Obama: Pat Summitt was a role model for my daughters

WASHINGTON — President Obama remembered legendary college basketball coach Pat Summitt Tuesday as an intense competitor, proud Tennessean and champion for women's equality in sports.

"Nobody walked off a college basketball court victorious more times than Tennessee’s Pat Summitt," Obama said in a written statement released by the White House Press Office. "For four decades, she outworked her rivals, made winning an attitude, loved her players like family, and became a role model to millions of Americans, including our two daughters."

Summitt, who won right national championships and never had a losing season as the the former coach of the University of Tennessee's women's basketball team, died Tuesday at 64 after battling Alzheimer's disease.

Legendary Tennessee coach Pat Summitt dies at 64

Obama, who awarded Summitt the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012, recited Summitt's unparalleled on-court record but also her off-the-court accomplishment: a 100% graduation rate among players who completed their athletic eligibility.

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"Her legacy, however, is measured much more by the generations of young women and men who admired Pat’s intense competitiveness and character, and as a result found in themselves the confidence to practice hard, play harder, and live with courage on and off the court," Obama said.

Obama continued:

"Pat learned early on that everyone should be treated the same. When she would play basketball against her older brothers in the family barn, they didn’t treat her any differently and certainly didn’t go easy on her. Later, her Hall of Fame career would tell the story of the historic progress toward equality in American athletics that she helped advance. Pat started playing college hoops before Title IX and started coaching before the NCAA recognized women’s basketball as a sport. When she took the helm at Tennessee as a 22-year-old, she had to wash her players’ uniforms; by the time Pat stepped down as the Lady Vols’ head coach, her teams wore eight championship rings and had cut down nets in sold-out stadiums.

"Pat was a patriot who earned Olympic medals for America as a player and a coach, and I was honored to award her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She was a proud Tennessean who, when she went into labor while on a recruiting visit, demanded the pilot return to Knoxville so her son could be born in her home state. And she was an inspiring fighter. Even after Alzheimer’s started to soften her memory, and she began a public and brave fight against that terrible disease, Pat had the grace and perspective to remind us that 'God doesn’t take things away to be cruel. … He takes things away to lighten us. He takes things away so we can fly.'"

"Michelle and I send our condolences to Pat Summitt’s family – which includes her former players and fans on Rocky Top and across America."