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Pat Summitt, winningest coach in D1 basketball, dies at 64

Pat Summitt
FILE - In this March 4, 2012, file photo, Tennessee head coach Pat Summitt cuts down the net after Tennessee defeated LSU to win the Southeastern Conference women's basketball tournament in Nashville, Tenn. Summitt, the winningest coach in Division I college basketball history who uplifted the women's game from obscurity to national prominence during her career at Tennessee, died Tuesday morning, June 28, 2016. She was 64. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)

The college basketball world is in mourning after Pat Summitt, the winningest coach in Division I college basketball history, died Tuesday morning. She was 64.

Summitt spent 38 years as the head coach for the women’s basketball team at the University of Tennessee. While there, she led the team to eight national championships and helped boost the women’s game to the big time.

“Pat was the one voice in women’s basketball that everyone respected,” Muffet McGraw, head coach for the Notre Dame women’s basketball team, said in a statement Tuesday morning. “She only cared about what was good for the game and how we could make it better. She raised the bar for women and showed us what it meant to be a leader, not just in coaching, but in life. We have lost an icon in our game.”

With an icy glare on the sidelines, Summitt led the Lady Vols to eight national championships and prominence on a campus steeped in the traditions of the football-rich south until she retired in 2012.

She notched 1,098 wins during her career, more than any other Division I college basketball coach for a men’s or women’s team.

Her son, Tyler Summitt, issued a statement Tuesday morning saying his mother died peacefully at Sherrill Hill Senior Living in Knoxville surrounded by those who loved her most.

Tyler’s statement said “since 2011, my mother has battled her toughest opponent, early onset dementia, ‘Alzheimer’s Type’ … and we can all find peace in knowing she no longer carries the heavy burden of this disease. ”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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