemes and whatever and it just wasn’t coming to me, like, I would typically say, ‘We’re gonna do this, and run that.’ And it probably caused me to second-guess.”
Summitt, who has spent 37 seasons at Tennessee and has 1,071 career victories and eight national championships, said she believed her symptoms were the side effects of a powerful medication she was taking for rheumatoid arthritis, an excruciating condition she has quietly suffered with since 2006. The drug is associated with forgetfulness, as is rheumatoid itself.
Instead, when Summitt received her test results from the Mayo Clinic at the end of May, they confirmed a shocking worst-case scenario: She showed “mild” but distinct signs of “early-onset dementia, Alzheimer’s type,” the irreversible brain disease that destroys recall and cognitive abilities over time.
Denial was followed by anger. For the first few weeks, Summitt would barely even discuss the subject. She told her doctors, “You don’t know me. You don’t know what I’m capable of.”
Finally, Summitt realized she would have to accept the diagnosis.
“I can’t change it,” she said. After a pause, she added, “But I can try to do something about it.”
Last week Washington attorney Robert Barnett flew to Knoxville to meet with his longtime friend and client, half expecting her to step down. With him, he brought a copy of the statement with which former President Ronald Reagan announced in 1994 that he had Alzheimer’s.
But Summitt told Barnett she did not believe her symptoms were severe enough yet to warrant retirement, and that she would like to coach at least three more years, if possible. She also decided against a formal statement. Instead, she sat down for an interview with this writer, who co-authored her 1999 autobiography, “Reach for the Summit,” to discuss her illness publicly for the first time.
Full disclosure: It is the measure of Summitt’s large-heartedness that she could call any of a half-dozen people her closest friend. This writer has only one: her.
“I would rather drive stakes through my own hands than write this story,” I said.
“It is what it is,” she said. “I’ve got to face it.”
Summitt has agreed to a significant redistribution of her duties. In consultation with athletic director Joan Cronan and her staff, her role will be redefined to give her colleagues more formal responsibility, such as calling plays during games.
“Pat’s a team player, she knows how to make a team work, and I’m very comfortable,” Cronan said.
