Randy Smith: Pat Summitt - Still Class Personified

Even though it's been over eight years since the great Pat Summitt left us, I'm still amazed at the impact she had on people. Earlier this week at the Global World Series Tournament in Birmingham, AL I ran into a teacher from Indianapolis. There had obviously been a lot of great athletes at his high school and he had gotten to know a lot of great college coaches in his career...coaches like Nick Saban, Jim Harbaugh and James Franklin to name a few. As we continued to talk, he asked what I had done for a living before I retired and I told him I was a sports announcer. Eventually he asked him where I was from and I told him Tennessee. His eyes lit up.

In 2008, Coach Summitt had visited his school recruiting point guard Brianna Bass who would eventually sign with the Lady Vols and play four seasons. The man told me, "I've met with and gotten to know a lot of great coaches in my life but I have never met a coach that impressed me more than Pat Summitt."

I told him that Pat and I had been friends and he went on to tell me that after pulling Brianna out of class to speak with her, she came back to see him and apologized for disrupting his class. A few days later, she had sent him a letter thanking him for allowing her to come to his classroom and included an autographed picture. That act of kindness, as small as it may seem, made a huge impression on that teacher.

That was what Pat Summitt was all about. Nobody ever outworked her. Nobody ever out-prepared her and she treated everyone with respect and kindness, even though she could be as tough as nails when she needed to be. It warms my heart to hear stories like this. Something like the brief interaction with that teacher from Indiana was something she never thought about because that was part of who she was.

I hear stories like this all the time. Things she did by going out of her way to help others. Acts of kindness that seemed like trivial things to her but were really big things to others. She was truly one of a kind and a very special person. She climbed the ladder of success, reached the top and just scooted over and stayed there.