{"product_id":"raise-the-roof-isbn-9780767903295","title":"Raise the Roof","description":"\"It wasn't a team.  It was a tent revival.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo 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.  \u003ci\u003eRaise the Roof\u003c\/i\u003e 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe 1997-98 season started innocently enough.  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.  Welcoming them were a number of players from the previous year, including Chamique Holdsclaw and Kellie Jolly.  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.  Suddenly Pat Summitt glimpsed the future: fast, aggressive and hugely talented.  This might be the team she'd worked her whole career to coach.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs the season got under way, other dramas unfolded.  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.  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.  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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll this was behind the scenes; out on the court, the win column was swelling with every game: 8-0, 15-0, 21-0.  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.  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.  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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePacked 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, \u003ci\u003eRaise the Roof\u003c\/i\u003e will have readers cheering from the bench for a team of all-conquering players and their astonishing coach.Pat Summitt became head coach of the women's basketball team at Tennessee in 1974; since then, she has won more national championships than any coach, man or woman, since John Wooden.  In the 1976 Olympics, as co-captain she led the U.S. women's squad to a silver medal, and in the 1984 Olympics--this time as coach--her team brought home the gold medal.  She is the author, with Sally Jenkins, of the bestselling \u003ci\u003eReach for the Summit.\u003c\/i\u003e  A native of Tennessee, she lives in Knoxville with her husband, R.B., and their son Tyler.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSally Jenkins is the author of \u003ci\u003eMen Will Be Boys\u003c\/i\u003e and the cowriter of Pat Summitt's first book, \u003ci\u003eReach for the Summit.\u003c\/i\u003e  A veteran sports reporter whose work has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, she has worked for the \u003ci\u003eWashington Post, Sports Illustrated\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eCondé Nast's Women's Sports and Fitness.\u003c\/i\u003eOn the way home, we passed through the Atlanta airport again. It was  December 21, and we were all flying home to different destinations for the  holidays.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile we were lounging at the gate, Betsy Roberts, our assistant athletic  director for development, handed me a quarter that she'd found. Betsy knew  how superstitious I was. I was especially superstitious about lucky coins.  Particularly pennies.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut a coin was only lucky if you found it lying heads up. If it was  tails, I wouldn't look at it twice, much less pick it up. This quarter was  heads up, so Betsy retrieved it and handed it to me. \"I know you prefer  pennies, but I found you a lucky quarter,\" she said. I thanked her and  stuck the quarter in my pocket.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA few minutes later, I went into the rest room to freshen up. I entered a  stall, and looked down, and saw something in the bottom of the  commode.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was a penny.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was a heads up penny.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDara Worrell, our ticket manager, was also in the rest room. I decided I  needed a second opinion.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI said, \"Dara!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDara poked her head in.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI said, \"Look in that commode.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDara gazed at me strangely.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"No, really, look,\" I said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDara glanced down once, quickly, as if she was afraid something in there  might be alive.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI said, \"Dara, do you know what that is?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe said, \"Well, it looks like a penny.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"It is!\" I said. \"But it's not just a penny. I think it's a heads up  penny. Do you think it's heads up?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe looked again, and said, \"Yeah, it is.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI said, \"I got to have it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Pat, no,\" she said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI said, \"How can I get it?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI looked around the bathroom. There was a plunger in the corner. I  grabbed it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI caught the penny with the plunger, and tried to drag it up the side of  the bowl. But right at the top, it fell out and slid back down in the  water. I tried three or four more times with the plunger, splashing around  without success.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was time to board the plane.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI said to Dara, \"I don't care. I've got to have it.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI set the plunger down. I rolled up the sleeve on my right arm. I was  wearing an orange and white flannel shirt. Then I took my rings off.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDara turned green.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI reached in and got the penny.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen I went to the sink and turned on the hot water. I lathered up. I  washed the penny, and my whole arm.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI started to hand the penny to Dara. \"Hold this,\" I said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDara didn't want to hold it. I had to wrap it in paper before she would  touch it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI said, \"This is it. We're gonna win a championship. You remember  this.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI went out to the gate, where several of our players, boosters, and Betsy  were waiting to board. I told them the whole story.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll of a sudden they didn't want to stand next to me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSomeone piped up, \"Do you know how many people go through the Atlanta  airport each day?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI didn't care. I had gotten what I wanted.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd that's how we broke for the holidays, with a perfect 13-0 record, and  a lucky penny. It had been a long autumn, and we all needed a rest.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut when I got home, I had trouble sleeping. There was something in the  back of my mind, a thought or a sensation, trying to force itself forward.  Ever since the Illinois game, I'd had a feeling of something impending. It  wasn't a bad feeling. It was good. In fact, it was something wonderful. So  wonderful, I was afraid to voice it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe thought woke me up in the middle of the night.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis was the team I had worked twenty-four years for.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e* * *\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Finally, after so many disturbing events, something good happened for us  off the court.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe met Michael Jordan.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter the Kentucky game, we flew to Chicago to play DePaul. The night  before the game, we took the team to eat at Jordan's restaurant. I hoped  the team might be able to meet Jordan, the Chicago Bulls star whom I'd  known since the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, when I was a coach and he  was a player for the U.S.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJordan, as everyone knew, was an acute businessman, and an increasingly  interested fan of the women's game. What's more, he was preparing to  launch a line of women's athletic gear for Nike, including a sneaker.  Meanwhile, Chamique's stature was growing daily, and Michael was  interested in meeting her. Michael and I spoke. The whole team, I  suggested, would love to meet him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMichael agreed. So the next afternoon, we all traipsed over to Michael's  headquarters in downtown Chicago. We walked into a suite of offices, and  there he was, sitting behind his desk. He had on a muscle shirt and  sweats, and looked just like a poster. Then he stood up.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKellie Jolly just stared at him, open-mouthed. I won't forget the look on  her face. She, Semeka, and LaShonda were bashful to the point of  speechlessness, but Ace, Kyra, and Niya descended on him. Niya sat in his  chair. Ace put her arms around him. They besieged him with photos and  T-shirts to sign. Then Michael saw Chamique, sort of hanging back.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Hey, Chamique!\" he said. \"I heard about you. How you doing? You and me  need to play some one-on-one.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat do you say when the most recognizable man on the planet recognizes  \u003ci\u003eyou?\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChamique opened her mouth and then closed it again. She was  \"Michaeled.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe started in again. \"I mean it,\" he said. \"You and me need to play.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChamique finally found her voice. \"You got a court in here?\" she  said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe laughed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs we got ready to go, Michael said again to Chamique, \"When are we going  to play?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChamique said, teasingly, \"One of these days.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOutside, Chamique tried to regain her composure. \"He knew my name,\" she  giggled, whooping. \"Oh, my goodness.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThat night, we beat DePaul by 125-46. It was the second-highest point  total in Tennessee history. The four freshmen combined to score 82 of our  points. Catchings still had a scar over her eye, but she threw in a UT  rookie record 35 points. Typical, I thought. What a bunch of fearless  exhibitionists; you introduced them to Michael Jordan, and how did they  respond? They hung 125 on the board. Funny thing was, Chamique only had 8  of our points. I think she was still Michaeled.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy late January, there was only one thing bothering me. Chamique was  chafing at the restrictions of college life. Rumors were rife that she was  seriously considering turning pro. Despite all of her protests to me  personally, when it came to talking to the press, she still refused to  reject the possibility outright.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePlus, we got a call from a sneaker company representative who was  worried; the rep had heard that Chamique was being pursued by an unsavory  agent. I had to deal with this once and for all. I called her in.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI said, \"Chamique, I wanted you to be the first to know. I'm seriously  considering taking a pro job at the end of this year.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChamique stared at me, in shock.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Are you serious?\" she said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"No,\" I said. \"But now you know how all the rumors and speculation over  you turning pro could affect this team.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChamique nodded. She got my point.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThen I laid it on the line. \"You've left the door open, and we need to  close it,\" I said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf, at the end of the season, she wanted to consider turning pro, that  was her decision, I said. When the time came, I would even assist her in  finding a reputable agent. But until then, I didn't want to hear another  word about it. What's more, I said, if I ever heard she had anything to do  with a disreputable agent, I would wash my hands of her. It would be the  hardest thing I ever had to do, but I'd do it, I said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"I'll leave you to the sleazeballs who want to take all your money,\" I  said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI think we understood each other.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe sped through the rest of January, racking up win after win. Towards  the end of the month, Georgia came to town. Anyone who knew about the  Tennessee-Georgia rivalry knew there was no love lost between the two  programs. Before the game, our promotions department gave out ten thousand  mask replicas of my face. Right before tip-off I went by the Georgia  bench. \"This must be your worst nightmare,\" I said to Georgia coach Andy  Landers. \"There's not just one of me. There's ten thousand.\" We both  laughed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe won by fifty-nine, 102-43.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt the end of the month, we were 20-0. All I thought about now, all I  breathed, was this team.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne afternoon, some reporters asked me who I favored in the Super  Bowl.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Well, fellas, let me ask you a question,\" I said.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI paused.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Who's playing in it?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    No Girls Allowed\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI'm a forty-five-year-old woman with a controlling nature and crow's feet from squinting into the country sun, and it's just not like me to act the way I did. To be so free with my feelings, and to wear blue jeans, of all things. Ordinarily, I'm in charge. I wear a suit and a perpetual glare. I'm a coach, so I take the issue of control personally. I've always seen the movements of players on a basketball court as an extension of myself, like puppets on a string. Their failures were my fault, their successes my responsibility. I demanded that they act like Pat, and think like Pat. A row of little Patlings. So when, exactly, did I let go? When did I decide to let this team run? And when did they start running me?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe truth is, I loved them. Of course, all coaches say they love their teams. When really, you love some of them more than others, and some of them you don't like at all. But love or like, I've always yelled at them. I yell, because I'm a yeller. I'm a yeller, and so I yell. My voice gets so hoarse it sounds like tires crunching over gravel. During the season, I go through economy-sized packages of throat lozenges.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith this team, though, I was different.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy top assistant coach, Mickie DeMoss, was the first person to suggest I should go softer on them. As our recruiting coordinator, she knew the strengths and sympathized with the flaws of the 1997-98 Tennessee Lady Volunteers more deeply than any of us. Something in them got to her, early. Maybe it was the fact that they were so young and unguarded, or that they had such large eyes, begging to be taught. \"Pat, don't yell at this team,\" Mickie said, back in the summertime. \"They want to play for you.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe were driving through a desolate strip of Texas on a recruiting trip. I said, \"What do you mean?\" I'd been shouting for twenty-three years, as long as I had been the head coach at Tennessee. It had always worked before. We had been to the NCAA Final Four fourteen times, and won five national championships in ten years. But Mickie said I ought to consider something new. For once, I should try not raising my voice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMickie said, \"They're different. They're spirited, and I don't want to see that spirit broken.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI thought about it for a minute.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI said, \"Well, I can't promise you.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMickie said, warningly, \"Pat . . .\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI said, \"All right, I'll try.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI'm not saying I didn't have my snappish moments. It wasn't like I underwent a complete personality transplant. But something happened to me. In the 1997-98 Lady Vols I finally met a group of players more driven than I am. They were harder on themselves than I ever could have been. That was clear from the moment they stepped on campus.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe funny thing was, what turned out to be the toughest game of the year may have been played before the season ever started. And I wasn't even there for it. I should have known right then that this team was out of the ordinary.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was a sweltering night in the dregs of summer, August 23, 1997, a Saturday, their first day on the University of Tennessee grounds. What's the first thing they did? They went looking for a basketball. Long before anyone put on a Tennessee uniform, the whole team, a dozen young women clad in baggy, mismatching rayon shorts and raggedy T-shirts, gathered to play pickup. It was a contest of us against ourselves. A showdown. The Tennessee Lady Vols against the Tennessee Lady Vols.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere were no scoreboards, no officials, no crowds, no coaches. It was just pure game, a strictly private affair. I didn't even know about it until after the fact--and I probably still don't know the half of it. You could ask one of our players for the full story, but I doubt they would tell you because, like most great teams, they're a secretive bunch. And even if they did tell you, you probably wouldn't understand much of what they said. As someone remarked not long ago, the Lady Vols aren't a team, they're a cult. They have a tendency to speak in code. For instance, a ball is not a ball, it's \"the rock,\" and you don't shoot it, you \"throw it down.\" Your best friend is \"your dog.\" If something is great, it's \"tight,\" or if it's silly, it's \"sadiddy.\" And this isn't a beginning, it's \"the jump.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo it's up to me to tell the story.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe thing about that pickup game is that right from \"the jump,\" it was no everyday contest. It was more than that. It was an initiation. Earlier in the day, four new freshmen had arrived, a quartet of high school All-Americans with big games and even bigger reputations. They were being called the single best recruiting class in history. And maybe they were.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut each one of them came to Tennessee with a host of private insecurities.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne by one, the freshmen parked in back of Humes Hall on the Tennessee campus and began unloading their bags and carrying them to the suite they would occupy together for the next year. They drove in from various points of the compass, from Ohio, Texas, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina. The 1997-98 Lady Vols were about to arrive.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKristen \"\"Ace'' Clement had one thought in her mind as she pulled up to the dorm. \"Please God, don't let it be like high school.\" She was a glamorous left-handed point guard from Broomall, Pennsylvania, with a floppy ponytail and an almost illusory passing ability, a sleight-of-hand artist who could make the ball seem to flicker around the court. And she had a remarkable record to her credit--she had broken Wilt Chamberlain's all-time city high school scoring mark in Philadelphia. But Ace was to prove fragile, as I would discover.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAce was the youngest of six children, the daughter of a fifty-five-year-old divorcee named Sue Carney. I knew Ace wasn't the only one starting a new life that day. So was Sue. When Ace went south, Sue simply decided to go with her. Sue had reared her six kids largely on her own, despite the fact that she had struggled to work ever since complications from back surgery had left her with a long-term disability. She was scraping by on savings and a military pension.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSue wanted to get out of the cold northeast, having spent her whole adult life moving from job to job in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. Sue imagined that the south represented an easier kind of living. So when Ace was recruited by Tennessee, Sue made up her mind. She visited Knoxville with Ace and found that the pace was slow and the people friendly. It was perfect--this way she could change her life, and follow Ace's career at the same time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAce and Sue were wracked by nerves the day they left Philadelphia. Sue was a fast-talking, enthusiastic woman under any circumstances, but as they packed up she was going one hundred miles an hour. \"Come on, come on, we're going to be late,\" Sue told Ace, in her staccato Philly accent, as she hustled Ace out the front door of their Broomall condo for the last time. It was 11 p.m., and they had a ten-hour drive ahead. Sue intended to make Knoxville by early morning. She wanted Ace to be on time, to get off on the right foot in the program. They had heard that I was exacting on the subject of punctuality.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen they pulled up to Humes Hall, it was only a little after 9 a.m. The doors were just being unlocked. Ace rolled her eyes. They were the first ones there. There wasn't another car or student in sight.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne thing about Sue, she didn't intend to baby Ace, even if she was her youngest. She loved her daughter enough to follow her to Tennessee, but she wanted this day to be a genuine leave-taking. Ace should feel like she was going away to college, not like she was crossing the street. That meant living in the dorm, not running home at the earliest opportunity, and not calling her mother every time she felt a stab of insecurity.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAce was feeling plenty insecure, all right. Already, she missed Philadelphia. She was city bred. Her whole life, all of her friends, her dates, her sisters and brothers, were back in Philadelphia and New Hampshire.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTogether, Ace and Sue unpacked the car. Sue hung pictures and helped Ace put her belongings away, and then she lingered in the dorm, making sure Ace was settled in. For all of her determination to let Ace go, Sue needed to feel comfortable and sure her daughter was okay before she could leave. But it was time. Sue had to apartment hunt and find what would be her own home for at least the next four years. Sue kissed Ace and was gone.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAce was alone. She surveyed the two-bedroom suite that she was to share with the other three freshmen. Ace hoped fervently that they would get along. In high school, it seemed there was always someone who hated her. They hated her for being good. They hated her for being beautiful. It wasn't her fault she looked like a Miss Hawaiian Tropic beauty contest winner (which she was). \"It's your cross to bear,\" Sue would tell her. This time around, Ace was determined to be liked for who she was, not hated for how she looked.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe finished unpacking. She wondered how long it would be until the first vacation. She wondered how quickly she could get back to Philadelphia.","brand":"Crown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304163987685,"sku":"NP9780767903295","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780767903295.jpg?v=1767735368","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/raise-the-roof-isbn-9780767903295","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}