Wiedmer: Unfairly burdened, former Lady Vols coach can now fly free

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Grace Keith was one of the first coaches on the planet to feel the power of Pat Summitt's coaching skills. Staked to a 17-point lead inside the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga's Maclellan Gym against the first Lady Vols team Summitt coached, Keith watched big sister Tennessee come back to win by a point over her Lady Mocs during the 1974-75 school year.

"So I knew Pat for 40 years," said the 81-year-old Keith. "And right now I'm sad, just like a lot of the rest of the nation."

A lot of us are sad today. And that feeling may not disappear for days, or weeks, or months. No one should die of natural causes at the age of 64. Especially not someone who's given the world as much as Summitt did before losing her five-year fight with Alzheimer's early Tuesday morning.

The most important person in the history of women's college basketball probably should still be out there coaching the Lady Vols, attempting to win at least a ninth NCAA championship, continuing to change young women's lives for the better, which she did better than any coach in any sport in the history of women's athletics.

As current Lady Vols star Diamond DeShields, who never even played for Summitt, tweeted Sunday as word leaked of the legendary coach's rapidly declining health, "She's the reason why I'm even here, man. #PrayForPat. Hang tight in there Coach. We got your back."

But Alzheimer's doesn't have anyone's back. It just backs you into a dark, sad place where eventually you may know no one's name, including your own. Far too often it is the ultimate cruel joke, because your body may still work as your mind goes to sleep, never to awaken.

And so it is that however sad the news of Summitt's passing, she also should be in a better place, a brighter place, a heavenly place that embraces all her remarkable talents rather than a place on Earth that had begun to mightily inhibit them.

Summitt even seemed to sense as much in the early days of fighting the disease. In his 407-word tribute to her, President Barack Obama - who presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012 - wrote: "Even after Alzheimer's started to soften her memory, and she began a public and brave fight against that terrible disease, Pat had the grace and perspective to remind us that 'God doesn't take things away to be cruel. He takes things away to lighten us. He takes things away so we can fly.'"

Yet this is still a moment that tests our faiths. Why should this happen to Summitt? Why would someone who still had so much to give to so many be taken so soon? How can we ever hope to replace this irreplaceable woman, the athletic picture most perfect of tough love, yet love nonetheless?

And the answer is that we can't. Summitt was one of a kind, as powerful a force for women's basketball as Pele was for soccer, or Steve Jobs for the personal computer.

But it wasn't that genius that brought all those Lady Vols back year after year to hang out with her, grill with her, golf with her, play cards with her, their crusty coach suddenly their second mom or older sister, always full of wit and wisdom.

No, they came back time and time again to feel her love, or as Summitt often said, "They don't care how much you know until they know how much you care."

Even as the disease worsened, and her infamous stare grew blank, she could still deliver the sharpest zingers from time to time, such as one afternoon when Summitt and former Tennessee women's athletic director Joan Cronan were playing golf. As they walked off a particular green, the former coach asked her former boss what she made on the hole.

"I think I had a 5," Cronan replied, to which Summitt said, "No, you had a 6, and I'm the one with Alzheimer's."

It had almost never been that way of late, however. Summitt moved into a retirement facility in late January. There were growing whispers that she was struggling to recognize even her closest friends. Nothing was getting better, which is pretty much the norm with this awful disease.

Yet there was never a hint that the end was this near, only that the end of the passionate, principled, perfectionist Summitt as we once knew her was fading fast, her mind weak but her body still strong.

Then came the past few days. More than 30 former Lady Vols visited, some - like Candace Parker - flying in and out of Knoxville between WNBA games. It had become their turn to show their coach how much they cared.

A couple of years ago, as the Lady Vols were hanging a banner for Summitt, former Tennessee great Michelle Marciniak stood just off the Thompson-Boling Arena court that carries her legendary coach's name. It was Marciniak whom Summitt was recruiting in Allentown, Pa., when her water broke during her pregnancy with son Tyler, and she abruptly left the recruit because she was determined her child would be born in the Volunteer State.

Now Marciniak was in Knoxville, watching a tribute to her coach, even as her coach's mind and memory were fading before her eyes.

"Sometimes we just sit in her house, not saying a word to each other," Marciniak said of the winningest coach in Division I history, her 1,098 wins still a record for both women and men. "After all this time, we don't really need words."

There are no words to adequately describe this loss, this tragedy, this too-soon departure of a remarkable human being.

But in 2011, according to the New York Times, University of Minnesota sports sociologist Mary Jo Kane observed, "In modern history, there are two figures that belong on the Mount Rushmore of women's sports - Billie Jean King and Pat Summitt. No one else is close to third."

When it comes to women coaches, regardless of the sport, no one else ever will come close to Patricia Sue Head Summitt, who can now fly free, her unfair burden lightened forevermore.

Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.