Why Pat Summitt’s Story Still Challenges Us To Show Up

Wyoming can look calm from a distance, then hit you with heat, wind, and the kind of dryness that makes everyone watch the horizon. We start with a boots-on-the-ground check of Wyoming weather as March closes out: low 70s, strong gusts, red flag warnings, and that uneasy feeling when fire reports keep showing up across the region. From Hot Springs County to the Bighorn Basin, we talk about what people are seeing, what they’re worried about, and what a little moisture could change. 

Next, we step into two subjects that stick with you for different reasons. One is the ongoing debate around “chemtrails,” sparked by a striking checkerboard sky seen over rural Wyoming. The other is water, from irrigation canals and sprinklers to low river levels near Thermopolis and what that could mean for fly fishing, tourism, and fish survival if summer arrives hot and shallow. If you care about drought, wildfire risk, and the realities of living with extreme weather in the Mountain West, this part will feel familiar. 

Then we slow down and tell a bigger story about grit: Pat Summitt. From washing uniforms and driving the team van on a $250-a-month salary to building the Tennessee Lady Vols into an eight-title powerhouse, her career becomes a case study in standards, leadership, and showing up when it’s hard. We also face the reality of Alzheimer’s and dementia, including a personal reflection on how a therapy dog can bring peace when words fail. We close with Wyoming history and the 1856 Mormon handcart tragedy, when late-starting companies meet blizzards, starvation, frostbite, and rescue on the Sweetwater and beyond. 

If this mix of Wyoming weather, Western history, sports leadership, and Alzheimer’s awareness matters to you, subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review. What part of the conversation stayed with you most?

Transcript

Welcome And Today’s Lineup

SPEAKER_00 0:25

Good morning and welcome to Let's Talk Wyoming. I'm Mark Hamilton, your host, and today we'll be taking a look at our Wyoming weather. We'll be talking about our chemtrails in the Hot Springs County sky. We'll talk about a legend in coaching, Pat Summit, and her battle against Alzheimer and dementia. And finally, we'll take a look at the Mormon handcart tragedy. Thanks for joining us, and we hope you enjoy the show. Good morning, and taking a look at weather here in the state of Wyoming here on a Monday, the 30th of March. Where has March gone? I cannot believe that March is gone and we're going into April. Whereas the first three months of this year have just flown by. Weather is continuing to be unusual, and I think this is probably the case all over the country. We are right now it's in the low 70s with the wind blowing about 25 to 30 miles an hour with the red flag warnings across most of the entire state of Wyoming, and I bet it probably the same as most of the states around us. You're always seeing on social media fire popping up somewhere. Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Colorado, Utah, all around us with just this weather. So I did see a little bit of moisture, is potentially coming towards the later part of the week. We'll see what happens. We see a lot of that. Saw my first really full chemtrail sky yesterday coming back from church in the morning. It was a blue sky and a pattern across here. And of course, I live up, we live in a rural area, and we got a good sky and can see forever. But you know, at night, so you can see the stars, it's just unbelievable. But yesterday, that blue sky, there was a checkerboard pattern that I've never seen before above us here in Hot Springs County, and they were in that pattern, those chemtrails. I've saw other posts on social media for you people that are skeptical. I have never saw them until yesterday, and I noticed on our social media in the area people were taking and had pictures posted of the chemtrails. Of course, the reports are they're putting stuff into that to affect our weather and and affect a lot of things. Maybe that's what's happening here. Our weather's being affected by what they're pumping out in that air. Of course, we're breathing what they're pumping out in the air, but something that you just don't think about until you see it. But Wyoming Chemtrails were sure active yesterday. Update here with our weather. Of course, we have a farming community in the area in that Bighorn Basin. And over here around Riverton uh area, they do have quite a bit of farming. And the water has been turned into the canals. I think I talked at a previous podcast talking about how dry it is. And I did see some water starting to be put out last week and uh some row crop flooding taking place, but uh no sprinklers up. But and I have seen sprinklers that are fired up now. Of course, with these temperatures and the wind, it is pretty tough, but they've got to get something on those crops. So I notice here in Thermopolis with the drift boats, they're it's getting pretty marginal right now. I don't know how long they can keep the river open with the water levels. It's gonna definitely be an issue if it's this low this summer. If we get some really, really warm weather, I don't know if they'll have to shut it down. I know in Montana, a lot of areas they shut down in the late summers when those uh creeks or streams or waterways are at a low level with the water temperatures, and it's really hard for these fish to be caught and released. They lose a lot of fish that way. So we'll see what happens here in our area. But again, the fly fishing industry is keeping this community going. We've got so many people that are showing up, and you can pretty well tell it by all the drift boats going up and down the river. So we'll see what happens there with the water. But we're just gonna keep an eye on this. This is part of our stuff. But I will tell you, it's still gonna be a pretty area here in the spring. What moisture we did get, and when we get this moisture now, we will have a lot of green grass to start with in some of these areas. The Yellowstone Park will be opening up before long. And with these dry conditions, we'll see what does as far as fire restrictions. But Yellowstone will be up, and all of our areas around will still be available, and the you know, beautiful state of Wyoming will still be wide open and a good opportunity to come visit. Gas prices aren't any more than they were two years ago. So hopefully this these prices will level off at this spot, and so it really didn't shut down uh a couple years when we were up in the$4 range. It didn't shut down a lot of tourists. Hey, if you're out there, you want to come to Wyoming, good time to come right now. Come out and see the state of Wyoming and how beautiful it is. I want to kind of change our pace a little bit today. I want to talk about athletics and some of the people that are involved in athletics and coaches. And one of them is Pat Summit, and I saw this story posted on Facebook, but Sanit Argual. And it's gonna talk about Pat Summit and what she went through. The University of Tennessee hired a 22-year-old woman to coach basketball, paid her$250 a month. She washed the uniforms, drove the van, slept on gym floors, won$1,098 games, and eight national championships. Then Alzheimer took her memory, but it couldn't take what she built. A farm girl who played basketball in Hayloff with her brothers became the winniest coach in NCAA history. Pat Summit was twelve years old. Standing in a hayfield on her family dairy and tobacco farm in Henrietta, Tennessee, her father, Richard Head, pointed at a tractor, looked at her, and said five words. When I come back, this work better be done. No instructions, no help, no training, just a twelve year old girl, a tractor in a field that needed cutting. She figured it out. That was a role on the Head family farm. You worked, you figured it out. Cows didn't take a day off, and neither did you. Pat was a fourth of five children. Three older brothers, Kenneth, Tommy, and Charles, and a younger sister, Linda. The family raised cattle, grew tobacco, baled hay, milked cows before school, did it again after school. There was no girls' basketball team in Clarksville, so the family moved to Henrietta in Cheatham County just so Pat could play. Her father put a basketball hoop in the hayloft of the barn. Every night after chores, Pat and her brothers climbed the ladder and played two on two on a plywood floor surrounded by hay bales. She learned to play basketball the way she learned everything else on the farm. By doing it, by getting knocked down, by getting back up. She graduated from Cheatham High School in 1970, went to the University of Tennessee at Martin on her parents' time because there were no athletic scholarships for women. Her three brothers all got scholarships. Pat's parents paid out of pocket. Title IX hadn't been passed yet. She became an all-American, led the Lady Pacers to a 64 and 29 record over four seasons, became the program's all-time leading scorer. Then during her senior year, she tore ACL. A doctor told her she would never play basketball again. Everyone said the same thing. Her career's over. ACL terrorists don't heal, not in 1974. She needs to find something else to do. Women's basketball isn't going anywhere, anyway. She didn't listen. Here's what Pat Summit knew that everyone else missed. A torn knee doesn't end your career if your career hasn't started yet. She wasn't done playing, and she wasn't done proving that women's basketball mattered. So she rehabed the knee on her own in an era when sports rehabilitation barely existed, when most professional athletes retired after an ACL terror. She played in the 1975 Pan American Games, won a gold medal. She made the 1976 Olympic team. The first year women's basketball was in the Olympics. She was named co captain. The team won a silver medal in Montreal. But here's the part nobody talks about. In 1974, while she was still rehabbing her knee, something unexpected happened. The head coach of the University of Tennessee women's basketball team quit, suddenly without warning. Tennessee needed a replacement. They offered the job to a twenty two year old graduate student who was supposed to be working on her master's degree, Pat Summit. She took the job. She was twenty two. Her salary was two hundred and fifty dollars a month. She had no staff, no recruiting budget, no facilities, no supporting system. She washed the team's uniforms, drove the 15 passenger van to away games, slept on mats in the opposing team's gym the night before games because there was no travel budget for hotels. Uniforms had been purchased with money raised from a donut sale. Four of her players were only a year younger than she was. That's when everything changed. She didn't complain, she built. First season, we were sixteen and eight. By 1978, she had Tennessee ranked number one in the country. They reached the AIAW Final Four three years in a row. In 1984, she coached the U.S. women's Olympic basketball team to the first gold medal in sports history. The first American women's basketball team to ever win the gold medal. In 1987, she won her first NCA championship, then in 89, then in 91. Then she did something no woman basketball coach had ever done. Three straight national championships, 1996, 97, and 98. The 97-98 team went 39-0 undefeated, the first perfect season in Tennessee women's basketball history. But Pat Summit wasn't done. She won her seventh championship in 2002, her eighth in 2008. She never had a losing season, not one. She never missed the NCAA tournament, not once. She coached 1,098 career wins and only 208 losses. At the time of her retirement, that was the most wins in NCAA basketball history, men's or women. More wins than Coach K, more wins than Dean Smith, more wins than Bob Knight, more wins than any man who had ever coached the sport. Her graduation rate for players who competed, their eligibility was 100%. Not 99%, not 95%. 100%. Every single player who stayed at Tennessee graduated. She demanded it. She required players to sit on the first three rows of every class. If they skipped a class, they didn't play, no exceptions. In 2000, she was named the Naismith Coach of the Century. In 2012, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Then in 2011, at the age of 59, Pat Summit was diagnosed with early onset dementia, Alzheimer's type. The woman who never lost a season, who had never missed a tournament, who had spent 38 years demanding perfection from everyone around her, was losing her memory. Most people would have stepped away immediately. Pat Summit coached the entire 2011, 2012 season. She stood on the sidelines, called plays, ran practice, recruited players, led Tennessee to a 27-9 record in the 2012 SEC Tournament Championship with Alzheimer's. She didn't hide it. She announced her diagnosis publicly. She told the world exactly what was happening to her, and she kept coaching. After the season, she stepped down, named her longtime assistant, Holly Warlick, as her successor. And she did what she always did. She built something. She founded the Pat Summit Foundation to fund Alzheimer's research. She partnered with the University of Tennessee Medical Center to open the Pat Summit Clinic. She became one of the most visible advocates for Alzheimer's awareness in the country. On June 28th, 2016, Pat Summit died in Knoxville, Tennessee. She was 64 years old, two weeks after her birthday. The city limit sign in Henrietta, Tennessee still reads, Welcome to Henrietta, home of Pat Head Summit. Two courts used by the NSA Division I basketball team are named in her honor. Two streets bear her name. A brown statue stands across the arena where she coached for 38 years. Her foundation continues to fund research and support families fighting Alzheimer's. All because a 12-year-old girl on a tobacco farm in Tennessee, who was told to figure out a tractor with no instructions, refused to stop fighting and finding a way to figure things out. She turned a$250 a month coaching job into$1,098 wins and eight national championships. She turned an ACL, a torn ACL, that should have ended her career into a Olympic silver medal and gold. She turned a diagnosis that was supposed to silence her into a foundation that fights for millions. She proved that the person who works the hardest, shows up the earliest and refuses to cut corners, will outcoach, outlast, and outbuild anyone in the room. What are you using as an excuse to not show up today? What obstacles are you treating like a stop sign when really just a speed bump? What jobs are you turning down because the pay isn't right, the conditions aren't perfect? Some took a coaching job at twenty-two that paid two hundred and fifty dollars a month and required her to wash the uniforms. Some was told her knee would never heal and she made the Olympic team. Some was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and coached an entire season anyway, because she understood something most people don't. The conditions don't have to be perfect for you to start building. The people who wait for the right moment never build anything. The ones who show up anyway, who drive the van, wash the uniforms, sleep on the gym floors are the ones who end up with one thousand ninety-eight wins. Stop waiting for the job that matches your talent. Start building the job into something that matches your ambition. Do the work nobody sees, hold the standard nobody asks for, and show up every single day like the cows are waiting. And never let anyone tell you the size of your opportunity determines the size of what you can build. Sometimes the greatest dynasties in the history of sports start with a donut sale in a twenty-two year old who said yes. Sometimes the person who changes everything is the one who is never supposed to be in the room. Because when you refuse to let the conditions stop you, the conditions eventually have no choice but to change. Because when you refuse to let the conditions stop you, the conditions eventually have no choice but to change. Just don't quit. That is a tribute to quite a coach, Coach Summit, who is well known if you were involved with sports and what she did and what she did for her university. And I think that's the thing that we all have to remember about not quitting. I think that is something that we need to pass on to everyone out there. If you're involved, especially with young kids, you have to spread that message. Sometimes it's going to be difficult and it's going to be hard, but don't quit. No matter what you're facing and what you're involved with, you can make a difference. And I always like to close with that. Something that I always tell people just remember, dream big. Always dream big, and the sky's the limit. And Pat Summit really did prove that. And Alzheimer is something that is just terrible that people that face that. And I've witnessed that at a nursing home. And the people there, it's it's such a sad situation, but I finally decided, and and from my experience, that they are just frustrated that they can't communicate. They're in there. And I used to take my German Shepherd Gunner to the nursing home. And we would go in and visit visit people. When I would go to the Alzheimer's wing, it was amazing to me when people that didn't communicate, they just sat there, usually making it some type of a sound, doing something with their hands or whatever. The minute they saw that dog, when they saw Gunner, something changed in them. They quit what they were doing and wanted to pet that dog. And they were at peace at that moment when they were petting him. And as soon as they were done and Gunner walked away, they went back to what they were doing. And I saw this numerous times with these people. And so I finally figured with Alzheimer's that those people are there. I know a family can get frustrated, but you just know that those people are there, and they know that you're communicating. They just can't communicate back. But it's sad, sad what it does. That someone like Pat Summit was one of the people that faced something like that, and she was tough enough to do it. And quite a quite a lady, quite a coach, and quite an example for all of us in this world today. And finally a story from Legends of America, the Mormon Handcart Tragedy of 1856. The Mormon handcart pioneers were participants in migrating members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints to Salt Lake City, Utah. They used two wheel handcarts to transport their belongings. The movement began in 1856 and continued till 1860. In the 1850s, a series of poor harvests left the church with only a meager funds to help immigrants buy wagons and oxen, and the church leaders looked for a less expensive way to move poor immigrants. As a result, Brigham Young announced on october twenty ninth, eighteen fifty five a hand cart system by which the church would provide carts to be pulled by hand across the Mormon trail. Young believed that with their carts and ninety days of rations, the travelers could make the long journey to the Utah Territory within 70 days covering about 18 miles daily. This was less time than it took to travel in a covered wagon, which averaged about 73 days. These included about 3,000 Mormon converts from England, Wales, Scotland, and Scandinavia in about six hundred and fifty hand carts. The carts were pulled from Iowa City, Iowa, a distance of thirteen hundred miles, or from Florence, Nebraska, which was about one thousand and thirty miles. Each cart carried four hundred to five hundred pounds of foodstuff, bedding, clothing, and cooking utensils, and needed two able bodied people to pull it. Five people were assigned to each cart. Adults would take only seventeen pounds of baggage. The children were allowed ten pounds each. Families with small children traveled in cupboard or with stronger iron axles or family carts. Handcart company captains were men with leadership and trail experience. Each company included a few ox drawn commissary and baggage wagons, at least one per twenty carts. Wagons or carts carried large public tents, one for every twenty people. Captains of a hundred people had charge of the five tent groups. The trek was disastrous for two companies, which started their journey dangerously late. And were caught by heavy snow and severe temperatures in central Wyoming. Despite a dramatic rescue effort, more than 210 of the 980 pioneers in these two companies would die along the way. One of these companies, led by James G. Willie, left Iowa City on July 15th and crossed Iowa to Florence, Nebraska. Before the Willie Company departed in Nebraska, they met to debate the wisdom of such a late departure. But because of their were unfamiliar with the trail and the climate, they deferred to church elders. One of the missionaries and subcaptains in Willie's company, Levi Savage, urged them to spend the winter in Nebraska, arguing that a late departure would lead to suffering, sickness, and even death. However, all the church elders argued that the trip should go forward, declaring that the company would be protected by divine intervention. As many as a hundred pioneers decided to spend the winter in Nebraska, Iowa. However, most, including Levi Savage, continued the journey west. They left on august seventeenth. The last company under Edward Martin departed Florence on august twenty fifth. Two Oxwagon trains led by Captain W. B. Hodggett and John A. Hunt followed the Martin Company. In the fall, the Richard Party, a group of fast traveling missionaries returning to Utah from Europe passed the Willie and Martin Companies. On October 4th, the Richard Party reached Salt Lake City, conferring with President Brigham Young and other church leaders and reported that the two large hand cart parties were still on their way. The following day, the elders called on church members to provide wagons, mules, supplies, and teamsters to find and bring in the latecomers. On the morning of October 7th, the first rescue party left Salt Lake City with six team wagon loads of food and supplies pulled by a four mule team and twenty seven young men serving as teamsters and rescuers. Throughout October, more wagon trains were assembled, and two hundred and fifty relief wagons were on the road by the end of the month. In the meantime, two companies of pioneers reached Fort Laramie, Wyoming, where they expected to be restocked with provisions. However, no provisions were pre stocked for them. As a result, the companies cut back on food rations, hoping that their supplies would last until they could reach Utah. Additionally, lighten their loads, cutting individual baggage allowances, clothing and blankets that later would be desperately needed were discarded. As the companies continued, they ran out of food and encountered bitterly cold temperatures. On october nineteenth, a blizzard struck the region, halting the two companies and relief party. The Woolley Company was found along the Sweetwater River, approaching the Continental Divide. A scouting party sent ahead by the main rescue party found the immigrants, gave them a small amount of flour, and encouraged them that rescue was near. The scouting party then rushed forward to try to locate the Martin Company. At that time, the Martin Company was about 110 miles further east, making its last crossing of the North Platte River near present-day Casper, Wyoming, where the trail left the river headed across the country towards Independence Rock and Devil's Gate. Shortly after competing the crossing, the blizzard struck, and many company members suffered from hypothermia or frostbite after wading through the frigid river. The company set up a camp at Red Bluff, unable to continue through the snow. One immigrant, Patience Loder, would later write We had to travel in our wet clothes until we got to camp, and our clothing was frozen on us. And when we got to camp it was too late to go for food and water. The wood was far too away that night. The ground was frozen so hard we were unable to drive any tent pens in. We stretched it open the best that we could and got under it until morning. Meanwhile, members of Willie Company quickly reached the end of their flour supplies and began slaughtering some remaining cattle. On october twentieth, Captain Willie and Joseph Elder traveled ahead of the pioneers by mule to locate the supply train and inform them of the company's desperate situation. That evening, the pair arrived at the rescue party's campsite near South Pass, Wyoming. By the following evening, the rescue party reached the Woolley Company and provided them with food and assistance. Half of the rescue party left to assist the Woolley Company, and the other half pressed forward to assist the Martin Company. Beyond the pass, the Woolley Company, now amply fed and free to climb aboard, empty supply trains as they became available, moved on quickly. But the Woolley Company's difficulties were not yet over. Two days later, on October twenty third, the company faced the trail's most challenging section, the Rocky Ridge Accent. The climb took place during a howling snowstorm through knee deep snow. That night, thirteen immigrants died. Meanwhile, the Martin Company remained in the camp at Red Bluff for nine days until three scouts finally arrived on October twenty-eighth. By that time, fifty-six members of the company had died. The scouts urged the immigrants to begin moving again. One of the first rescuers from Salt Lake City, Ephraim Hanks, soon arrived and fed the starving party buffalo meat. As the company moved from day to day, Hanks continued to kill many buffalo. He also performed many blessings and helped in some amputation to stop progression of frostbite and gangrene that would otherwise kill more company members. Three days later, the main rescue party met the Martin Company and the Hodget and Hunt Wagon Companies and helped them to Devil's Gate, Wyoming. At Devil's Gates, the rescue party unloaded the baggage carried in the Hodgett and Hunt Wagon Companies, which lowered the Martin Company so the wagons could transport the weakest immigrants. The Martin Company continued, but severe weather forced them to halt at Martin's Cove, where they stayed for five days. After they continued, a backup relief party of 77 teams and wagons went east to provide additional assistance. After passing Fort Bridger, the leaders of the backup party concluded that the Martin Company must have wintered east of the Rockies, so they turned back. When word of the returning backup relief was communicated to Young, he ordered the courier to return. He told them to turn east and continue until they found the hand cart company, but several days had been lost. In the meantime, the Woolley Company arrived in Salt Lake City on November 9th. Of the 404 still with the company, 68 died, and many others suffered from severe frostbite and near starvation. On October eighteenth, the backup party met the Martin Company with a greatly needed supplies. The 104 wagons carrying the Martin Company arrived in Salt Lake City on November 30th. At least 145 members of the company had lost their life. Many of the survivors had to have toes, fingers, or limbs amputated due to frostbite. After the company arrived in Utah, the residents generously opened their homes to the arriving immigrants, feeding and caring for them over the winter. Immigrants would eventually go to latter-day Saint settlements throughout Utah and the West. Despite this tragedy, the Mormon Church did not give up on the handcart plan. Early in 1857, sent a missionary company east with handcarts and sponsored five more westbound handcart companies by 1860. Once the church's finances recovered, Young's followers used conventional wagons. Although fewer than 10% of the 1846 to 68 Latter-day Saint immigrants made the journey West using handcarts, the handcart pioneers became an important symbol in Mormon culture, representing the faithfulness and sacrifice of the pioneer generation. This is a story of all the people that were coming to the West and the difficulty they face. And you can just I can't imagine being out in that territory in the middle of a blizzard and what these people were facing. But it was all the people that came to the West. They were definitely a hearty bunch a lot of us would never make today, but at that time they're what made the West what it is today.