SPRINGFIELD — Tuesday's regiment was to try and find the right words.
Kellie Harper called the media opportunities therapeutic. Like others in the vast pool of former Tennessee players, she spent the day reminiscing. There was no adjective too great to descirbe the late Pat Summitt.
"She was the superstar that our sport needed."
News of Summitt's death from early onset Alzheimer's disease halted the sports world early Tuesday morning. Dozens of former players and coaches, including Harper, spent the day describing their favorite characteristics of college basketball's all-time wins leader.
Mainly, that cold stare and imposing presence that made her an iconic figure. Harper can still speak to Summit's less familiar side.
"Everybody knows Pat as this fiery, icy-glared woman. That's 100 percent true, but she also had this caring, loving, genuine side that not everybody got see."
Harper experienced great highs as a player, winning three national championships from 1996-1998. Her senior year, she was an All-American honorable mention, but the Lady Vols' bid for a four-peat was stopped in the Elite Eight.
"I was leaving the locker room, I saw her cry for the first time in my life and the only time. She didn't know I saw her, and I was 100 percent confident she was crying because of her players.
"She wasn't crying for herself or the program, but for me. It takes your admiration for another level."
Harper carried that connection into her coaching career. She said one past team told her to start wearing sunglasses because she had started to look like Summitt. Mostly, she tries to mimic her poise on the sideline.
"I can't try to be her because that would not come across well at all. She always ran a classy program and everything was done first rate. I think Cheryl Burnett did that when she brought some things from Tennessee."
Burnett, who led then-Southwest Missouri State from 1987-2002, echoed that Summitt had been good to her and the program. The Lady Bears lost to No. 4 Tennesse in the second round of their first-ever NCAA Tournament apperance in 1991. The following season, they reached the Final Four.
"(Summitt) utilized her status, her name, her position to pull other programs up. I know Cheryl had a lot of respect for Pat and at had a lot of respect for Cheryl."
Harper's relationship with Summitt elevated her to a Division I coach at Western Carolina, North Carolina State, and Missouri State. She has annual duels with Jody Adams, head coach of Wichita State and a member of Tennessee's 1991 national title team. Last season, Harper helped MSU halt a run of three straight conference championships for the Shockers.
She saw Summitt for the last time two years ago, when she got to introduce her old coach to her son, Jackson, something she considered a priority.
"The nature of the disease did not allow her fight to be as public as some others. She's been missed in the women's basketball community these last few years."
Her players still say she fought the illness with the same vigor with which she led Tennessee for 38 seasons. That impact will be on full display on Thursday when Thompson-Boling Arena will hold a public service in Knoxville, Tennessee.
"I can't imagine what that's going to look like and how Knoxville's going to be turned upside down."
Harper will be there, with just a few of the thousands of stories to share.
"No one would be as far as we are without her."
