Monday, December 5, 2011
COMBINED 1,982 WINS AND TWELVE NATIONAL TITLES: In a year that has seen its off-the-field sports news dominated by investigations of college sports programs once deemed iconic, Sports Illustrated will honor Mike Krzyzewski and Pat Summitt as its 2011 Sportsman and Sportswoman of the Year. They join John Wooden (1972) and Dean Smith (1997) as the only college basketball coaches to receive the award.
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In light of Summitt's current health status, it fees a little like SI is giving her the award so that she'll get it when she can value it. I'm all on board with that, even if I feel a little conflicted about her continuing to coach while she's suffering from dementia. Part of me wants her to have whatever's important to her for as long as she can have it. The other part of me says that she's putting the team a tough position, not so much for now (when it sounds like the problems are not so severe that others can't cover for her), but for the time when her Alzheimer's progresses to the point when somebody will have to try to ease her out of the driver's seat. It's just an awful situation.
ReplyDeleteHopefully, they all have an understanding in place such that her departure from the team will be handled without discord.
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing they decided they wanted to give it to her, but realized they needed a guy on the cover as well -- and may even have had Paterno under consideration (though he's won before) until recent events intervened.
I started to scoff at the idea of needing a guy on the cover before noticing that SI hadn't honored a lone female athlete or coach since 1983. It's probably a combination of that, not wanting to honor yet another quarterback (Rodgers would have been the fourth in seven years), and Krzyzewski getting serious consideration the previous year.
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