Sum It Up

I recently finished Sum It Up: A Thousand and Ninety-Eight Victories, a Couple of Irrelevant Losses, and a Life in Perspective by Pat Summitt and Sally Jenkins.  Pat Summitt is the former head coach of Tennessee women's basketball and is the all-time winningest NCAA basketball coach.  She is also my favorite coach of all time and she held Aria when she was just two and half weeks old! 

I still can't believe I was standing next to the lady and she held my daughter!  (Thanks, Kiah for being so good at basketball to be recruited by her!  Thanks, mom, for being bold enough to ask her for a picture!)

In 2011, Pat Summitt was diagnosed with early-onset dementia, Alzheimer's type.  She coached one more season after her diagnosis and then stepped down.  We actually got to watch the last game she coached last year at the regional final in Des Moines. 

The book was phenomenal!  It is written in first person as she describes her whole life, from childhood to the present.  She describes her hard life growing up on a farm with three older brothers.  She describes her basketball playing days in high school, college, and the Olympics.  But most of all she describes all her seasons coaching at Tennessee.  She was hired directly out of college as the head coach at the age of 21.  Pat Summitt is largely responsible for the many breakthroughs in women's college basketball.  She is a huge part of why the game has become more popular.  It breaks my heart her career had to be cut short because of a disease for which there is no cure.

But she certainly would not want me to feel sorry for her.  She is determined to keep her mind sharp for as long as possible and she doesn't want a pity party.  In the book she is very honest and real about some pretty personal aspects of her life.  I felt like she really laid it all out there for people to get to know her.  I'm impressed with her willingness to share so much of herself with the world and the care and love that pours out of her for her former players and coaches.  Pat had a reputation for being extremely strict with a vicious glare that pierced her players, but man did she do it out of love and a desire to help the young women grow up into incredible human beings.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book.  It is very much a specific interest book, so if you are not interested in Tennessee women's basketball, you may not enjoy it so much.  But for me it was just perfect.  Thank you, Pat Summitt for sharing so much of yourself and for making women's basketball what it is today!  I have benefitted from it greatly!