I don't think you can say that a coach that hasn't won a championship isn't a great coach. You have to have breaks along the way, and you have to have a dominant player.
-- Pat Summitt
For more about Pat Summitt, keep reading....
About the Quote
There are many great head coaches in college and professional sports, and most will never even get an opportunity to lead a team to a championship (never mind win one). Marv Levy led the Buffalo Bills of the National Football League to an unprecedented 4 consecutive Super Bowls, yet his record in the biggest game of the sport is perfect on the losing side with 4 losses. Until winning a record 9 Stanley Cups as head coach, Scotty Bowman was known for having lost 3 consecutive Stanley Cup Finals from 1968 through 1970 with the expansion St. Louis Blues.
The head coach most notorious for having breaks along the way to winning championships is NBA (National Basketball Association) Phil Jackson. Almost as soon as he took over the Chicago Bulls, the team had both Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen-- not only future Hall of Fame players but also members of the original Dream Team which won the Olympic Gold Medal at the 1992 Barcelona Summer Games. The Bulls won 6 of 8 NBA Championships during his time as head coach, and only the temporary retirement of Michael Jordan caused the gap in winning. When he became head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, the team already had future Hall of Fame players in home-grown Kobe Bryant and free agent acquisition Shaquille O'Neal. He coached the Lakers to 5 more NBA Championships (one without Shaq).
Was Phil Jackson a great coach? Yes he was. How lucky was he? His coaching failed to translate to front office work, and the New York Knicks (for whom he played in the early 1970s) had some of their worst seasons during his time as an executive for the team in the 2010s.
Some Information about Pat Summitt
Pat Summitt (née Patricia Head) was born in Clarksville, Tennessee, US on 1952-June-14. She died in Knoxville, Tennessee on 2016-June-2016.
Pat Summitt is best known as the head coach of the Lady Volunteers women's college basketball program at the University of Tennessee. During her tenure as head coach, the Lady Volunteers won the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) championship 8 times (1987, 1989, 1991, 1996–1998, and 2007–2008) for their first 8 championships. When Summitt retired from coaching, she had won 1,098 games-- more than any other NCAA head coach in both men's and women's college basketball until 2020 when Tara VanDerveer of Stanford University passed her. Pat Summitt was so well-respected in the basketball world that occasionally her name would be mentioned as a candidate to fill a vacant head coaching position in the NBA-- the men's league. She was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2000.
When Pat Head was growing up, she lived on a dairy farm. That experience helped her develop the toughness by which she would be known both as a player and as a head coach. She studied at the University of Tennessee at Martin, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in 1974 followed by a Master of Science degree in 1975. On graduating from the University of Tennessee, she was named head coach of the Lady Volunteers basketball program.
The toughness she gained from living on the dairy farm helped her to earn spots on national teams. She helped lead the US team to a gold medal at the 1975 Pan-American Games. In 1976, she overcame a serious knee injury to become co-captain of the US Olympic women's basketball team; the team won a Silver Medal. After the 1976 Montréal Summer Games, Pat Head retired as a player so that she could devote her time to coaching.
-- Source
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