PAT SUMMITT

The following comes from Coach Pat Summitt in regards to goals for her team:

Before each of the 34 seasons that Summitt has been a head coach of some of the most accomplished teams of all time, she and her captains have committed a set of goals to writing.

“We always make sure,” Summitt says, “that our plans for the season can be achieved. Setting goals is incredibly important to success. But if you set a goal that seems impossible to achieve— if you go into a year saying your goal is to win the national championship—then you risk losing morale, self-discipline and chemistry if you falter early.

“Set a goal that stretches you, requires exceptional effort, but one that you can reach,” says Summit, the bearer of more championship jewelry than any coach in women’s basketball history.

“We might set a goal that we win 20 or so games, that we win a conference championship, that we make the NCAA tournament. If we do those things, the truth is we have a chance of winning the national championship. But I would never want that to be the only goal.”

The key to her on- and off-court success, Summitt is famous for saying, is remembering that “winners aren’t born, they are self-made.”

“And the only way to ensure you become a winner is to set goals every day, and hold yourself and your teammates accountable for reaching those goals,” she says. “Setting up a system that rewards you for meeting your goals and has penalties for failing to hit your target is just as important as putting your goals down on paper.”