Summitt honors parents, UT with donation of $600,000

When Pat Summitt considers her benefits and blessings, two University of Tennessees come to mind.

The Lady Vols women’s basketball coach took care of both with a $600,000 donation to the “The Campaign for Tennessee” fundraising effort. The gift, which was announced Monday, will be split between UT-Knoxville, where Summitt has coached for 34 seasons, and UT-Martin, where she played basketball and volleyball and graduated in 1974.

The basketball courts at both schools are named in Summitt’s honor.

Summitt’s donation includes a $100,000 endowed scholarship for a Lady Vols basketball graduate assistant in honor of her parents, Richard and Hazel Head.

“Both places have been great for me,’’ Summitt said. “They’ve both been incredibly important in the career path I’ve taken. They’ve helped mold me as a player and a person.”

At Martin, there were coaches, professors and fellow students. Summitt went so far as to include her Chi Omega sorority as being important to her maturation.

“The Chi Omega friends I’ve had are still some of the best friends in my life,’’ Summitt said. They’ve probably influenced me as much as anyone.”

In Knoxville, Summitt is grateful for former university president Ed Boling, former men’s athletic director Doug Dickey, his successor, Mike Hamilton, and other administrators.

“What sticks in my mind is the incredible support for women’s athletics,’’ she said.

Summitt is the third Tennessee coach to make a major gift to the university in the past two years. In March of 2007, men’s basketball coach Bruce Pearl endowed a scholarship in honor of former player Dane Bradshaw. Last August, football coach Phillip Fulmer and his wife, Vicky, announced a $1 million gift to the university to be split equally between academics and athletics.

Summitt earmarked her gift for women’s basketball because, as she said, “that’s where I’ve had the strongest support.”

“This is a way of putting a stamp on something that is very special to her,’’ Lady Vols athletic director Joan Cronan said.

Summitt said that the gift’s timing “is just right for me personally.”

It follows back-to-back national championships by the Lady Vols, as well as the renovation of Thompson-Boling Arena and the opening of Pratt Pavilion, the basketball practice facility.

“If you stop and think about all the things that have happened in the last couple of years, it’s been amazing,’’ Summitt said. “It’s incredible.”

What’s yet to happen is an upgrade in Summitt’s contract. It’s merely a matter of time, however. Cronan said the topic is being discussed.

Summitt and the university came to terms two years ago on a six-year extension that enabled her to be the first women’s coach to break the $1 million barrier. But that was before the national championships and Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma’s new five-year deal this spring, which started at $1.4 million.

“You want to renew a contract after someone has won back-to-back national championships; that’s obvious,’’ Cronan said. “We’re trying to come up with what’s the right contract for Pat Summitt.”

© 2008, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
Want to use this article? Click here for options!