Film spotlights little-known story of Summitt's contribution

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Two Tennessee professors have made a documentary of Pat Summitt that focuses on how the former Lady Volunteers coach helped girls and women in Iraq learn more about basketball.

Sarah Hillyer and Ashleigh Huffman were Tennessee doctoral students preparing to visit Iraq to launch a girls' basketball academy in 2007 when they asked if Summitt could donate basketballs to the cause.

"The girls only had four flat basketballs, but there were 60 girls who had signed up for camp. ... We said, 'Can you spare any basketballs to help get the sport started in Iraq?'" Hillyer recalled. "She emptied the closets, and that was the beginning of an unbelievable relationship."

Not only did Summitt send basketballs, uniforms and equipment overseas for years, she also sponsored an Iraq delegation that visited Tennessee for a two-week basketball camp in 2009. Hillyer and Huffman are co-producers of "Pat: A Legacy of Love," a 26-minute documentary that chronicles Summitt's contributions and had its premiere showing Thursday in Knoxville.

"It's a story that people don't know, but it's a story that is just Pat," said former Tennessee women's athletic director Joan Cronan, who attended the premiere. "As I look back in this last year and the questions that people have asked me, everybody has a story of how Pat impacted them. This is just another way that Pat not only impacted basketball but impacted young ladies."

Summitt died at the age of 64 in June 2016, five years after announcing she had early-onset dementia, Alzheimer's type. She had stepped down as Tennessee's coach in 2012 after winning 1,098 games and leading the Lady Vols to eight national titles.

Tennessee women's basketball coach Holly Warlick, who succeeded Summitt after playing for her and working as an assistant on her staff, also attended Thursday's premiere and called it "a pretty powerful little film."

Huffman noted that many of the basketball players from Iraq who attended that camp have since grown up with coaching aspirations of their own in their home country. Hillyer is director and Huffman is assistant director of Tennessee's Center for Sport, Peace & Society.

"It's a very unknown story," Hillyer said. "That's what's so beautiful about Pat. She did so many things that weren't public to help people and help women and girls across the world. As visible a hero as she was, she was also a very quiet hero."