‘We still feel the guilt:’ Tyler Summitt, son of legendary coach, tries to move on from scandal

On Thursday, 5 years after Tyler Summitt resigned in shame as head coach of the ladies’s basketball crew at Louisiana Tech, he shall be with the girl at the middle of the scandal that introduced him down.

Summitt was having an extramarital affair with the crew’s place to begin guard, Brooklyn Pumroy. Now they’re married and stay with their 2-year-old son, Breck, on the banks of Choctaw Lake in London, Ohio.

“I feel we actually simply attempt to hold praying for forgiveness,” Summitt told USA TODAY Sports. “We still feel the guilt.”

Summitt, 30, bought divorced from his first spouse after the scandal broke in 2016. It was public humiliation for the solely baby of Pat Summitt, arguably the biggest coach in ladies’s faculty basketball historical past.

At Tennessee, Pat Summitt gained eight nationwide championships, with Tyler Summitt attending most of these title video games. He additionally helped oversee his mom’s medical care after she was recognized in 2011 early-onset Alzheimer’s illness, which pressured her to retire at 59.

She died about two months after Summitt resigned at Louisiana Tech.

“That 12 months is simply still a blur for me,’’ Summitt stated. “I noticed a couple of therapist simply to course of what was going on, whether or not it was Louisiana Tech or Mom passing away.

“Even now I look again and there’s still feelings. So I don’t know if I’ve totally processed it.’’

He married Pumroy in 2018, the identical 12 months their son was born. Five years after his resignation, Summitt stated, they are going to spend half of the night as they’ve for the previous few years.

“We do a Bible examine,’’ he stated. “We name it religion time.”

During faith time, Summitt said, the scandal that rocked Louisiana Tech basketball often is on the couple’s minds.

“I regret my actions and decisions, and I hate that I hurt so many people,’’ he said. “But I love Brooke. I love Breck. We love our lives.”

They stay in a four-bedroom, four-bathroom home Summitt purchased for $380,000 in 2017. That 12 months, with Summitt divorced from his first spouse, the couple moved from Knoxville, Tennessee, the place Summitt grew up, to the Ohio space the place Pumroy’s household lives.

Unless it’s raining or the lake is frozen, Summitt stated, most days they fish off their dock or experience on the 2007 MasterCraft boat his mom gave him.

But rain or shine, Summitt can’t be discovered on the sidelines.

Only 23 when he was employed at Louisiana Tech, the crew went 16-15 in his first season after back-to-back shedding seasons earlier than his arrival. During his second season, the crew was 12-9 (7-3 in Conference USA) earlier than hypothesis about the affair mounted and the crew misplaced seven of its final 9 video games.

He has not coached since his resignation and insists it’s by selection.

“I don’t see teaching as a profession,’’ stated Summitt, who was 30-31 at Louisiana Tech. “I used to. It used to be all I wished to do, to be a coach for so long as I may. Not anymore.”

But the scandal has had an impact.

In 2019, his wife was hired as the head coach at Fairborn High School, her alma mater, near the couple’s home in Ohio. In a press release, she was quoted as saying Summitt would be one of her assistant coaches.

Backlash followed, and Summitt never applied with the Fairborn City Board of Education for the coaching job.

“The high school got sorely criticized for even mentioning his name in association with a girls high school team,’’ said Summitt’s father, R.B. Summitt

Tyler Summitt does not need basketball to pay the bills.

Before his mother died, she designated him as the beneficiary of her state pension that will pay him more than $173,000 every year for the rest of his life, Tyler Summitt confirmed.

Without a full-time job, Summitt said he devotes most of his time to his wife and son, helps with The Pat Summitt Foundation and other efforts to fight Alzheimer’s disease and has explored entrepreneurial opportunities in technology.

“A lot of my days is just having one-on-one time with Brooke or one-on-one time with Breck or all three of us and our two dogs,’’ he said. “That’s a lot of it, to be family first, which was a big swing from college coaching. Not saying all colleges coaches are workaholics or anything, that they’re not family first. But the balance is a struggle.

“Not coaching, and having Breck especially, I think opened my eyes to how much time coaching takes up. Every time my mind goes to coaching, Breck comes up and says, ‘Daddy, Daddy,’ And that’s it. It (the thought of coaching again) goes away.

Instead of trying to replicate the success of his mother, who was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2010, Tyler Summitt helps his wife by washing jerseys or ordering meals for the girls team at Fairborn High.

“I literally pitch in however she wants help,’’ he said. “I don’t see coaching as a career. I used to. It used to be all I wanted to do, was to be a coach for as long as I could. Not anymore.”

Brooklyn declined to be interviewed for this story.

“It’s tough for her to discuss the previous,” Summitt stated.

They met in 2012 at Marquette, where Summitt was a first-year assistant coach and Pumroy was a freshman guard. Two years, later Summitt got the head coaching job at Louisiana Tech, and Pumroy transferred there along with guard Ashley Santos.

At the time of Summitt’s resignation, rumors unfold that he had impregnated one of his gamers and hypothesis centered on Pumroy and Santos. In response, Santos then posted on-line a photograph of herself exposing her naked midriff and clearly not pregnant.

Eventually it grew to become clear that Pumroy was Summitt’s mistress. During an interview with USA TODAY Sports, Summitt denied the rumors that Pumroy had been pregnant at the time.

“People thought that we had a kid back in 2016. No, totally false,’’ he said. “People thought Brooke and I had a relationship at Marquette. Totally false. People thought there were other players (sexually involved with Summitt.) No, totally false.’’

The affair started shortly before the 2015-16 season, according Summitt, who said the season remains “a blur’’ and offered no details. But specifics from the season still stick with some of the players.

Rochelle Vasquez, then a junior guard who was Pumroy’s roommate, said then-athletic director Tommy McClelland was among a handful of school officials who jointly asked her about the rumored affair in October, before the season started.

McClelland, who now works at Vanderbilt, declined to comment through a school official. Louisiana Tech did not respond to a request for comment.

Brandi Wingate, the team’s leading scorer and rebounder that season, and Vasquez said Pumroy acknowledged to them during the season she was having an affair with Summitt and they did not share the information with teammates.

But as rumors swirled later in the season, Vasquez and Wingate said Summitt’s perceived favoritism for Pumroy divided the team.

“People were trying to fight each other,’’ Wingate said. “People were jumping into each other’s faces.”

The chaos of the season drove Summitt into therapy, he said.

He said he eventually learned that he had been spending his life trying to live up to expectations as the son of a famous basketball coach and successful banking executive. This impacted Summitt’s decision to marry his high school sweetheart, Anne “AnDe” Ragsdale, at the age of 22, he stated.

“I didn’t know what I wished,’’ Summitt stated. “I used to be simply attempting to do what I assumed I used to be supposed to do.’’

Ragsdale, who has remarried, didn’t reply to a request for remark.

When Wingate discovered Summitt stated he’s still praying for forgiveness, she stated she believes it.

“He at all times spoke about God,’’ she stated.

But Summitt is aware of point out of his religion will open him to criticism.

Before his affair grew to become public, Summit was outspoken about his religion and despatched out emails that quoted Scripture.

Then in 2016, it turned out he had damaged one of the “10 Commandments:” Thou shalt not commit adultery.

“He got pretty well crucified,’’ Summitt’s father said.

With the critics pouncing, Tyler Summitt said, he shut down his social media accounts shortly after he resigned at Louisiana Tech. He did not reactivate them for more than three years.

Primarily, Summitt said, he rejoined social media to share photos of his son.

“And maybe he’ll pull me back into coaching,’’ Summitt said of Breck. “Five-year-old boys basketball may be my calling in a few years.”