Reach for the Summit - Hardcover

Summitt, Pat

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0767902289 ISBN 13: 9780767902281

Publisher: Broadway, 1998

Synopsis

"I'm someone who will push you beyond all reasonable limits.  Someone who will ask you not to just fulfill your potential but to exceed it.  Someone who will expect more from you than you may believe you are capable of.  So if you aren't ready to go to work, shut this book."
--Pat Summitt

Pat Summitt, head coach of the University of Tennessee Lady Vols, is a phenomenon in women's basketball.  Her ferociously competitive teams won the NCAA championship in 1996 and 1997, and they've won five times in the last ten years.  After twenty-four years as head coach at Tennessee, Summitt is well on her way to becoming the winningest coach in NCAA Division 1 women's history.

Now Summitt has written the first motivational book by a high-achieving female coach.  In Reach for the Summit, she presents her formula for success, which she calls the "Definite Dozen System."  In each of the book's twelve chapters, Summitt talks about one of the system's principles--such as responsibility, discipline, and loyalty--and shows you how to apply it to your own situation.

Pat Summitt uses her own remarkable story as a vehicle for explaining how anyone can transform herself through ambition.  Through many amusing anecdotes and a few very painful memories, she reveals her mistakes and triumphs as a beginning basketball player, as an Olympic athlete, as a Division 1 coach, and as a mother.  Although Summitt was not born to the easy life--she was born into a hard-working farm family in a remote corner of Tennessee--she has become one of the most successful and highest-paid coaches in the country.  She candidly talks about how she turned her losses into wins and then shows you how you can do the same.  Setting the example, she challenges you to embrace change while reaching for the brass ring.

Wonderfully entertaining and brilliantly instructive, Reach for the Summit discloses the winning secret to building a principled system and making it to the top at whatever you do.  Pat Summitt will motivate you to achieve in sports, business, and the most important game of all--life.

About this title

Review:

Pat Summitt has been called a living legend. As head coach of the University of Tennessee Lady Vols, Summitt has taken her NCAA Division 1 women's basketball team to back-to-back national championships in 1996 and 1997, and five titles in a 10-year span. In Reach for the Summit, with the help of former Sports Illustrated writer Sally Jenkins, she draws from 24 years as a successful head coach to provide motivational advice for anyone who wants to succeed in sports, business, and life in general. Structured around her Definite Dozen system, each chapter covers one of her 12 commandments of achievement by interweaving personal anecdotes, strategies for success, and basic ethics. A lot of people can win once, she writes. They get lucky, or follow their intuition, or strike on a good short-term formula. But very few people know how to repeat success on a consistent basis. They lose sight of their priorities, grow content, and abandon their principles. Summitt's book is about building a system of principles and sticking to it.

From the Publisher:

The crowd roars for Pat Summitt and Reach for the Summit:

"Pat Summitt . . . [is] a genius of a coach."
--New York Times

"Pat Summitt is a metaphor for excellence and hope. In this book, Summitt opens a window through which we discover the elements of mental toughness and passion that bring such success to herself and to her athletes."
--Tara VanDerveer, head coach of women's basketball at Stanford University

"If you want to understand what makes a champion, in any field or on any level, read Pat Summitt's story."
--John Feinstein, author of Season on the Brink and A March to Madness

"[Pat Summitt is] always seeking new information. That's what renews a coach."
--Phil Jackson, head coach of the Chicago Bulls

"If you want to learn about winning and the elements for success, Pat Summitt can provide all the data to tell you how to win at any level. To put it in Vitalese, she is awesome, baby, with a capital A."
--Dick Vitale, ESPN sports commentator

"As a manager and a master motivator, Pat Summitt transcends sports. The most experienced CEO can learn from her contagious work ethic and ingenious methods."
--Ken Blanchard, coauthor of The One-Minute Manager

About this edition

• Publisher: Broadway
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0767902289
• ISBN 13: 9780767902281
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272