UTC Coach Jim Foster Recalls His Memories Of Pat Summitt

Remembers Her As A Great Coach Who Ran A Great Program

  • Tuesday, June 28, 2016
  • Dennis Norwood
Mocs' head coach Jim Foster recalls fellow Hall of Famer, Pat Summitt, during a media event Tuesday afternoon at McKenzie Arena.
Mocs' head coach Jim Foster recalls fellow Hall of Famer, Pat Summitt, during a media event Tuesday afternoon at McKenzie Arena.
photo by Dennis Norwood

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women’s head basketball coach Jim Foster took time out Tuesday afternoon to meet with local media to answer questions about his relationship with the late Pat Summitt, the former head coach and most recently the Head Coach Emeritus of the University of Tennessee Lady Vols.

 

The two Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame coaches met each other on a regular basis when Foster was head coach at Vanderbilt.

Foster recalled that he and Summitt first met when he was at St. Joseph’s University in a tournament in Miami, Fla. “Texas and Tennessee played each other in that tournament and I know Pat and Jody Conrad had an interesting discussion,” he recalled, “in a gym that seated  about 250 people.”

 

Speaking to his recollection of when he first heard of Summitt’s contracting Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease, Foster said, “I think anybody that did any research when she was first diagnosed and understood what her Early Onset Alzheimer’s is sort of went into a mode and then the less you saw her in public you were understanding the progression of that disease.”

 

Foster said the last time he saw Summitt was at the Hall of Fame induction in 2013. He recalled that, “She was there and I caught her coming out of a meeting in the lobby of the Marriott there in Knoxville and had an exchange with her.”

 

Asked if he went up against her when he was at Ohio State, he said, “No, I think we had enough of each other between Vanderbilt and Tennessee.”

 

He said of the late coach, “She was a great coach and ran a great program and did things that allowed you folks (media) to become interested in women’s basketball. She sort of forced you as mainstream media to pay attention when a lot of coaches couldn’t get their athletic directors to pay attention.  She forced the nation to pay attention.”

 

Foster was asked how she accomplished that and he replied, “Her will. She was a strong person and you know, all of this stuff today, everybody’s sort of coming out with their figures and characters, I don’t know how many you get when you Tweet, and the most significant thing to me today is that the most powerful, busiest man in the world, Barack Obama, put out a release that was heartfelt and he was talking about a women’s basketball coach; you have to go past that? I don’t think so.”

 

As for his memories of facing Summitt while at Vanderbilt, he related that the most significant thing was during my last year, I didn’t think it would be, but the SEC championship was in Nashville and my wife and I decided to invite all the coaches to our home for dinner before the tournament started.”

 

“They all came to dinner,” he continued, “except for Andy Landers, who regrets it to this day that he did not come, and Sue Gunter, who was recruiting Simone Augustus and was probably getting one up on Pat who was recruiting her, as well.”

 

“Pat had a different hat on. We were talking about how the house was decorated and why we did this and why we did that. We weren’t talking about anything relative to basketball and it was a very memorable and fun night. I think every coach who came enjoyed it and it was so out of context  for us to be in that kind of environment and, uh, I found out that Pat likes to drink a little wine which made me comfortable,” he concluded.

 

Foster related that while, in his opinion, Summitt may not have been the only pioneer in women’s basketball, she was the one who forced folks to come to the game and bring a camera and start talking about the game. “You can’t deny that,” he stated.

 

“The one quality you could always expect from a Pat Summitt coached team, Foster said, “was that they’re going to be physical, real physical and you had to get your team to understand that and step up to it.”

 

When he was asked about the significance of Summitt coming from a small town, Foster replied, “Obviously it doesn’t matter where you’re from, people put such an emphasis on where you’ve been and I think a lot of times today athletic directors are more interested in winning the press conference than they are the success of the team and by today’s standards Pat Head doesn’t get an opportunity to be the coach at Tennessee.”

 

Coach Foster was asked if he had ever gone head-to-head with Summitt in recruiting a particular player.  His answer was, “Occasionally, not as often as you would think. Vanderbilt and Tennessee are different schools with different philosophies, is the best way to say it. But, when we did it was interesting. We got some, Tennessee got some.”

 

President Barack Obama said of Coach Summitt, who in 2012 was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor given to a U.S. citizen, “Nobody walked off a basketball court victorious more than Tennessee’s Pat Summitt. For four decades he outworked her rivals, made winning an attitude, loved her players like family, and became a role model to millions of Americans, including our two daughters. Her unparalled success includes never recording a losing season in 38 years of coaching, but also, and more importantly, a 100 percent graduation rate among her players who completed their athletic eligibility. Her legacy, however, is measured much more by the generations of young women and men who admired Pat’s intense competitiveness and character, and as a result found in themselves the confidence to practice hard, play harder and live with courage off the court.”

 

As Pat once said in recalling her achievements, “What I see are not numbers, I see their faces.”

 

(Contact Dennis Norwood at sportsshooter614@gmail.com; follow him on Twitter at @DennisENorwood)

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