Editor's note: Carol Stiff, vice president, women's sports programming at ESPN, has known Pat Summitt for more than 25 years. We asked Stiff to recount some of her favorite memories of Summitt.
Long before we became colleagues and friends, I was just another women's college basketball coach who idolized Pat Summitt.
And the very first time I ever spoke to her, the legendary Tennessee coach was just another woman waiting to use the restroom.
It was 1987 and Pat had led Tennessee to its first national championship just hours earlier in Austin, Texas. After taking over the Lady Vols in 1975, Summitt had finally won that elusive title in her 13th season.
After the game, my friends and I who were in town for the Final Four headed to a nearby restaurant. Not long after we arrived, I excused myself to visit the restroom. When I came out of the bathroom stall, there she was.
The newly crowned national championship coach was standing there, politely waiting for me to get out of the way.
I seized the moment, looked Pat straight in the eye and said, "Great win, congratulations."
Pat smiled wide.
"Why thank you," she said in that heavy Southern accent. "I waited a long time for that one."
Even before Pat hoisted her first championship trophy, we knew we were witnessing history as a group of coaches attended the open practice sessions the day before at the Final Four. I sat in the stands like every other coach, taking notes, watching Pat's every move.
And as I got to know her better, I realized she was the same person I met in a restaurant restroom -- one of us. Sure, she was a trailblazer and one of the fiercest competitors I've ever seen, but deep down, she wasn't far removed from that girl who grew up on a farm in Tennessee.
Pat kept coaching, but I moved from the sideline to a position at ESPN in 1990. Within two years my job was programming women's basketball and scheduling the network's TV games.
Naturally, our lives intersected again. Pat and I would talk periodically throughout the year, and she was always wonderful to work with. Not long after the Final Four each year, as I was putting the schedule together for the next season, we'd hop on the phone. I'd ask her what she thought about certain teams, which ones were on the rise, and run ideas and matchups by her. She never hesitated to help.
Everyone always talks about Pat's steely stare, but I'll remember how she constantly put the game first.
When I asked her to play UConn for the first time -- a rivalry that grew into a phenomenon -- there were a lot of reasons that could have justified Pat passing on it, even for a coach who always played one of the nation's toughest schedules.
ESPN wanted to schedule the initial meeting in mid-January in the middle of the SEC season. The Martin Luther King Day matchup would be in Storrs, Connecticut, two days after Tennessee was already scheduled to play at Auburn. In fact, Tennessee's schedule included three games -- two on the road -- in six days before the proposed trip to the Northeast.
Pat hemmed and hawed a little bit. But then ...
"For the good of the game," she said to me one day on the phone, "I'll take that game."
It lived up to the hype. Tennessee was 16-0 and ranked No. 1 in the nation; UConn was second, and 12-0. The game sold out in advance and over 8,000 fans were on hand.
It was an incredible atmosphere. UConn went on to win 77-66 (voting for the Top 25 poll had been postponed until after the game, and the Huskies took over No. 1 the following day) and you knew something special had just happened.
UConn coach Geno Auriemma was happy as can be, having a ball. No one from UConn wanted to leave the court.
Eventually I made my way back up the tunnel and there was Pat, all alone outside Tennessee's locker room, looking at the stat sheet.
She looked up and saw me, and repeated six words I'll never forget.
"For the good of the game."