Linda Head Atteberry, the sister of the late Pat Head Summitt, passed away last Saturday at the age of 67. Atteberry, one of five children born to the late Richard and Hazel Albright Head, was the final sibling to pass away. Summitt died in 2016; Kenneth Head, 2017; Charles Head, 2019; and Tommy Head, 2024.

The obituary and services information are available HERE, and memorials can be left on the page and flowers sent to the gravesite.

Linda may have been the funniest of all the siblings and bore an uncanny resemblance to Pat – so much so that people would do a double take. Linda enjoyed it sometimes without correcting the person.

One evening in Knoxville years ago she was on the Strip enjoying a beverage – this was when the Strip had some hole-in-the-wall bars – the day before a Lady Vols game. She was mistaken for Pat, and apparently some busybody called UT to complain that the head coach was out and about late on the town.

Linda Head Atteberry, back center, with former Lady Vols and family. (Photo provided by Debby Jennings, front left)

When the Lady Vols played a game at Madison Square Garden, Linda went to the concourse to get some refreshments. Debby Jennings, who was Summitt’s longtime media relations chief, relayed the story as told by Linda. A man approached her and said, “I’ve been to a lot of basketball games at the Garden and in all my years I’ve never seen a coach come up to the concourse and get a hot dog and beer at halftime.”

Linda couldn’t help but laugh and said, “Mister, do you really think Pat Summitt would be up here getting a hot dog and beer at halftime? No sir. She’s with her team in the locker room.

“I’m just her sister Linda.”

Linda will be missed, but the siblings are all together again.

SOFTBALL

A storyline about softball’s 25-0 start was how it had been accomplished by a team that started and played a lot of underclassmen.

That same team dropped the first SEC series of the season last weekend with one win in three games at Florida – one of the best hitting teams in the country – after sweeping LSU and winning the series against Mississippi State before traveling to Gainesville.

It’s time for a refresher course.

“We’re still young, and that’s not an excuse, but it’s just a reality,” said coach Karen Weekly, whose post-game remarks can be viewed HERE. “These players, for the most part, haven’t experienced the SEC. Ella Dodge and Gabby Leach got quite a few innings last year, but still weren’t in there every single game, and they’re now our two most experienced people outside the circle.

“Every time we play and go on the road, it’s going to expose something, something that maybe we have not done really well, we know to do, but we’re not doing it or something else that, ‘Hey, we’ve got to work on that more.’ “Obviously, we need to work on the intentional walk more than we do and make sure that we can execute that on both the pitcher’s and catcher’s part.”

Tennessee (28-3, 6-3) spotted the Gators a 3-0 lead before Leach hit a two-run homer in the sixth inning to pull the Lady Vols to 3-2. Keagan Rothrock got the win in the circle for Florida and kept most of the lineup from being aggressive early like Weekly wanted.

“We say all the time this is SEC softball,” Weekly said. “Rothrock is one of the better pitchers in the country, and she’s a junior, and she knows what to do. I thought she threw one of the best games I’ve seen her throw this year. That’s going to be the story on these SEC weekends, everybody’s got good pitching.”

Tennessee will host Tennessee Tech today, March 24, for a midweek non-conference game at Sherri Parker Lee Stadium at 6 p.m. The Lady Vols will then get back-to-back three-game SEC series at home against Ole Miss on March 27-29 and South Carolina on April 2-4.

“The future is bright,” Weekly said. “I just told them in the circle, in 25 years of doing this, never had the same team on May 1 that we had in the middle of March. As long as these guys keep listening and keep doing what we ask them to do, we’re going to be a really good team come first of May.”

BASKETBALL

Two players will enter the portal in Deniya Prawl, a 6-2 freshman guard from Toronto, Canada, and Alyssa Latham, a 6-2 junior forward from Glenwood, Illinois. Latham is on track to graduate in three years this May – she was recruited by Tennessee out of high school – and will be a graduate transfer after one year at Syracuse and two seasons at Tennessee.

The Lady Vols finished the season with an eight-game losing streak that took a toll on everyone, and departures were rumored throughout the month of February and into March. It’s likely not over either. Five seniors are out of eligibility, but the other six underclassmen are freshmen Jaida Civil, Lauren Hurst, Mia Pauldo and Mya Pauldo; redshirt sophomore Kaniya Boyd; and redshirt junior Talaysia Cooper, who is WNBA draft eligible or could transfer.

After the loss to NC State last Friday in the first round of the NCAA tourney, coach Kim Caldwell owned the outcome of the season.

“I’ve got to put it on me, right?” said Caldwell, whose post-game video can be watched HERE. “I have always been able to recruit players and stack talent and get them to run through a wall for me and get them to play hard and I wasn’t able to do that.”

Maria M. Cornelius, a senior writer/editor at MoxCar Marketing + Communications since 2013, started her journalism career at the Knoxville News Sentinel and began writing about the Lady Vols in 1998. In 2016, she published her first book, “The Final Season: The Perseverance of Pat Summitt,” through The University of Tennessee Press and a 10th anniversary edition will be released June 16, 2026.