I know a few UCLA fans that will take offense to even the question being posed, but as we were watching the National Championship last night, it seems a realistic inquiry. Some of Coach Summitt’s numbers over the years are just downright unbelievable.
Let’s take a moment to make a comparative analysis:
Summitt has coached in all 26 Women’s NCAA Tournaments, making it to the Finals in 13 of them (HALF!) with a ridiculous 8-5 record. (Oh, also, she has had Tennessee in every Sweet 16 ever played.)
While John Wooden’s string of 10 National Championships throughout the 60s and 70s are no doubt the marker by which everyone is measured (including 4 undefeated seasons), he coached in a time when 4 wins would take home the crown. Not to mention that his best mark, the 30-0 seasons, don’t quite measure up to Summitt’s 1998 39-0 year (a wins record that still stands).
Wooden’s 10-0 record in championship games dwarfs Summitt’s, at the moment, but Wooden coached in only 16 of 29 possible tournaments–55%–while failing to make the field in the other years.
So if career dominance is the debate, with the parity that women’s college basketball has of late, bringing home 2 consecutive national titles and 8 of the past 20 (all with 40- or 64-team fields), the edge goes to Pat.
The most dominant coach of all time.
If you want to debate who is/was the better recruiter, that’ll take a whole new column.
(And no, Kentucky fan, 4 titles in 41 years does not qualify Rupp for the dominance debate.)
I’d love to see how she’d do with a men’s team.
After the Wade Houston debacle in Knoxville, there were rumors the men’s job was hers should she want it… but who would want that job? Right?
[...] Pat Summit, more dominant that Wooden? [...]
Pat Summitt is doing a great job as the Coach of the Women’s Basketball team at UT. I hope she comes back again for the 2008-2009 season. She certainly doesn’t have anything to prove, she could retire or do something else after winning 8 championships. The women’s basketball program really needs women like Pat Summitt, the women’s game is just beginning to get some creditability. As far as how she would do coaching a man’s or male team, she coached her son Tyler’s basketball team last summer. From what I heard they benefited greatly from it. Coach Summitt is very gifted with her unique understanding of the game and any team that has her as coach will be the better for it.
Look at her graduation rate and success rate of former players as coaches (2 recent former players were just hired at major programs.. Cal and UCLA) not to mention the many already out there.
I’d send my kids to play for her, not just basketball either.