Well, Brittney Griner and Baylor University  won the 2012 NCAA Division I Women’s basketball championship. Meanwhile, here in Newark, Elena Delle Donne and the Blue Hens are prepping for next year’s run for the conference, and possibly, the national title. But Griner and Delle Donne wouldn’t have been noticed if it weren’t for another woman’s efforts.

That woman would be, Pat Summitt, 59, the coach of the Tennessee Lady Volunteers basketball team. Summitt is a legend in the women’s basketball community. She has been coaching the Lady Vols for 38 seasons, never having a losing year. For all the success she has had as a coach, she’s had to deal with a lot of hardship to get to the top.

As a player, she arrived in college two years before the passing of Title IX, legislation calling for schools to provide athletics for women. Summitt did not get a scholarship, so her parents had to pay. In 1974, Summitt, then a 22-year-old graduate assistant, was named head coach of Tennessee after the previous coach quit.  In those days, women’s basketball was not an NCAA-sanctioned sport, and Tennessee didn’t lavish the team with much support. Summitt had to wash the team’s uniforms and drive the van to games. From 1976-1978, Summitt coached the Lady Vols to back-to-back Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) Region II championships. She also co-captained the U.S. women’s national basketball team to a silver medal in the 1976 Olympics in Montreal.

The 1980s were a better time for Summitt. In 1982, the Lady Vols lost to Louisiana Tech in the first NCAA Women’s tournament Final Four game. In 1983, Tennessee won the Southeastern Conference (SEC) regular season, lost in the tournament. Tennessee gained the No. 1 seed, their first, in the NCAA tournament but fell in the regional finals. The next year, Summitt coached the U.S. women’s national basketball team to a gold medal in the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, becoming the first U.S. Olympic member to win a medal as a player and a coach. Fast forward to 1987, and the Lady Vols gave Summitt her first NCAA tournament victory, beating Louisiana Tech, 67-44. They won every game in the 1989 NCAA tournament by at least 12 points.

Summitt began the next decade as the leading force in women’s basketball. Tennessee won the 1991, 1996 and 1997 NCAA titles, and claimed the 1990, 1993, 1994 and 1995 SEC regular season titles. They also won the SEC tournament in 1992, 1994 and 1996. But it was the 1997-98 Lady Vols that established Summitt as a force to be reckoned with. Tennessee had a 39-0 regular season record, and also won the SEC tournament. They beat Louisiana Tech again, 93-75, to win their third-straight NCAA title. Summitt rounded out the 1990s with their third 30-win year in a row, beating powerhouse UConn, who only lost that game, in the NCAA title.

Summitt and the Lady Vols entered the twenty-first century with a bang, winning the SEC regular season and championship in 2000. They followed it up with wins in the SEC regular season from 2001 to 2004, as well as in 2007, 2010 and 2011. Tennessee also claimed the 2005, 2006 and 2008 SEC championship titles, following it up with titles in 2010 through 2012. Although Summitt’s NCAA tournament record in this century hasn’t been great, she and the Lady Vols took back-to-back titles in 2007 and 2008.

For all the hardships Summitt faced in her life, she dealt with these hurdles with dignity. Now, Summitt is in for her greatest fight. She was diagnosed with early-onset dementia, which causes memory loss, in August 2011. With the same tenacity she uses to whip her teams into championship shape, she is determined to fight the disease.

There have been other great innovators in women’s basketball, like Cathy Rush, coach of the “Mighty Macs,” winners of the AIAW championships from 1972 through 1974, from Immaculata University in Pennsylvania, and Nancy Lieberman and Anne Donovan from Old Dominion. But it’s thanks to Coach Summitt for creating a powerful program that gained the attentions of many. TV coverage of the NCAA tournament has spiked since the 1980’s. People now get boosters to put money into their women’s basketball programs. Most importantly, universities put more scholarships up for coaches to recruit the top female players.

Coach Summitt hasn’t just created a legacy on and off the court as well. Since becoming coach, all of Summitt’s players has gone completed or completing their college degree.    

Every player should be indebted to Coach Summitt. It is because of her hard work that women’s basketball is taken more seriously than in previous years. I hope the next time Delle Donne or Griner, or any women’s basketball player steps onto the court in front of a packed crowd, she should silently thank Summitt, because if it weren’t for her, she probably wouldn’t be playing.

Jack Cobourn is the assistant sports editor at The Review. Send questions and comments to jclark@udel.edu.