Summit Has Early Onset Dementia

Updated: August 23, 2011, 3:55 PM ET

Pat Summitt has early onset dementia
ESPN.com news services

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- Pat Summitt plans to coach the Tennessee women's basketball team "as long as the good Lord is willing," despite recently being diagnosed with early-onset dementia.

"There's not going to be any pity party and I'll make sure of that," she told the Knoxville News Sentinel Monday evening. The newspaper first reported Summitt's condition.

In a statement from Summitt released by the university Tuesday, the Hall of Fame coach said she visited with doctors at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., after the end of the 2010-11 basketball season and was diagnosed with the condition during the summer.

"I plan to continue to be your coach," Summitt said. "Obviously, I realize I may have some limitations with this condition since there will be some good days and some bad days."

The 59-year-old Summitt told the newspaper she had been feeling erratic earlier this year, and plans to rely on medication and mental exercises to manage the progressive condition that could lead to Alzheimer's, which her grandmother had.

"Nobody accepts this," her son, Tyler, told the News Sentinel. "And there was anger. 'Why me?' was a question she asked more than once. But then, once she came to terms with it, she treated it like every other challenge she ever had, and is going to do everything she possibly can to keep her mind right and stay to coach."

Summitt said she planned to inform her current players of her diagnosis Tuesday afternoon in a team meeting, and longtime assistants Holly Warlick, Dean Lockwood and Mickie DeMoss will take on more responsibilities with the team going forward.

As college basketball's winningest coach, Summitt has spent 37 seasons at Tennessee and has 1,071 career victories and eight national championships, but the Lady Vols have failed to reach the Final Four since they last won the national championship in 2008.

She also coached the United States to the gold medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics, and won silver as a player in 1976.

Both UT-Knoxville chancellor Jimmy Cheek and athletic director Joan Cronan pledged their support of Summitt's decision to continue coaching.

"Pat Summitt is our head coach and she will continue to be," Cronan said. "She is an icon not only for women's basketball but for all of women's athletics. For Pat to stand up and share her health news is just a continuing example of her courage.

"Life is an unknown and none of us have a crystal ball. But I do have a record of knowing what Pat Summitt stands for; excellence, strength, honesty and courage."

Former Tennessee men's coach Bruce Pearl said Summitt called him last night and left him a message, telling him the news. Pearl coached Summitt's son, a walk-on, last season.

"She's been incredibly supportive to me," Pearl told ESPN.com Tuesday. "I had a chance to work with her. I had a chance to coach her son. And we're friends for life."

"I was shocked and saddened to hear about the news regarding Pat Summitt's diagnosis," UConn coach Geno Auriemma, a longtime adversary, said Tuesday afternoon. "There is no doubt in my mind that Pat will take on this challenge as she has all others during her Hall of Fame career -- head-on. I wish her all the best."

Summitt is the second widely known basketball coach to have a mental disorder of this nature. Former North Carolina men's basketball coach Dean Smith is battling what his family termed a "progressive neurocognitive disorder that affects his memory."

The 80-year old Hall of Fame coach has kept a relatively private existence recently, making only cameo appearances around the program.

Information from ESPN.com's Andy Katz and The Associated Press was used in this report.

That is a shame, my prayers go out to her and her family.

A real shame...such a great lady. She IS UT basketball.