Pat Summitt - Men's Coach

[klunderbunker]

Could she do it? For those of you that don't know, Pat Summitt is the head coach of the Tennessee Lady Volunteers basketball team. She more or less was women's college basketball for a long time and is still a dominant force today. She has over 1000 wins and a ton of national titles. What I want to know is simple: could she coach a men's college team and be successful?

The woman knows basketball. There's no question about that. She's tough as hell which you can see from watching her do anything. My question is would men buy her as a coach at a men's program, or would she be seen as someone in over her head with no business being there?

 

[Big Sexy]

It really depends on who the team is and what the players are like. Whether it's fair or not there are some guys out there who wouldn't take her seriously because she's a woman. If you don't have the respect of your players then you aren't going to succeed. I also don't now how well she could recruit for the same reasons.

Now if the players accepted her and allowed her to just coach, then of course she could succeed. She obviously knows the games of basketball and has had great success throughout her career. So it really depends on if the players accept and respect her.

 

[INDYjon22]

I could see it, though it would depend entirely on the team. She obviously knows the sport seeing her legacy at Tennessee and the dynasty she built, though it would have to be a somewhat good team or people would be all over her ass. If she didn't succeed right out of the box I believe most sports critics and fans would dog her and label her a failure without giving her the proper time to develop a bad team. If she were to go to male basketball then I think she should aim for an established team or else I have a feeling she'll just get lost in the shuffle and return to women's basketball withing 3 years. However, I do think she could be a successful male basketball coach, she knows the sport and knows what a team needs and has to do to be good. I would personally love to see her try.

 

[48.7 is Approximately 49 Times Better Than You]

Absolutely not. There is no chance she could be a successful men's coach at a college or professional level. Unless she were handed a team with the talent Kentucky had this year, she would never, ever, ever make the tournament. Pat Summitt would fail, and she would fail hard.

• Men do not respect woman, period. (That's kind of an exaggeration.) She would not be respected by her 20 year old players, the majority of which are somewhat thug-like. When they don't practice hard, what's Summitt going to do? Yell in a high pitched squeak and throw her purse around? No way her players are affected by a womanly tirade. Can she grab a kid by the neck and shake him up? She's not their mom, you know.
• Isn't her being in a locker-room with half-naked, horny college students quite inappropriate?
• The men's and women's games are so completely different from each other, and Pat would be entirely confused.
• The media would tear her to shreds if she didn't succeed immediately.

There are no "what-ifs". These are the facts. She's not tough enough, her players wouldn't respect her, she's a woman, and a woman's coach.