There’s no questioning Pat Summitt’s toughness.
Her patented glare has melted TV tubes and the resolve of her opponents. She successfully takes on Gators, Tigers and Bulldogs on a nightly basis in the SEC jungle, beating the Tigers of LSU on Sunday for her 13th conference championship. Longtime followers know the story of how she willed herself not to give birth until returning home to Tennessee when she inconveniently went into labor while on an important recruiting trip in Pennsylvania – she forbade the anxious pilot to make an emergency landing in Virginia because her Vols had suffered a painful loss to the Cavaliers that season.
Yeah, she’s tough. No question.
So a measly raccoon had no chance against her when it took an attack stance on her front porch last week as the winningest Division I coach returned from a walk with her dog. The seven-time national champion – who preaches defense any chance she gets – did all she could to defend her dog and herself. She swatted the poor masked offender with her forearm – surely a foul – and knocked it off the porch.
In so doing, she dislocated her shoulder. But her dog was unscathed and obviously loyally thankful.
She didn’t stop there. She spent the next couple hours trying to pop the shoulder back into place on her own. When she couldn’t, she finally relented and called a doctor. It took him and her son, Tyler – yes, the one who tried to make his entrance while Mom was courting point guard Michelle Marciniak – to double-team the stubborn shoulder back into place.
The injury didn’t slow her one bit. There she was on the sidelines for the SEC Tournament, no sling, no slowdown. She gestured just as wildly as always at her players and the refs. She high-fived with a smile after downing LSU and sealing a No. 1 seeding for her defending national champs.
Good thing there aren’t any NCAA tournament teams who call themselves the raccoons.