When the subject of the greatest coaches of all time is brought up, there are a few names that immediately come to my mind. Phil Jackson, John Wooden, and Vince Lombardi are three of them. However, as is the case with nearly everyone in the world of sports, I never think of any female coaches. There are many reasons that this happens.
Women's sports are not nearly as popular as men's sports, especially at the professional level. The most popular women's professional sport is probably tennis, and that is an individual sport and not even a team sport. A lot of the most popular tennis players are more known for their looks than their actual ability anyway, which doesn't help matters when it comes to defining the best female athletes. The only women's team sports that are popular are collegiate and national sports like Olympic softball and World Cup soccer. Those national sports only come around once every four years, so this just takes away more of the attention from women's athletics.
The only women's sport that is popular and followed year in and year out is college basketball. This year it was Brittney Griner and Baylor putting together what was possibly the best season in the history of the sport. What is a shame though, is that once Griner graduates, she will probably fade into the background because the WNBA is just simply not at all popular. The collegiate basketball players have their time at school, their names are known, and then once they graduate, they fade away. Women like Diana Taurasi and Chamique Holdsclaw have their time in the spotlight in college, and then they turn pro and are hardly paid attention to.
The most long-lasting names in women's sports are the collegiate coaches, one of which stepped down from her position yesterday. About eight months ago, Tennessee Lady Volunteers coach Pat Summitt revealed that she was suffering from early onset dementia, and it was clear that it was only a matter of time before she would have to stop coaching. She will remain with the school in an advisory position, but there will be no more wins or losses added on to her career totals, and what unbelievable totals those have been.
Over the past 38 years, she has had one of the best coaching runs in the history of any sport, men's or women's. She led the Lady Vols to eight national titles during that time, the most all time of all women's college basketball coaches. While that in itself is a truly great accomplishment, a look at some of her other records make her career even more impressive. She led the Lady Vols to a record of 1,098-208 in her time as coach, a staggering .841 winning percentage. She led her teams to 16 conference titles, meaning that nearly half of the years she coached, her teams were tops in the SEC. Her teams never failed to reach the NCAA Tournament, and she led the Lady Vols to 18 Final Fours. The accomplishment that she is probably most proud of is that she has never had one player complete their basketball eligibility without a degree.
To put those numbers into some perspective, no men's Division I college basketball coach has led his team to 1,000 wins, and four of the top seven winningest men's coaches have coached longer than Summitt, with the other three having all but no chance of reaching her victory total by their 38th year. Only three of the 25 coaches with the most total victories have a winning percentage of .800 or better, with the great Adolph Rupp of Kentucky being the closest at .822. Only two men's schools have reached the Final Four 18 times, and those programs are UCLA and North Carolina, both of which have had multiple coaches over that time period.
In a sport that is marked by new faces that come and go every four years, Summitt has been the model of consistency for the last four decades, and has been the face of not only women's college basketball, but women's sports. Many of her former players have been forgotten, and many future Lady Volunteers will be forgotten as well, but there is no denying that Pat Summitt, unquestionably one of the greatest coaches of all time regardless of sport or gender, will be known for being the model of success and one of the most enduring images in the history of women's sports.
Daily Rangers Update: A 2-0 lead could not stand up and turned into a 3-2 overtime loss, evening the series at 2, with both losses coming in overtime. It isn't good, but we needed to win at least one of the games in Ottawa and we did that in Game 3. Game 5 will be Saturday night back home at Madison Square Garden, with the loser being pushed to the brink of elimination. Being at home in what is pretty much a must-win game is where we want to be, but it still has to get done. Let's Go Rangers!
Daily Diamondbacks Update: Daniel Hudson pitched very well, only surrendering one run into the 8th inning, but leaving with men on base, one of which came around and scored after David Hernandez came into the game. The offense struggled mightily though after scoring once in the first inning. Add to that the fact that Chris Young was placed on the 15-day disabled list and Justin Upton still does not seem like he will be back to full strength in the next few days, and it might be a little bit of a struggle for the next week or two. We open a series with Atlanta tonight and Josh Collmenter takes the hill after struggling in his first two starts. Tyler Skaggs and Trevor Bauer are waiting in the wings in the minor leagues, and if Collmenter continues to struggle, we might see one of the young guns sooner rather than later. First pitch is in just under an hour.
Daily Giants Update: The schedule for the upcoming season was released last night, and even though we knew who our opponents would be on the last day of the 2011 regular season, now we know when we will be playing them. The best part is we do not have to play the Saints in New Orleans, which is great news considering our recent history of getting destroyed every time we take the field in the Superdome. And we are still the defending champs.
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