by Pat Summitt
Three days after meeting with the chancellor, I went public with my diagnosis and broke the news to our team. As soon as I shut the doors to a conference room and turned to face our players, a videotaped statement was released to the media. On the exterior, I looked composed as I made that simple though stunning announcement. But truthfully, it was a day of stomach-knotting fear and pressure. How would our players take it? Would they rebel at being coached by someone with a mind-wasting illness? What would the public think? I fought to be word perfect, because even the smallest trip over a word might make listeners say, “There it is, the disease. She can’t do it.”
It was time to circle up. Our players crowded around the table, so long and leggy they dwarfed their chairs and had to hunch over to rest their elbows on the table. I gazed at our five seniors and knew they had questions; they had seen signs of the disease trespassing on our program but had been too respectful to ask what was wrong with me, bless them. They included: Vicki Baugh, a soft-eyed six-foot-four center from Sacramento, California, who went at the basket like a javelin, until she blew her knee in the ’08 title game against Stanford and needed multiple surgeries; Briana Bass, a selfless five-foot-two guard from Indianapolis with a face like an angel; Glory “Glo” Johnson, a razor-minded six-foot-three forward from Knoxville with booster rockets for legs; Alicia “A-Town” Manning, a grinning, sunny six-foot-one all-purpose player from Atlanta; and Shekinna “Strick” Stricklen, our versatile six-foot-two guard from Morrilton, Arkansas, with an ambling stride, so sweetly easygoing that I teased her she looked like she’d rather be fishing by a pond.
Many of them had noticed that I had issues with my memory, I began. “I went to the Mayo Clinic to get checked out,” I said. “I have early-onset dementia, Alzheimer’s type.”
There was an audible gasp. A junior named Taber Spani, an archerlike shooter from Lee’s Summit, Missouri, started to weep. All around the room chins were trembling. If I didn’t get a grip on their emotions, they would dissolve. I didn’t want that. I stared back at them stoically, hoping they would follow my lead.
“Listen up,” I said. “This is not a pity party. Hear me? We’re not going to cry over this. I’m still your coach.”
They sat up a little straighter and stopped crying.
With a diagnosis like this you don’t quit living, I explained. You keep going. We were going to reorganize the staff, but our principles would be the same, and so would our aim. The best thing they could do for me, I said, was “to cut down nets.” “I’m not going to forget your names,” I added. Then I went for a laugh. “And I’m certainly not going to forget to yell at you.” That did it—they broke up into laughter. With that we dissolved the meeting, and I instantly felt better for having told them. There were no more questions or gray areas, no more big mysteries. We had clarity.
“We’ve got your back, Pat,” Vicki Baugh said.
Next, I moved to the phones and began getting in touch with our recruits and their parents to explain the situation. To our astonishment, not a single one of them reneged that day. They all maintained their commitments to Tennessee.
I went home immensely relieved, and as thoroughly exhausted as I’d ever been. I was in strange new territory now. Alzheimer’s was an unpredictable disease: What if my health declined rapidly? What if I subjected the team to embarrassment, or our players felt shortchanged, or the season became more about me than them?
I would need a lot of help to get through the coming months. But I had it. At my flank was my son, who had grown into a man of incredible strength and substance. Tyler Summitt was only twenty-one, but in the past few weeks he had engineered my trip to the Mayo Clinic, consulted with doctors and arranged for my treatment, assumed control of the family finances, brought himself up to speed on my legal affairs, and fought for me to keep my job. He had done all this while managing to work out like a fiend as a walk-on member of the Tennessee men’s basketball team and staying on track to graduate in just three years cum laude with a degree in communications.
If anyone was uniquely positioned to make this experiment work, I was. Alongside me was the most stable, deeply experienced staff in the country: Holly had been with me for twenty-eight years, and Dean for another seven, though I’d known him for twenty. Daedra Charles was in charge of player development, and our director of basketball operations, Kathy Harston, had spent two decades at Texas as an assistant coach under Hall of Famer Jody Conradt. Our sports medicine director, Jenny Moshak, had been with us for twenty years, and our strength coach, Heather Mason, for nine.
Also, Mickie DeMoss was back. In 2010, I called her to ask if she would rejoin our staff. I’d missed her humor and advice every day of the seven years since she’d been away, and something told me I needed her to lean on. I didn’t consciously know something was wrong with me at that point, but I didn’t feel as strong as I once had.
“I want you to come back to Tennessee,” I said.
Mickie had made a success at Kentucky, but then had suffered a case of burnout and taken some time off before migrating to Texas. I knew she missed us as much as we missed her.
“Come on, Mickie,” I said. “Let’s finish out our careers together.”
Mickie heard a note in my voice that said, “I need you.” She didn’t hesitate to accept the job—but in the back of her mind she was a little concerned. She thought, When has Pat ever needed help? Shortly after Mickie came back to Knoxville, she felt twinges of uneasy recognition. Her mother, Wilma, had suffered from dementia, and it had started with the same tiny glitches that I had.
Now that Mickie knew my diagnosis, she felt she was in exactly the right place. She understood how much person was left underneath the symptoms, because she had walked Wilma through her illness. Once, Mickie, Holly, and I went to visit Wilma in the assisted living facility where she spent the last years of her life. Early one morning we all tiptoed into her room, trying not to make too much noise. But Wilma was awake, and when she saw us, she threw back the covers and popped up. She was fully clothed, down to a pair of red tennis shoes, and her purse.
“I’m ready to go,” she said brightly. “Where are we going?”
Exactly my attitude.
I was ready to go too: I wanted to go back to a Final Four, and I thought we had a pretty good crack at it, if I could keep my health issue at bay and it didn’t become a weight on our team or our staff. In addition to five seniors, we had some blazingly talented underclassmen. Ariel Massengale, of Bolingbroke, Illinois, was a five-six point guard who made great decisions and had a stocky, durable, bumper-car style of play. Cierra Burdick of Charlotte, North Carolina, was an exuberant six-foot-two forward with big hands and feet who could knock down shots from all over the court, and six-three center Isabelle Harrison played like there was an electric current running through her. Then there was our blindingly fast sophomore guard Meighan “Speedy” Simmons from Cibolo, Texas, and an antic, baby-voiced junior guard from Clarksville, Tennessee, Kamiko Williams.
Our team was rangy, athletic, and I liked the look of them. As Dean said, “We’re very impressive getting off the bus or walking through airports.”
On October 24, 2011, I made my first major public appearance since announcing my diagnosis, at the annual SEC media day in Birmingham to kick off the season. A wall of cameras and mikes awaited me, and the tension was heightened by the fact that just before I entered the room, I learned that ESPN was going live, because a rumor had gotten around that I was there to announce my retirement.
But I loved talking with the press; I’d been unself-conscious with them throughout my career. Holly was with me for moral support, and I also had the good wishes of my fellow coaches from around the SEC, all of whom had called or sent notes asking what they could do to help me through the day. I strolled through the throng and took a seat with Holly, surrounded by a horseshoe of klieg lights.
“I’m not ready to retire,” I declared. “I’ve heard that one rolled out today. I may be old as dirt when
I’m still trying to win games.”
The questions began to fly, and for the next half an hour I fielded them as sharply as I could, conscious that what I put on display could change how people saw the disease.
Did the disease make me feel slower? “I don’t think it’s something that’s slowing me down,” I shot back. “I think if anything, it’s revving me up.”
What was my goal? “We need to cut down nets,” I declared. “I’d be disappointed if we didn’t.”
Out of the blue, someone said I was known for my cooking—what did I still like to cook? The question was so out of context it took me aback, and I felt a telltale vagueness and uncertainty; had I understood it right? I peered into the lights and paused for a just a beat too long. Holly jumped in. “Mexican corn,” she said. By then I’d caught up. “Jalapeño corn,” I corrected.
There were more questions, probing my state of mind. I discussed our freshmen and their energy and praised Vicki Baugh for her leadership. Someone kiddingly asked if I still knew how to yell at the officials.
“Trust me, I remember the refs,” I said, to laughter.
When I got home that night, I rewarded myself with a glass of cabernet. “You deserve a glass of wine tonight,” Mickie said.
“Don’t worry, I’m about to pour my second one,” I said.
Workouts began, and with them, a new routine. My closest friends circled up to help me establish a regimen to fight the disease. Billie Moore came from California and Esther Hubbard drove in from Kentucky, and they installed themselves in the guest rooms.
Billie read up on anecdotal reports that coconut oil in large doses could slow Alzheimer’s, and I began drinking protein shakes full of it every morning. I was less enthusiastic about Billie’s insistence that I get on a Mediterranean diet, which did not include my preferred food groups: filet mignon and cabernet. She coached me like I was a student again, trying to make the Olympic team. “I want to save every single brain cell,” she said. At dinner I sipped ice water and chewed salmon and vegetables.
Tyler, my nurse anesthetist friend Mary Margaret Carter, and my invaluable assistant Katie Wynn sorted through the hundreds of offers and suggestions I received, ranging from the eyebrow raising (the disease was caused by my dental fillings) to the frightening (had I tried electroshock therapy?). They zeroed in on the most helpful contacts and made appointments for two additional consultations, one at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and another at the Banner Alzheimer’s Institute in Phoenix, Arizona. They turned over every stone.
On the morning of our season opener against Pepperdine, we all sat around doing puzzles, which had taken over the house. My iPad was loaded with brainteasers, and I also had books of Sudoku and word finders. We were all obsessed. Esther worked a “cryptograph” in the daily paper, while Billie did a crossword. Esther and Billie had completely different methods: Billie was a pen person, Esther a pencil person. Billie wouldn’t fill in a box unless she was absolutely certain of the answer, whereas Esther freely scribbled.
“That’s a guess,” Billie said.
“No, it’s a deduction,” Esther answered.
I watched them argue back and forth, my head turning like I was following a Ping-Pong ball.
Billie asked, “What’s a five-letter word for ‘fast.’ ”
“Hasty,” Esther said.
“That could be right,” Billie said.
“It is right,” Esther said. “Put it down.
“No, it’s a guess.”
That was how I spent my afternoon; I might as well have taken an SAT exam. Finally it was time for pregame, my first official contest coaching with Alzheimer’s. When I walked into the locker room, Holly had already written the players’ instructions up on the board. Once, it had been my job. I stared at it. “Is that Holly’s handwriting?” I asked.
Yes, Mickie answered. “It can’t be,” I said. “Someone must have helped her.” Holly had famously sloppy writing, but her new duties as a clipboard holder were bringing out the executive in her. We had settled on what felt like comfortable, defined roles: Mickie and I worked on the offense, while Dean and Holly handled the defense. Holly was the play caller during games. My job was to serve as the big gun, the disciplinarian.
Pepperdine was a veteran team and fourth in the country in steals, and while we led by 13 at the half, it wasn’t pretty. The coaches started to retire to our separate anteroom to discuss it, but at the last second I swerved to the front of the locker room to address the players.
“Why are we turning the ball over?” I asked. “What is it?” No answer. But I suspected I knew the reason. “Are we overanxious?” Heads nodded. The kids probably felt as on display as I did. They settled down in the second half and ignited for an 18–0 run and blew the game open.
It was a good beginning to a season that we knew would have its bumps and pockets of turbulence. Our team and staff continually had to adapt to the circumstances that went with my diagnosis. I couldn’t scout like I used to, so the workload of analyzing film had to be redistributed. I had to be occasionally absent for medical consultations, and there was the constant scrutinizing spotlight from the media.
But in general, things went on normally, as they always had. That’s not to say we didn’t have crises that season, but they were the usual ones—our seniors’ motivation occasionally flagged as they contemplated life after college, and our freshmen struggled with the physical workload and hit a wall. But I was proud that no one ever used my diagnosis as an excuse or explanation for anything that happened. Our kids treated Alzheimer’s like an uninvited guest—and ignored him.
In mid-November, Mary Margaret and I flew to Boston, where I spent part of an afternoon with Dr. Reisa Sperling, the head of Alzheimer’s research and clinical trials at Brigham and Women’s. She was a small tousle-headed woman in a tiny office dominated by stacks of papers. Deep down, I’d clung to the hope that maybe it was a terrible mistake, that my tests had been misinterpreted. But Dr. Sperling showed me an MRI of my brain and said, “I wish I could tell you something different.” What it showed, unfortunately, was a classic case of Alzheimer’s.
But Dr. Sperling did have some encouragement for me. She put an image of my brain on her computer screen. Green was bad, and orange was good, she said. The colors on the screen reflected glucose levels, which showed blood distribution in my brain. There, in the middle, was a small Crest-colored blob, the plaque buildup. But all around it was a beautiful vibrant orange, Tennessee’s color. It showed that far more of my brain was healthy than not.
Dr. Sperling talked to me about the state of various clinical trials, but just as interesting was her advice on how to battle the disease in a nonpharmaceutical way. Heavy exercise showed a beneficial effect, she said. Puzzles were good too, but there was a danger of retreating into them, burying your head in them. Interact, she encouraged. Talk, work, laugh. Get out in the world. In a word, live.
It was reassuring to know that my instincts for how to deal with the disease met with the best medical opinion—and the advice to keep living came at a time when life expectancy was on my mind. In early December, Sports Illustrated named me co-Sportsman of the Year with the great Mike Krzyzewski of Duke. It was a rare tribute for a woman, given SI’s famously male-dominated outlook, and Kathy Harston urged me to give the following acceptance speech: “I was so honored when SI called and wanted to photograph me. Because I just knew I had finally made it into the Swimsuit Issue.” Kathy even got ahold of an issue and superimposed my head over a swimsuit model reclining on her stomach in a thong. I laughed until I almost fell down.
The Sports Illustrated story by their senior writer Alex Wolff was a glowing compliment, and I read it with immodest pleasure, until I arrived at a sidebar about Alzheimer’s. A sentence jumped out at me: “the average life expectancy” for Alzheimer’s was eight to ten years from diagnosis. The sentence hit me hard, right in the stomach. I suppose I had heard the figure before, but there was something about seeing it
in type that leveled me. That night, I had a meltdown. Michelle Marciniak called to check in, and I burst into tears on the phone. It had been a bad week, I said; things seemed fuzzy, and I didn’t feel right, and the idea of a death sentence weighed on me. It was one of those nights when optimism deserted me.
But the next morning I did what I’d always been taught to do by my father: I went back to work and made myself useful. The players took my mind off my health issues. We embarked on a road trip to New York to play DePaul and Rutgers. Our young point guard Massengale was out with a dislocated finger, and Meighan Simmons was in a shooting slump. I worked with Meighan on her form—she was “dipping” the ball, yanking it low instead of going straight into her release. It felt good to straighten her out, help her.
The Lady Vols hit New York hard, and my mood lifted. We power shopped at Macy’s in the heart of Christmas traffic, and ate Italian and listened to Mickie stretch tales. One was a riff about going into Victoria’s Secret and having her personal dimensions announced over the store loudspeaker. Dean Lockwood took a turn: he had an uncanny ability to remember whole lengths of movie dialogue, and he loved to do the well scene from Silence of the Lambs. “It takes the lotion from the basket and puts it on its skin,” he intoned. Mickie, Holly, and I indulged in our favorite sport, teasing him for his bachelordom. “Dean keeps his running shoes on,” I said.