“For four months, I was in and out of the hospital,” Gray said. “She never left my side. The relationship we had was indescribable.”
Summitt, the winningest coach in men’s or women’s basketball history, died Tuesday at 64 in Knoxville. Her death came five years after she announced she was battling early onset dementia in the form of Alzheimer’s.
Summitt coached for 38 years and won 1,098 games. Her legacy, however, goes beyond those numbers.
“To the outside world, she’s coach Summitt,” said Gray, who is leaving Wright State later this summer to play professionally in France. “To the Lady Vols family, she was a mother away from home for us, whether it was inviting us over for team meals or having one-on-one sessions in her office when we would cry on her shoulder.”
Wright State’s staff includes another Summitt disciple. Assistant coach Semeka Randall scored 1,915 points in her career at Tennessee and played for Summitt’s 1998 team that finished 39-0 and won the national championship. That was the third straight national title for Summitt and the sixth of eight.
Randall visited Summitt for the last time on Saturday. One of her former teammates called her at 8 a.m. to tell her she needed to get to Knoxville as soon as possible. She was on the road at 9 a.m. and looking at her coach for the last time at 2:30 p.m.
“I thank God for her,” Randall said. “She was the first woman coach I ever played for. She challenged me in spots that I wasn’t strong at and she got the best out of me.”
Dayton women’s basketball coach Jim Jabir crossed paths with Summitt in 2010 when his team played in the NCAA tournament in Knoxville. His players posed for a photo with Summitt. The Flyers lost 92-64 to the Vols in the second round.
Jabir called Summitt an icon in not only women’s basketball but all basketball.
“I have the opportunities I have because of the groundwork she laid and the standard she set,” Jabir said. “The thing about Coach is that she did everything with pure intensity and integrity and honesty. She was a champion because of how she pursued her craft. She’s a great example for all of us.”
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