Pat Summitt and Gail Goestenkors have both been here before. But even though Duke's women's basketball coach is getting somewhat comfortable in the Final Four, she comes up against a Tennessee head coach for whom cutting down the nets feels routine.
The acknowledged "big three" coaches of women's college basketball are Summitt, Goestenkors and Connecticut's outspoken Geno Auriemma. All three are still alive going into the NCAA Tournament's final weekend; and two of those three, Summitt and Goestenkors, are meeting Saturday in the Georgia Dome for the right to play in the finals.
As long as there has been a women's Final Four, Summitt has been there. When the women's tournament began in 1982, Summitt and her Lady Vols were semifinalists. As Thriller gave way to Come Away With Me and Chariots of Fire bowed to Chicago, Summitt's presence has been nearly constant. This weekend will be her 14th Final Four out of the 22 that have been held to date.
Goestenkors, with three Final Four appearances under her belt, is no stranger to the final few songs of the Big Dance. Nevertheless, any college basketball fan can tell you that nobody dances quite like Pat Summitt. Summitt has been the last one standing at six different NCAA Tournaments since she started pacing the sidelines in Knoxville, Tenn., 28 years ago, taking a previously unremarkable Lady Vols squad to national prominence.
"I think they're both women that are admirable because they built programs where there [had been] nothing, in a short amount of time. They both did that," junior forward and ACC Tournament MVP Iciss Tillis said. "Pat Summitt--it didn't take her very long to win her first national championship, get to her first Final Four."
Like Summitt's, Goestenkors' career has been marked by quick success: Her arrival in 1992 served as the turning point for Duke women's basketball. Under Goestenkors, the program transformed from a non-entity, to a thorn in the side of the sports' powers-that-be, to a perennial contender of its own.
"Same with Coach G, she's only been here, what, 11 years?" Tillis said when asked about her own coach's results. "How many coaches can say that they've taken three teams to the Final Four in 11 years?
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