Tennessee women’s basketball coach Pat Summitt got her 1000th win last night, a record that will probably stand for a good long while. Nobody else in college basketball really has much of a shot– the record for men’s basketball coaches is Bob Knight at 902, and the most wins by an active coach is Mike Krzyzewski of Duke, somewhere short of 800.
I’m not a big follower of women’s college basketball– it doesn’t really have the competitive balance of the men’s game, and I’m not a huge fan of watching 30-point blowouts– but what little I do know suggests that Summitt is a class act. I haven’t heard of any academic or athletic scandals in her program, or any controversy attached to her personally.
And what she’s managed in building her program at Tennessee is really impressive– when I was in Knoxville for DAMOP a few years back, I had two cab rides in which the cabbie spontaneously brought Summitt up. That’s not something that happens very often with regard to women’s college sports.
So congratulations to Pat Summitt, and best wishes for continued success. She’s under contract to coach until 2014, so barring something catastrophic, she should be able to put the all-time coaching wins mark completely out of reach for anybody else.