Pat Summitt

Patricia Sue Head was born in Clarksville, Tennessee, and grew up chopping tobacco and milking cows on her family's farm in Henrietta under her demanding father Richard Head. Playing basketball at the University of Tennessee at Martin, she co-captained the US women's Olympic team to silver at the 1976 Montreal Games. In 1974, at just twenty-two years old, she was hired as head coach of the Tennessee Lady Volunteers for $250 a month, initially washing the team's uniforms and driving the team van herself.

Over thirty-eight seasons in Knoxville, Summitt built the Lady Vols into the gold standard of collegiate athletics. Known for her piercing, icy blue 'death glare' on the sidelines and uncompromising demands for defensive perfection, Summitt captured eight NCAA Division I National Championships (1987, 1989, 1991, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2007, 2008), including an undefeated 39-0 season in 1998 featuring Chamique Holdsclaw.

Remarkably, every single four-year player who completed her eligibility under Summitt graduated from university—a flawless 100% graduation rate. In 1984, she coached the US Olympic women's basketball team to its first-ever Olympic gold medal in Los Angeles. Diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease in 2011 at age fifty-nine, Summitt coached one final season before establishing the Pat Summitt Foundation to fight the disease, receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2012.