Pat Head

Pat Head played her collegiate basketball at the University of Tennessee at Martin. She was MVP of her team but did not have the college record held by some of her 1976 teammates. However she co-captained the 1973 World University Games silver medalists, played for the U.S. team at the 1975 Worlds Championship, and won a gold medal at the 1975 Pan American Games. After retiring as a player, Pat Head has made her mark as one of the top coaches in the college game – male or female. She was the coach of the U.S. teams which won gold medals in the 1979 Pan American Games and the World Championships, was the assistant coach for the 1980 Olympic team which did not compete at Moscow, and coached the gold-medal winning 1984 U.S. Olympic womens basketball team at Los Angeles. As Pat Head, she was named head coach at the [University of Tennessee (Knoxville)] in 1974, and has coached the Lady Vols since, mostly known by her married known of Pat Summitt (although she and her husband divorced in 2008). She has coached seven NCAA champions with Tennessee, been named National Coach of the Year seven times, and thru 2011, has won over 1,075 games, the most by any college coach – male or female. In 2011 she announced she was suffering from a form of early onset dementia but continues to coach with some assistance. She was also named by Sports Illustrated as the 2011 Sportswoman of the Year (with Mike Krzyzewski as Sportsman of the Year).