Raise the Roof: The Inspiring Inside Story of the Tennessee

Raise the Roof: The Inspiring Inside Story of the Tennessee Lady Vols' Groundbreaking Season in Women's College Basketball

"It wasn't a team.Â Â It was a tent revival."

So says Pat Summitt, the legendary coach whose Tennessee Lady Vols entered the 1997-98 season aiming for an almost unprecedented "three-peat" of NCAA championships.Â Â Raise the Roof takes you right inside the locker room of her amazing team, whose inspired mixture of gifted freshmen and seasoned stars produced a standard of play that would change the game of women's basketball forever.

The 1997-98 season started innocently enough.Â Â One Saturday in August, four young freshmen--Semeka Randall, Tamika Catchings, Ace Clement and Teresa Geter--arrived on the Tennessee campus to begin their college careers.Â Â Welcoming them were a number of players from the previous year, including Chamique Holdsclaw and Kellie Jolly.Â Â But that night, in a sign of things to come, a simple pickup game turned into an amazing display of basketball brilliance--freshmen against established players, and with barely a shot missed by either side.Â Â Suddenly Pat Summitt glimpsed the future: fast, aggressive and hugely talented.Â Â This might be the team she'd worked her whole career to coach.

As the season got under way, other dramas unfolded.Â Â After one emotional team meeting, Summitt realized that many on the team were playing for something more than just the glory of the game: all four freshmen, for example, came from single-parent homes, and the tough circumstances of the majority of the other players seemed to add an extra edge to their desire to win it all.Â Â Further, Chamique Holdsclaw, widely regarded as the greatest female player ever, was being dogged by questions about turning pro--and she seemed reluctant to rule it out.Â Â Meanwhile, another member of the team began to notice the unwelcome attentions of a fan, who soon turned out to be a full-fledged stalker.

All this was behind the scenes; out on the court, the win column was swelling with every game: 8-0, 15-0, 21-0.Â Â As 1997 turned into 1998, Pat Summitt began privately to admit that this team had changed her: these kids were so lovable, funny and eager to please that she simply had to let them into her heart.Â Â Along the way, the Lady Vols were redefining what women were capable of, trading in old definitions of femininity for new ones--in short, they were keeping score.Â Â And by the time they entered the NCAA Final Four tournament in Kansas City, Summitt found herself believing the impossible: despite all the distractions, the 1997-98 Lady Vols could go undefeated, and, in doing so, raise the roof off the sport of women's basketball.

Packed with the excitement of a season on the brink of perfection and filled with the comedy and tragedy of one year in the life of a basketball team, Raise the Roof will have readers cheering from the bench for a team of all-conquering players and their astonishing coach.
Country USA
Manufacturer Crown
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2012-02-08
Format Kindle eBook

Country	USA
Manufacturer	Crown
Binding	Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate	2012-02-08
Format	Kindle eBook

Raise the Roof: The Inspiring Inside Story of the Tennessee Lady Vols' Groundbreaking Season in Women's College Basketball

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