Pat Summitt Quotes

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Pat Summitt

Profession : Coach

Birth : June 14, 1952

When you grow up on a dairy farm, cows don't take a day off. So you work every day and my dad always said, 'No one can outwork you.'

Pat Summitt

Have you ever walked along a shoreline, only to have your footprints washed away? That's what Alzheimer's is like. The waves erase the marks we leave behind, all the sand castles. Some days are better than others.

Pat Summitt

The game is never over. No matter what the scoreboard reads or what the referee says, it doesn't end when you come off the court.

Pat Summitt

We keep score in life because it matters. It counts. It matters. Too many people opt out and never discover their own abilities because they fear failure. They don't understand commitment.

Pat Summitt

I hate to sound this way but, 'Why me? Why me with dementia?'

Pat Summitt

I remember standing on a medal podium at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, imbued with a sense that if you won enough basketball games, there was no such thing as poor, backward, country, female, or inferior.

Pat Summitt

I'd wake up in the morning and I would think, 'Where am I?' I'd have to gather myself.

Pat Summitt

I think I can help others just by my example.

Pat Summitt

I lost my confidence.

Pat Summitt

I don't want to sit around the house. I want to be out there. I want to go to practice. I want to be in the huddles. That's me.

Pat Summitt

I can remember trying to coach, trying to figure out schemes, and it just wasn't coming to me.

Pat Summitt

When you learn to keep fighting in the face of potential failure, it gives you a larger skill set to do what you want to do in life. It gives you vision. But you can't acquire it if you're afraid of keeping score.

Pat Summitt

Class is more important than a game.

Pat Summitt

I'm not a good loser. I get sick physically... I take it to heart. I hate it.

Pat Summitt

Sometimes I'm more stubborn than I am smart.

Pat Summitt

I think that a lot of people would perceive my style as being intimidating. And although I don't want to intimidate kids, I am very demanding.

Pat Summitt

I remember teaching a clinic to other coaches, and a guy raised his hand and asked if I had any advice when it came to coaching women. I leveled him with a death-ray stare, and said, 'Go home and coach basketball.'

Pat Summitt

Sometimes I draw blanks.

Pat Summitt

I've got a great staff and great support system, and I'm going to stick my neck out and do what I always do.

Pat Summitt

Competition got me off the farm and trained me to seek out challenges and to endure setbacks; and in combination with my faith, it sustains me now in my fight with Alzheimer's disease.

Pat Summitt