by Pat Summitt
Winning helps define loss, and the loss helps define winning. You can’t have one without the other, and if you did, you wouldn’t know how to feel about it. Carla’s accident—the fear of losing her, but then regaining her—put winning and losing in their proper context.
So did a more personal loss in 1989. Just a few months after our championship, I suffered my fourth miscarriage. This one wasn’t early. It was far enough along that I had let myself hope that it would be a healthy pregnancy. It wasn’t. I carried the baby for almost twelve weeks, and when I lost it, the miscarriage was incomplete and I had to go into the hospital for a procedure. Tears trickled down my face on the day that I told Mickie I would be absent from work, and why.
She was very emotional about it. She was crying and said, “I have to have a D and C.” I said, “What exactly is that?” And then she explained, and I understood why she was so emotional about it.
—MICKIE DEMOSS
I thought I knew pain and how to handle it. I’d dislocated my jaw, blown my knee, and had a nail driven through my foot. I’d broken bones and torn muscles. But nothing prepared me for the tear in my soul that was my fourth miscarriage. Who would that lost baby have been? Athletic and stubborn chinned, no doubt. Blue eyed? Maybe. I grieved over characteristics of a child I’d never hold or see.
Over the next few months, R.B. and I discussed all kinds of options and treatments with my doctors. I was almost thirty-eight years old and a sense of desperation was creeping in. The cure for inner pain is time. But what’s the cure for running out of time? The temporary answer was to keep hoping, and to pour my feelings into other people’s children. I reminded myself that at least I had a dozen daughters.
My sister, Linda, was six years younger than me, but she already had two little girls, named Lindsey and Casey. When they came to visit, I would hold them and brush their hair. Casey was particular about hers and would whisper to Linda, “Mama, please don’t let her do my hair!”
Linda knew what I was feeling and would say, “She doesn’t have a little girl. Let her fix your bangs.”
I wasn’t at my best over the next few months after the miscarriage. The 1990 season was disappointing—as was often the case coming off a national championship. We were as talented as any team in the country, but we were uneven, and complacent. We should have had a powerful incentive: the NCAA Final Four was to be held in Knoxville, which meant we had a chance to win a championship on our home floor. But we seemed to think it would be handed to us, and I had a hard time motivating that group.
In December we went out west and lost to Stanford by 14 points. I was mad all the way home and decided our players had become overly entitled and weren’t playing Tennessee’s brand of ball. When we got home, I evicted them from our locker room. We had a new palatial, state-of-the-art clubhouse thanks to Joan Cronan, and I decided they didn’t deserve it. Told them they hadn’t earned such luxurious digs. I moved them to a visitors’ locker room with nothing in it but a few folding chairs and blank walls.
They stayed there for a month. Every day Mickie or Holly would say, “Have they earned their way back in yet?” And I’d say, “Nope. They haven’t shown me they can sustain it.” Word got around, and USA Today did a story about how I’d thrown them out of their own locker room because they hadn’t “paid the rent.” Finally, in February, I let them back in.
But I never made enough of an impression to cure their inconsistency, and everything I worried about came true. We went to the NCAA regionals in Norfolk, Virginia, expecting a walkover into the Final Four. Signs in the arena said THE ONLY WAY TO KNOXVILLE IS THROUGH TENNESSEE. Our marketing department had thousands of T-shirts printed up that said TENNESSEE AND THE FINAL THREE.
But in the regional final we met Virginia, led by a thorny guard out of Philly named Dawn Staley, who didn’t seem to know she was supposed to let us waltz to the Final Four. Nothing would fall for us—we missed routine free throws, blew layups. We lost in overtime, 79–75, and at the end of the game, I knelt on the court, elbow on my knee and with my chin in my hand, woebegone, flicking my eyes up at that ugly scoreboard.
The Final Four would be in Knoxville—and the Lady Vols wouldn’t be in it. It was the all-time low, the worst loss ever. I felt a sense of utter failure, and guilt that we’d let everybody in Knoxville down. When I walked into the locker room, I could see the kids visibly dreaded what I might say to them. At first I couldn’t even speak, and when I finally found some words, they were uncharacteristically subdued. We would go back to Knoxville and act as gracious hostesses, I informed them, for the teams who had earned their way there.
Pat was just sick, you heard it in her voice. But we were wondering why she wasn’t yelling and getting overly excited.
—DAEDRA CHARLES
Afterward I climbed into a van with our staff and Joan Cronan for the ride to the airport. Joan said, “I guess we’ll just have to eat all those thousands of T-shirts back in Knoxville.”
I said, “Oh no. That will be our practice gear next year, I promise.”
Then I broke down and started crying—and couldn’t stop. I cried all the way to the plane, and for much of the rest of the night. I cried to the point that it was completely out of proportion.
When we got back to Knoxville, I dropped a box of those T-shirts in our locker room with a thunk and told the team they would be wearing them for the foreseeable future. I also told them they would be working at the Final Four: among their duties was to serve as humiliated tour guides of our beautiful locker room, the one they had been kicked out of.
We all sat there in the bleachers of Thompson-Boling Arena and watched Stanford win the national championship on our home floor. It was a relief when it was over, and we could put it behind us.
We got over the loss and by the time spring workouts began, I had more reason than usual to focus on the future rather than dwell on past failures. One afternoon, a bright, laser-eyed sophomore named Debbie Hawhee came dribbling over to the sideline where I was standing.
“I dreamed you had a baby,” she said.
Mickie was next to me, and her eyes widened into saucers. I said, shocked, and a little testily, “What’d you dream that for?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But they took you away in an ambulance and you came back with a baby.”
Not long afterward, I convened a team meeting to address some issues. First of all, I offered a transfer to anyone who wanted to leave. We were going to work harder than ever, I declared, because I didn’t intend to live through another season of such uneven effort, and anyone who wasn’t committed needed to move on. “If you don’t want to be here, I’ll help you go anywhere you want,” I said.
Second, I had a personal announcement to make.
People on the staff had noticed that I was only drinking iced tea at dinner. When they asked if I was sick, I lied and said yes. But weeks went by and I kept telling the same fib, and it turned into the longest ailment in history. I kept the secret long past the first trimester, because I wanted to be sure. But after what Deb Hawhee said, I had realized there would be no fooling people for much longer.
“I’m five months pregnant,” I told the team. “The baby is due in September.”
After all the high-pitched whooping died down, and the kids finished trying to break my back with muscle-bound hugs, Mickie said excitedly, “And Debbie Hawhee knew! She’s psychic!”
What’s bothering you?
Did you read that paragraph in Sports Illustrated?
The one about life expectancy for people with Alzheimer’s?
Yes.
I read it.
What did you think?
Look, I think it’s a guess, and a bad one. It’s an average.
[Crying]
What upsets you the most?
I want to see my son grow up.
—December 13, 2011, Piscataway, New Jersey, on the road with the Lady Vols, seven months after diagnosis
7
Worki
ng Mother
I was the most healthful, shake-drinking, yoga-stretching expectant mother you ever saw. You didn’t hear me complaining about swollen ankles; I power walked five miles every morning and was so fit that at seven months I barely looked pregnant. But finally, the bump began to grow. It looked like a flotation device.
R.B. and I talked about names, and of course, Mickie and Holly jumped in with their opinions. I made the mistake of suggesting “Brandy” for a little girl because I thought it sounded pretty, which R.B. liked, but it drove Mickie and Holly crazy. They refused to let me subject the baby to such a sugary little identity. They were simply not having it.
“What’s wrong with Brandy?” I said. “It’s a sweet name.”
“No!” Mickie said. “Not unless her middle name is Alexander.”
Eventually we learned we had a boy on the way and settled on Ross Tyler. Even in the womb he was a mild-mannered, easy baby. He caused no nausea or moodiness, none of the usual complaints. I had just a couple of very small, quirky symptoms: all of a sudden I couldn’t bear the smell of whiskey, and even more odd was my reaction to a particular brand of toothpaste. We attended a class for expectant parents, and the teacher asked us to name our various ailments. When other mothers discussed their morning sickness, I raised my hand and said, “For some reason Crest toothpaste absolutely turns my stomach.” The teacher just stared back at me, blankly. “I’ve never heard that one before in my life,” she said.
I took to pregnancy like an athlete, determined to be in peak condition for my labor. I was well into my third trimester when I led our team on a strenuous hike to the top of Mount LeConte—it was the third-highest peak in the Smoky Mountains at 6,593 feet, and you should have heard the Lady Vols huffing to keep up, trying to avoid the humiliation of being outclimbed by the pregnant lady.
I power walked right up until the day I delivered, and on those walks I would have conversations with Tyler. I had an idea that I could get a head start on bonding with him and made it a point to speak aloud to him every morning, and again at night, imagining that he would get to know the sound of my voice. I would tell him about my day or my hopes for him. “I can’t wait until you get here,” I’d say. “I think you’re probably going to be a little redheaded boy. There’s a lot of redheads in the Head family. Redheaded boys with a temper.”
The last conversation I had with him while he was still inside me was on the morning of September 20, 1990. I was two weeks from my due date, and I’d had a bad night, couldn’t sleep, and was up and down with a backache and a constant need to go to the bathroom. Which should have told me something. I was scheduled to fly to Pennsylvania for the day with Mickie to see our most important recruit, an electric, bouncing guard named Michelle Marciniak, who was the top high school player in the country. R.B. was adamantly opposed to the trip. “Boys tend to come early,” he warned. We bickered about it, until I called my obstetrician, Dr. Leonard Brabson, who, though he wasn’t overly thrilled at the idea, didn’t forbid it either. I told R.B. I was going ahead with the trip.
But that morning as I walked, I wondered if R.B. was right. I only made it two and a half miles before my back started aching. I said to my stomach, “Buddy, it’s hot for a walk today,” and I turned back to our new home, a pretty wood-and-stone place on the banks of the Little River, a Fort Loudoun Lake tributary, only five miles from campus to make the commute with the baby easier. I went out on the back porch, and I sat down in the sun and drank a tall glass of water while I looked at the river. “You know, Tyler, I don’t know about this trip today,” I said. “I’m not real sure we need to go.”
But then I did my usual deal: I told myself I could handle it. Michelle was taking visits from every big-name coach in the country, and we couldn’t afford not to go, I rationalized. Also, I had booked a charter flight on the university’s plane, at the suggestion of Joan Cronan, who didn’t want me flying commercial, and I was reluctant to cancel.
“I’m going to be all right,” I said. “Mom will be all right, so let’s get dressed.”
I always think I have time to do one more thing.
Mickie and I went to the airport and boarded the charter flight to Macungie, Pennsylvania. But I was very uncomfortable on the plane, constantly shifting in my seat to ease my back. Then, just as we landed—I felt—something. I looked at Mickie. She said, “What’s wrong with you?”
“Mickie, I think maybe my water just broke.”
“What does that mean?”
“That means I’m getting ready to have Tyler.”
Her eyes widened. “We’re going home,” she said.
I said, “No, wait. Let me call the doctor.”
We got off the plane, and I found a restroom and some paper towels. Then I called Dr. Brabson on a pay phone, and described what had happened, and asked if I needed to turn right around. He said that I was probably still several hours from delivering, and women having their first babies tended to labor longer. “Do you want to stay and make the visit?” he asked.
“Well, I don’t want to overreact,” I said. “I chartered the plane and flew up here, so I guess I do.”
I had heard a million stories of women who rushed to the hospital thinking they were having their baby, only to be sent home again. Embarrassing, I told myself. Don’t be one of those. Plus it was a crucial business trip—I wanted to see Michelle Marciniak in orange. “I’m okay,” I said. Brabson told me that since it was only a two-hour flight back to Knoxville I was probably fine, but I would want to keep it short.
I hung up the phone and said to Mickie, “He says I can make the visit.”
Mickie said, “Are you kidding me?”
She was a nervous wreck as we got in our rental car and drove to the Marciniak residence. When we got there, Michelle was still at school, but her mother, Betsy, opened the door. She gave me a hug and said, “How are you doing, Pat?”
“Well, I’m in labor,” I said.
Betsy said, “What are you doing in my house?”
I explained that my doctor said it would be several hours before the baby came, and I wanted to make the effort to talk to Michelle. “Just don’t tell her,” I said. “I don’t want her to be distracted.” Betsy looked at me skeptically, but I promised her I was fine.
Just then Michelle walked in, radiating star quality. She was tall for a guard, almost six feet, with a kind of gleam to her, an open-faced girl with a shelf of white-blond bangs that hung over saucerlike blue eyes. The entire family gathered in the living room, and Mickie laid a large embossed book on the coffee table, and we began our song and dance about the virtues of the University of Tennessee, showing her pictures of the dorms and other facilities. But any hope I had for a calm, undistracted visit disappeared. Everyone in the room was tense, including the family dog.
So I walk in, and something seems a little bit strange, everyone’s on edge. I didn’t have a clue, but I knew that things weren’t right. People were not relaxed. My dad’s sitting on the edge of the sofa jingling his change in his pocket, and my dog Frosty is running around like crazy.
—MICHELLE MARCINIAK
It was the most rushed, hurried presentation ever. Mickie flipped the pages and talked so fast that she sounded like she was motorized. She said, “This is the dorm this is where you’ll sleep this is the cafeteria this is where you’ll eat this is the weight room this is where you’ll train …”
All of sudden, I felt a spasm. I made a small sound, stood up and excused myself, and went to the bathroom. My back was killing me—I suspected I was having contractions, but I never envisioned feeling them in my back. After a bit it eased, and I went back in the living room and sat down again. Mickie was still flipping through pictures, saying, “This is the student center this is the academic support center where you’ll study this is the administration building …”
I felt another contraction. I suppressed a moan, stood up and excused myself again, and went into the other room to call Dr. Brabson. I explained the sit
uation, and he said, “Why don’t you just come on home.”
Pat is getting up and going to the bathroom, and coming back in. Gets up, uses the phone, and comes back in. Gets up, uses the bathroom, comes back in. Gets up, uses the phone. And I’m like, Okay, seriously, what is going on?
—MICHELLE MARCINIAK
I walked back in the living room, and I said, “Michelle, I’m afraid we have to cut this visit short. The baby is on its way.” All of a sudden it clicked with her why her dad was pacing and fiddling with the change in his pocket. I turned to Mickie. “We’ve got to go. Now,” I said.
Michelle stared at me with big alarmed seventeen-year-old eyes that said, Are you about to have a baby on my couch? Everyone immediately went into motion. Mickie babbled that she wasn’t sure she could find her way back to the airport, so Michelle and her brother Steve offered to lead us there in their car. We went speeding through town at eighty miles per hour—and at one point took a shortcut the wrong way down a one-way street. As we wove through traffic, I went into another contraction and tilted the passenger seat all the way back and started groaning again.
I look back in the rearview mirror, and I see Pat’s feet on the dashboard. Her head is back and you can tell she’s in a lot of pain. And we’re flying. We go through stoplights, Do Not Enters, stop signs, just to get to the private airport.
—MICHELLE MARCINIAK
We finally got to the area where the private planes were parked, and we pulled onto the tarmac. Michelle and Steve stopped at the gate and watched us with their fingers up on a chain-link fence. Here’s what they witnessed: I walked up the steps and boarded UT’s King Air 200, while Mickie hurriedly ran up the steps of another plane. Michelle turned to Steve and said, “Did you see what I just saw?” Mickie got on the wrong plane. I was the one in labor, but she was the one who was totally flustered. A pilot said to Mickie, “Can I help you?,” and she realized her mistake and ran back down the gangway and found her way to our plane.