Pat Summitt - Raise the Roof: The Inspiring Inside Story of the Tennessee Lady Vols Historic 1997-1998 Threepeat Season

Books by Pat Summitt with Sally Jenkins

REACH FOR THE SUMMIT

A hardcover edition of this book was published in 1998 by Broadway Books.

RAISE THE ROOF . Copyright 1998 by Pat Summitt. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information, address Broadway Books, a division of Random House, Inc., 1540 Broadway, New York, NY 10036.

B ROADWAY B OOKS and its logo, a letter B bisected on the diagonal, are trademarks of Broadway Books, a division of Random House, Inc.

First trade paperback edition published 1999.

The Library of Congress has catalogued the hardcover edition as:

Summitt, Pat Head, 1953

Raise the roof: the inspiring inside story of the Tennessee Lady Vols undefeated 199798 season / Pat Summitt with Sally Jenkins. 1st ed.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-81446-3
1. University of Tennessee, KnoxvilleBasketball. 2. Lady Volunteers (Basketball team) 3. Summitt, Pat Head, 1953I. Jenkins, Sally. II. Title.
GV885.43.U58S86 1998
796.323630976885dc21

9836854

v3.1

To the players, their parents,
and the Tennessee staff,
all of whom are an
irreplaceable part of the
Lady Vols family.

Pat Summitt

T HE REAL AUTHORS of this book were the players. They ran the court. They raised the banners. Most importantly, they permitted their personal stories to be told.

Unfortunately, NCAA rules prohibit the use of their photographs. Otherwise they would have been on the cover.

This account of Tennessees 199798 season was based in part on journals kept by Pat Summitt and by Sally Jenkins, who traveled with the team throughout the NCAA tournament. However, a great deal more of whats recorded here was related by the Tennessee Lady Vols themselves, all of whom agreed to participate in this project and sat for a series of interviews after the season was concluded.

Family members also contributed. June Holdsclaw, Robert Geter, Joanne Geter, Ken and Peggy Jolly, Wanda Catchings, Harvey Catchings, Bertha Randall, Sue Carney, and Sheryl Elzy gave of their time, their family histories, and their insights.

PART ONE

Playground
Lullabies

Q & A with Semeka Randall (Freshman guard)

What made you go to Tennessee?

Pats been with me since the ninth grade. Shes just always been there. I had some second thoughts after I visited Connecticut, because it could have worked out for me there. But she called me up and started yelling at me. She said, Look here. Im only going to tell you this one time. Ive wanted to be your coach since you were in the ninth grade. Since day one. And you know that. So you make your decision. I was like, wow, Pats yelling at me.

She recruited you by yelling at you?

I thought that was cool.

I M A FORTY-FIVE-YEAR-OLD woman with a controlling nature and crows feet from squinting into the country sun, and its just not like me to act the way I did. To be so free with my feelings, and to wear blue jeans, of all things. Ordinarily, Im in charge. I wear a suit and a perpetual glare. Im a coach, so I take the issue of control personally. Ive always seen the movements of players on a basketball court as an extension of myself, like puppets on a string. Their failures were my fault, their successes my responsibility. I demanded that they act like Pat, and think like Pat. A row of little Patlings. So when, exactly, did I let go? When did I decide to let this team run? And when did they start running me?

The truth is, I loved them. Of course, all coaches say they love their teams. When really, you love some of them more than others, and some of them you dont like at all. But love or like, Ive always yelled at them. I yell, because Im a yeller. Im a yeller, and so I yell. My voice gets so hoarse it sounds like tires crunching over gravel. During the season, I go through economy-sized packages of throat lozenges.

With this team, though, I was different.

My top assistant coach, Mickie DeMoss, was the first person to suggest I should go softer on them. As our recruiting coordinator, she knew the strengths and sympathized with the flaws of the 199798 Tennessee Lady Volunteers more deeply than any of us. Something in them got to her, early. Maybe it was the fact that they were so young and unguarded, or that they had such large eyes, begging to be taught. Pat, dont yell at this team, Mickie said, back in the summertime. They want to play for you.

We were driving through a desolate strip of Texas on a recruiting trip. I said, What do you mean? Id been shouting for twenty-three years, as long as I had been the head coach at Tennessee. It had always worked before. We had been to the NCAA Final Four fourteen times, and won five national championships in ten years. But Mickie said I ought to consider something new. For once, I should try not raising my voice.

Mickie said, Theyre different. Theyre spirited, and I dont want to see that spirit broken.

I thought about it for a minute.

I said, Well, I cant promise you.

Mickie said, warningly, Pat

I said, All right, Ill try.

Im not saying I didnt have my snappish moments. It wasnt like I underwent a complete personality transplant. But something happened to me. In the 199798 Lady Vols I finally met a group of players more driven than I am. They were harder on themselves than I ever could have been. That was clear from the moment they stepped on campus.

The funny thing was, what turned out to be the toughest game of the year may have been played before the season ever started. And I wasnt even there for it. I should have known right then that this team was out of the ordinary.

It was a sweltering night in the dregs of summer, August 23, 1997, a Saturday, their first day on the University of Tennessee grounds. Whats the first thing they did? They went looking for a basketball. Long before anyone put on a Tennessee uniform, the whole team, a dozen young women clad in baggy, mismatching rayon shorts and raggedy T-shirts, gathered to play pickup. It was a contest of us against ourselves. A showdown. The Tennessee Lady Vols against the Tennessee Lady Vols.

There were no scoreboards, no officials, no crowds, no coaches. It was just pure game, a strictly private affair. I didnt even know about it until after the factand I probably still dont know the half of it. You could ask one of our players for the full story, but I doubt they would tell you because, like most great teams, theyre a secretive bunch. And even if they did tell you, you probably wouldnt understand much of what they said. As someone remarked not long ago, the Lady Vols arent a team, theyre a cult. They have a tendency to speak in code. For instance, a ball is not a ball, its the rock, and you dont shoot it, you throw it down. Your best friend is your dog. If something is great, its tight, or if its silly, its sadiddy. And this isnt a beginning, its the jump.