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HomeGrown: Tyler Summitt

(WBIR) From his stance to that stare...Tyler Summitt is definitely living up to the family name.
Tyler Summitt is finding his own way as coach of the Lady Techsters at Louisiana Tech.

(WBIR) From his stance to that stare...

"Maybe God gave me the genes."

Tyler Summitt is definitely living up to the family name.

"I don't think I yell quite as much as Mom did."

He's taken the helm of the Louisiana Tech Lady Techsters basketball program.

"That was Mom's old rival before Connecticut."

To say he was born to coach is an understatement.

"I never said I wanted to do anything else."

After all, he went on his first recruiting trip in the womb. His mother went into labor on the recruiting trip and insisted the pilot fly her back to Tennessee to have Tyler.

"You know, everybody asks me what it's like to be Pat Summitt's son, and I didn't know what it's like not to be Pat Summitt's son. It was how I grew up."

His childhood was anything but normal.

"I was in locker rooms instead of sleepovers. I thought everybody's parent went to the grocery store and had to sign autographs and shake hands."

And like Mom, he loved basketball.

"I had to convince my mom when I was little that I really wanted to play, it wasn't for her it was for me."

Tyler remembers his mother's success starting to sink in during the mid '90s.

"'96, '97, '98, her three national championships and I'm 6, 7, 8 years old. All my friends, all my teachers were really excited about it and that's when I started to notice things were different."

And, with each post game celebration, we watched Tyler grow.

"Cutting down the nets was always my mom's idea. I think I was blessed to be an only child and I could be in the spotlight. That's who my mom is. She's going to deflect the attention."

There have been times, especially as a teenager, when Tyler wished he could deflect her attention.

"She took off her sunglasses and gave me the stare and I said, 'Mom, can you put your sunglasses back on?' You know you're in trouble when you see those blue eyes staring at you."

Tyler and his wife, AnDe, met at the Webb School and started dating their sophomore year.

"We walked up to the front door and his mom came and greeted me and opened the door and immediately gave me a hug."

Tyler played point guard at Webb.

"There was a lot of pressure, but it was fun playing."

And, he wanted to continue at the college level.

"We talked about getting away, but I don't know, I've always sort of embraced the pressure of staying by Mom, or going to Tennessee."

Tyler played two seasons at the University of Tennessee, all while coaching AAU basketball and practicing and traveling with the Lady Vols.

"My three years at Tennessee I got to learn from Mom, learn from Coach Bruce Pearl and Coach Cuonzo Martin... Three very different experiences I got to kind of mold into my own kind of philosophy."

After college though, he wanted to spread his coaching wings.

"I really tried to look for a place that didn't have a Pat Summitt connection. Marquette was obviously one of those places."

Tyler served as an assistant coach at the Milwaukee school. A year later, he and AnDe got married and started a life together in Milwaukee.

"It was a lot," remembers AnDe. "It really was."

But nothing compared to the harsh reality they had already faced.

"It was hard."

Hard hearing his mother's diagnosis of early onset dementia Alzheimer's type.

Tyler credits his faith and AnDe for helping him find strength and perspective.

"She said, you know what, this could be God's plan and you could really turn this into a positive. And, that's really the approach that we took with the Pat Summitt Foundation. We felt like God gave Mom another platform."

In April 2014, God gave Tyler the opportunity of a lifetime.

Louisiana Tech named him it's sixth head women's basketball coach.

"It was incredible to get that call, to get that interview and to get the job."

At 23, Tyler was just a year older than his mom when she started coaching. And yes, he's carrying on many of her traditions, including pregame rituals.

"Mom always either got a massage or took a nap just to kind of quiet her mind, so I do a 20-minute nap, recharge and then I'm good to go."

And last season, his team nailed a perfect APR score, meaning every player was eligible and on track to graduate.

With AnDe by his side, Tyler is focused.

"The plan is to get Louisiana Tech back on top in a national stage."

And, while he embraces his mom's legacy,

"It's definitely weird not wearing orange. It's weird not seeing my mom wearing orange."

He hopes to climb his own summit.

"There's always going to be her success that's out there. You know, you can see pressure as an enemy or an ally. It really is an ally. It's a motivation. It's really fun being in the same career that Mom had.

Tyler Summitt.

"Knoxville will always be home."

HomeGrown in Tennessee.

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