UNC women’s basketball coach Sylvia Hatchell recalled her friendship with the late Pat Summitt on and off the court in a press conference on Tuesday.

Summitt, the renowned women’s basketball coach at the University of Tennessee, died at age 64 on Tuesday due to early onset dementia in the form of Alzheimer’s.

The two women competed against in each other in college – Hatchell at Carson-Newman and Summitt at UT-Martin – but grew to be close friends as they went on to their respective coaching careers.

Hatchell said that Summitt is the reason she has her current job, as Summitt “broke down barriers” and “opened a lot of doors” for coaches in an effort to make the game better.

“Pat knocked down so many doors, so many barriers—the respect that she gained through the whole world of basketball—especially with the men coaches, because of her knowledge,” Hatchell said. “And I don’t know in my lifetime if I have ever known or been around a more assertive, aggressive, dominating female than Pat Summitt.”

Watch the entire press conference below via GoHeels.com:

 

According to Hatchell, much of Summitt’s determination stemmed from her childhood, which Hatchell said was spent working on the family farm. Summitt’s dad expected her to work just as hard as her brothers, and that expectation was passed along to Summitt’s players.

“She worked as hard or harder than anyone else, and she expected everybody else to do the same,” Hatchell said, noting that it was one of the many reasons behind Summitt’s unprecedented success of winning the most college basketball games in history. “Pat brought out the best in everyone around her—she demanded the best. Now a lot of people couldn’t take it; they didn’t want that and they couldn’t take it. And they didn’t like it. But one of the greatest things in life you can have is someone make you do what you won’t make yourself do.

“And Pat did that many times—she made a lot of people do what they didn’t want to do and what they didn’t think they could do. But she got the best out of them, no doubt about that.”

Hatchell also noted Summitt’s uncanny spirit, saying that she was “tender-hearted” off the court, but stern and determined when it came to the game.

In the end, Hatchell said, no one did more for women’s basketball than Summitt, and this legacy has made Hatchell more determined in her own career than ever before.

UNC men’s head coach Roy Williams also released a statement regarding Summitt’s passing on Tuesday:

“We lost one of the true giants in coaching, in any sport and regardless of gender, today. If there were a Mount Rushmore of coaching, Pat Summitt would certainly be included. (My wife) Wanda and I sent our daughter, Kimberly, to her basketball camp in Knoxville when I was coaching at Kansas, which is about as high a compliment one coach could give to another, because we wanted Kimberly to be influenced by Coach Summitt. She was a coaching giant, but she was even better in the way she treated people. Our hearts and prayers are with her family and her extended family, in particular all those who coached with her and the young people who played for her.”