Top 90 Pat Summitt Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Attitude lies somewhere between emotion and logic. It’s that curious mix of optimism and determination that enables you to maintain a positive outlook and to continue plodding in the face of the most adverse circumstances.”

— Pat Summitt

52. “God doesn’t take things away to be cruel. He takes things away to make room for other things. He takes things away to lighten us. He takes things away so we can fly.”

— Pat Summitt

53. “Success lulls you. It makes the most ambitious of us complacent and sloppy. In a way, you have to cultivate a kind of amnesia and forget all of your previous prosperity.”

— Pat Summitt

54. “Most people get excited about games, but I’ve got to be excited about practice, because that’s my classroom.”

— Pat Summitt

55. “If I was renowned as as tough coach, I also wanted to be a caring one.”

— Pat Summitt

56. “Confidence is what happens when you’ve done the hard work that entitles you to succeed.”

— Pat Summitt

57. “Value those colleagues who tell you the truth, not just what you want to hear.”

— Pat Summitt

58. “Losing strengthens you. It reveals your weaknesses so you can fix them.”

— Pat Summitt

59. “Coaches who start listening to fans often wind up sitting next to them.”

— Pat Summitt

60. “There is an old saying: a champion is someone who is willing to be uncomfortable.”

— Pat Summitt

61. “Our emphasis is on execution, not winning.”

— Pat Summitt

62. “Every Moment is a Teaching Moment.”

— Pat Summitt

63. “Class is more important than a game.”

— Pat Summitt

64. “When you grow up on a dairy farm, cows don’t take a day off. So you work every day and my dad always said, ‘No one can outwork you,’”

— Pat Summitt

65. “I’m interested to see where a combination of faith and science will take me.”

— Pat Summitt

66. “Nine-tenths of discipline is having the patience to do things right.”

— Pat Summitt

67. “Loyalty is not unilateral. You have to give it to receive it.”

— Pat Summitt

68. “Teamwork does not come naturally. Let’s face it. We are born with certain inclinations, but sharing isn’t one of them.”

— Pat Summitt

69. “It’s my experience that people rise to the level of their own expectations and of the competition they seek out.”

— Pat Summitt

70. “If I aint happy, nobody’s happy.”

— Pat Summitt

71. “It wasn’t just a job; it was my life, my home, and my family, and the players were the second-deepest love of my life.”

— Pat Summitt

72. “I think you can challenge people, but you don’t want to break people down. But you’ve got to sometimes just pull them aside and say, you know, you’re OK but you could be better.”

— Pat Summitt

73. “I have a love-hate relationship with losing. I hate how it makes me feel, which is basically sick. But I love what it brings out.”

— Pat Summitt

74. “If it doesn’t bother you, it won’t bother them.”

— Pat Summitt

75. “You spend more of the game preparing to win in the final seconds. And that is what separates winners from losers.”

— Pat Summitt

76. “Setting up a system that rewards you for meeting your goals and has penalties for failing to hit your target is just as important as putting your goals down on paper.”

— Pat Summitt

77. “There are some concrete ways to create a winning attitude. But nothing beats practicing it. When you prepare to win, belief comes easily.”

— Pat Summitt

78. “I hate to sound this way but, ‘Why me? Why me with dementia?’”

— Pat Summitt

79. “The person, the student, the athlete, all are considered equal.”

— Pat Summitt

80. “With attitude, you can determine your own performance.”

— Pat Summitt

81. “Competition got me off the farm and trained me to seek out challenges and to endure setbacks; and in combination with my faith, it sustains me now in my fight with Alzheimer’s disease.”

— Pat Summitt

82. “I don’t give out compliments easily.”

— Pat Summitt

83. “Rebounding wins championships, you need to emphasize it and work with kids on it.”

— Pat Summitt

84. “Combine practice with belief.”

— Pat Summitt

85. “I won 1,098 games, and eight national championships, and coached in four different decades. But what I see are not the numbers. I see their faces.”

— Pat Summitt

86. “You have to make shots. That’s the bottom line.”

— Pat Summitt

87. “I learned so much from Sue about the Xs and Os of the game of basketball.”

— Pat Summitt

88. “I’m going to outwork you. Simple as that.”

— Pat Summitt

89. “I think I can help others just by my example.”

— Pat Summitt

90. “There is nothing wrong with having competitive instincts. They are survival instincts.”

— Pat Summitt

91. “We do not win championships with girls. We win with competitors.”

— Pat Summitt

92. “A competitor continually sets new goals. He feels the need to keep raising the bar. If the fist goal is to make the team, and he achieves it, he immediately resets the goal to: I want to be a starter.”

— Pat Summitt

93. “I didn’t say a lot. I didn’t throw anything. That’s not my style. I did think about it though.”

— Pat Summitt

94. “You can’t have any quit in you if you want to be successful.”

— Pat Summitt

95. “I want to go to practice. I want to be in the huddles. That’s me.”

— Pat Summitt

96. “If you want to be in the game you better shoot 75% from the line.”

— Pat Summitt

97. “I’ve got a great staff and great support system, and I’m going to stick my neck out and do what I always do.”

— Pat Summitt