Pat Summitt didn’t coach football.
But according to Peyton Manning, the legendary Tennessee women’s basketball coach who died this morning could have, and she helped make a mark on the Volunteers’ football program anyway.
During an interview this morning with “The Wake Up Zone” on 104.5 FM in Nashville, Manning said he consulted with Summitt when he was trying to decide whether to return to college for his senior season. Manning had already graduated and would have likely been the top pick of the Jets in the 1997 NFL Draft, but returned to Knoxville before going to the Colts with the top pick the following year.
“I was honored to call her a friend, I enjoyed my time with Pat,” Manning said of Summitt, via Paul Kuharsky of ESPN.com. “Even though I never played for her, I always kind of felt like she was one of my coaches. And I always said that I wished I would have played for her.
“I think Pat Summitt could have coached men’s basketball, men’s football, she could have coached anything she wanted. She was that good of a coach.”
Summitt led Tennessee to eight national titles in her 38 years there, and won more games (1,098) than any other Division I coach (men or women). She also became synonymous with the University and the sport, so much so that one of the most respected figures in another sport relied on her for advice.
