Pat Summitt

Tennessee's Pat Summitt, 59, says she will continue to coach the women's basketball team despite having symptoms of early-onset Alzheimer's. Treatment for advanced cases of Alzheimer's disease has failed resoundingly, and researchers are turning their attention to therapies that might work much earlier in the course of the disease to slow or halt brain damage. Eventually, doctors hope to identify people before symptoms are apparent. Such early diagnosis offers the best hope of treating the condition, they say. In a study reported Wednesday, researchers found evidence that brain imaging, along with measurement of some specific brain metabolites, can help identify elderly people who seem cognitively normal but have early Alzheimer's disease.

For a coaching legend who has long maintained control, the diagnosis of a medical condition that robs her of just that didn't seem possible. So Tuesday, when it was revealed that Tennessee's Hall of Fame women's basketball Coach Pat Summitt, 59, has early-onset dementia, of the Alzheimer's type, the sporting world struggled to grasp the news. Players, colleagues, rivals and admirers of her 37 years coaching Tennessee responded in shock and disbelief, and issued statements sending prayers, thoughts, warm wishes, love, encouragement and hope.

Pat Summitt says she has early onset dementia -- Alzheimer's type -- but isn't going to let that keep her from what she loves doing: coaching women's basketball at the University of Tennessee. In a heartfelt interview with the Washington Post, the winningest coach in college basketball explained that she had received the diagnosis but that it took her a while to accept it.  Early-onset Alzheimer's can be a difficult diagnosis to face. It sets in well before the age of 65, the Mayo Clinic explains, the typical lower limit for standard Alzheimer's disease, and thus affects people when they're still in their prime, often with elderly parents or young children to care for as well.

. -- Pat Summitt now has 1,000 victories, an unprecedented height even she finds dizzying. "It's a hard number to even comprehend," the Tennessee coach said. Summitt became the first Division I basketball coach -- men's or women's -- to win 1,000 games Thursday night as her 12th-ranked Lady Vols beat Georgia, 73-43. It was their second chance in four days at giving their coach her latest and one of her greatest milestones.

Pat Summitt will be stuck on 999 coaching wins until at least Thursday night, when Tennessee plays host to Georgia. That much was certain after her No. 12 Lady Vols lost, 80-70, to No. 2 Oklahoma on Monday. "I'm not concerned about a number for me," Summitt said. "I'm concerned about this basketball team investing in our system and not picking and choosing when they want to play hard."

Back when Pat Summitt was 22 years old, driving the van to road games, doing the team laundry and guiding her Lady Vols in front of a few dozen fans, her ambition was just to make a career in coaching. To say she reached her goal doesn't even begin to cover it. Tennessee's next victory will be No. 1,000 for Summitt -- a number no college basketball coach has ever achieved. It could come Monday against Oklahoma. "I never thought about it. I never focused on numbers," said Summitt, who won her first game on Jan. 10, 1975, against Middle Tennessee State.

Pat Summitt will receive the John R. Wooden "Legends of Coaching" award next year, becoming the first women's basketball coach to be honored in the 10-year history of the Los Angeles Athletic Club award. The Tennessee coach has won seven national championships, and her 947 victories are more than any college basketball coach in history.

Pat Summitt is the newest millionaire coach, and the first in women's basketball. Tennessee raised Summitt's salary Monday to $1.125 million for next season and extended her contract six years, through the 2011-12 season. Geno Auriemma of Connecticut, the Lady Vols' biggest rival, will be the next coach to make more than $1 million a year. He signed a five-year contract in 2005 worth a total of $4.85 million. His salary for this season is $975,000 and it will increase to $1.

For only the third time in the 24-year history of the women's NCAA tournament, the Final Four coaches are all women. And one of them has been there all three times. That, of course, would be Tennessee's Pat Summitt, who could serve as the face of women's college basketball. She is taking the Lady Vols to Indianapolis this weekend in search of an unprecedented seventh national championship.