KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Runners and walkers filled the greenways around Tyson Park in Knoxville on Saturday morning for the 13th Race for the Summitt, a 5K that raises money to fight the disease that took legendary Lady Vols coach Pat Summitt.
The race stepped off at 9 a.m. from the park at 2351 Kingston Pike. The course followed the Third Creek and Neyland greenways, and people who could not make it in person had the choice of running a virtual version on their own.
Pharmacy students at the University of Tennessee run the event. Their APhA-ASP chapter, the student branch of the national pharmacists group, plans it each fall, and a new group of students takes over the work every year so the race keeps going.
Every dollar raised goes to the Pat Summitt Foundation, which pays for Alzheimer’s research and offers help to patients and the families who care for them. Organizers also ask supporters to sign on as Memory Donors and rally under the race motto, We Back Pat.
Summitt led the Lady Vols from 1974 to 2012. She won more than 1,000 games and never had a losing season at Tennessee. Doctors diagnosed her with Alzheimer’s disease in 2011, and she and her son, Tyler Summitt, set up the foundation that November. She died of the disease in 2016.
More than a decade after her diagnosis, the Saturday race remains one of the ways Knoxville keeps her name tied to the fight against the illness, with students who often grew up hearing about her teams carrying the event forward.
People who missed race day can still give. The race’s online registration page lists ways to back the foundation, including business sponsorships and the Memory Donor program, and it keeps photo galleries from earlier years of the event.
Filed under: Knoxville TN Health News
