Head coach Emeritus Pat Summitt led the Lady Vols for 38 years, posting a 1,098-208 career record, the most wins by any Division I basketball coach. Her teams won eight NCAA and 16 SEC titles.

-- Ap Photo/Wade Payne

When Tyler Summitt resigned as women’s basketball coach at Louisiana Tech due to what was termed an “inappropriate relationship,” those in a rush for judgment suggested it tarnished his mother’s legacy.

What a load of garbage.

Any indiscretion by her son, as foolish and career-killing as it may be, does absolutely nothing to diminish what Pat Head Summitt accomplished or the role she has played in the growth of women’s sports.

While UConn coach Geno Auriemma, now the owner of 11 national championships, may be the emperor of women’s college basketball, Summitt is its birth mother. Auriemma rules the game, but winning the most titles should not be confused with having the most influence. That designation belongs to Summitt. And I suspect that will never change.

The fact that she is no longer able to participate or even defend the family name is one of the saddest stories in all of sports.

You know most of the details: In the spring of 2011, Summitt was diagnosed with early onset Alzehimer’s disease. At the end of the 2011-12 season, she resigned as Lady Vols coach. These days, she is seldom seen in public. We hear less and less about her, which is not a good sign.

In March, her son told the Knoxville News Sentinel she was staying at “an upscale retirement resort” while her house underwent renovations. It was unclear if or when she would return to her home.

“She is happy and content in her surroundings, and I am grateful that she could stay in such an awesome place,” Tyler Summitt said at the time.

I miss her. While it’s fair to say I’ve never been a huge women’s basketball fan, I’ve long been a big Pat Summitt fan. Her accomplishments are staggering: 1,098 victories, eight national championships, a 100 percent graduation rate for players who remained in the Lady Vols program for four years.

But it goes beyond mere numbers. If there were a Mount Rushmore of University of Tennessee athletics, Summitt would be on there. Such is her impact, not only at UT but on the national scene.

Consider: Summitt’s first trip to the Final Four in 1977 was in the AIAW – the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women. The NCAA didn’t conduct the women’s tournament until 1982.

While Auriemma continues to rewrite the record book, he can never supplant Summitt’s place in the women’s game. She is a pioneer. On her watch, the Lady Vols went from a stepdaughter of the UT athletics department to a valuable asset.

Her first teams played in front of sparse crowds at Alumni Gym. Later, the Lady Vols often performed in front of sellout crowds at Thompson-Boling Arena.

It may seem odd because of my chosen profession, but I seldom read sports books. Maybe I spent too much of my life writing about sports to want to sit down and read about the games people play.

But I made an exception with “Sum It Up.” And if you haven’t already done so, I humbly suggest you give it a read.

Co-written with longtime friend and Washington Post columnist Sally Jenkins, it is a reflection on Summitt’s life on and off the basketball court. The most compelling part of the book is how she got news of her debilitating illness and how she dealt with it.

“Have you ever walked along a shoreline, only to have your footprints washed away?” Summitt wrote. “That’s what Alzheimer’s is like. The waves erase the marks we leave behind, all the sand castles. Some days are better than others.”

The book offers profound insight. It should be required reading for those of us who have loved ones and friends that suffer from Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia.

Any story on Summitt’s situation is incomplete without a look at her successor, Holly Warlick. It is inevitable that Warlick’s performance as head coach of the Lady Vols will be compared to Summitt.

In four seasons, Warlick is a combined 108-34 (.761). She has taken UT to the Elite Eight three times and the Sweet 16 once. At most schools, that kind of record would get you a lifetime contract. At UT, it puts you on the hot seat.

Last season saw the Lady Vols lose 14 times and go 8-8 in the SEC, finishing seventh. South Carolina, under Dawn Staley, replaced UT as the SEC’s top women’s program. The Lady Vols fell out of the Associated Press Top 25 for the first time in 31 years – 565 consecutive weeks.

Because of that and other factors, Warlick’s job security slipped to the point that a Louisville radio station suggested UT had identified Cardinals coach Jeff Walz as her possible successor.

UT felt compelled to deny the rumor, with athletics department spokesperson Ryan Robinson calling the report “absolutely false.”

Moving forward, Warlick needs to upgrade things. Because of the program’s history of success, it is unacceptable for the Lady Vols to finish in the middle of the pack in the SEC.

But let’s be fair: Lady Vols basketball had slipped in the final years of Summitt’s coaching career. Her last appearance in the Women’s Final Four was 2008 when she won the last of her eight national titles. Her recruiting, while still very good, was no longer elite. Warlick took over a program that had seen better days.

On top of that, Warlick deserves the benefit of the doubt because of the grace and honor with which she handled the transition.

Having received her dire diagnosis, Summitt was head coach in name only during the 2012 season. Warlick handled all the heavy lifting. With Summitt sitting on the bench, Warlick made the best of a difficult situation. By the end of the season, she was an emotional wreck but managed to keep things going.

As for Summitt, the book suggests she found peace amid a terrible situation. Incredibly, she and Auriemma, once bitter enemies, became friends.

When UConn played in the Women’s Final Four in 2014 in Nashville – two years after Summitt had been forced to retire – I asked Auriemma if it would mean more to win the national championship in Summitt’s backyard.

In that moment, Auriemma turned reflective, somber, even sad.

“I don’t think it would mean any more in this setting, especially with what has transpired,” he said. “… Don’t get me wrong, if Pat were still coaching and Tennessee was in the Final Four, it would be different.”

Yes, a lot of things would be different.

Alas, that is not the case. And in a sports world that needs all the heroes we can find, Pat Summitt is dearly missed.

Reach David Climer on Twitter @DavidClimer and at [email protected].