ODESSA, Texas — Every year college basketball programs across the country hold contests in honor of coaching great Pat Summitt called, "We back Pat" games. The University of Texas Permian Basin participated in this tradition this year on Thursday.
Pat Summitt died in 2016 after battling with Alzheimer's disease and these contests are used to bring awareness to the legendary coach's foundation, "The Pat Summitt Foundation," which raises money for researching into a cure of this devastating disease.
For many this is just a way to pay homage to a woman that transformed the women's basketball landscape, but for UTPB Director of Athletics Todd Dooley it was a cause that hit a little closer to home.
Dooley got his start in collegiate athletics as a member of Summitt's staff because of a connection that started when Dooley was just 12 years-old.
"She and her husband sat in the row right behind us at church. One year, I'm not going to say which year, but one year she asked my mom if my brother and I could work basketball camps," Dooley said.
That would be the beginning as the Todd and his brother Tom would go on to attend the University of Tennessee and become team managers.
Tom would only have this role for a short period before moving on to focus on studying forestry, the industry that he now works in.
Todd stayed at Tennessee for 15 years and then would go on to become Executive Associate Director of Athletics at the University of Louisiana Monroe in 2016 before becoming the Director of Athletics at UTPB in 2020.
Despite their diverging paths, the impact Summitt had the Dooley brothers still affects how they lead in their respective spaces.
"Pat had her basic life lessons stilled down into what she called her Definite Dozen and each one of them is a pearl of wisdom within itself and what it means," Todd said.
Todd brought that list of lessons to his next job at ULM and Tom uses these principles as expectations while training workers out in South Carolina.
From Tennessee to Louisiana all the way to South Carolina. That's just the tip of the iceberg to how far Pat Summitt's impact stretches.
"It's always astounding to hear people speak [about her], I mean I speak of her with reverence, but other people speak about her with reverence as well because she permeates the whole of athletics," Tom said.
Even though Summitt was making history and winning gold medals as a coach, she always was a special person to the Dooley brothers as someone more than just the accolades.
" I don't even think of Pat in the context of being a legend and a legendary coach. I just think of her as just Pat," Tom said.