Tennessee coach Pat Summitt watches practice for the NCAA Women's Final Four basketball game Saturday, April 4, 2008, in Tampa, Fla.

When Kansas women’s basketball coach Brandon Schneider first heard Tuesday’s news about the passing of legendary Tennessee Volunteers women’s basketball coach Pat Summitt, the second-year KU coach’s mind immediately flashed to Mount Rushmore.

No, Summitt, who died peacefully at the age of 64 in her retirement facility early Tuesday morning after a battle with early onset dementia, was not a direct descendant of George Washington, Abe Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt or Thomas Jefferson. But Schneider said Summitt’s face certainly belonged on any Mount Rushmore of coaches, regardless of gender or sport.

“She has to be on there for what she meant to her sport,” Schneider told the Journal-World. “I don’t think anyone’s done more to advance the game than coach Summitt did.”

With more all-time wins (1,098) than any coach in the history of the game — men or women — the eight-time NCAA champion and seven-time national coach of the year made an impact on coaches and coaching generation after generation and from coast to coast.

“She set the bar so high,” Schneider said. “And she made coaches go out and work and fought so hard for the equality that women deserved. I just see her as the leader and the pioneer of a movement that meant so much to the game of basketball. And I don’t think she was ever someone who would give herself that crown.”

KU men’s coach Bill Self, who, with Summitt in 2008, was the co-recipient of the Winged Foot Award, given annually to the head coaches of the men’s and women’s NCAA champions, made it clear on Tuesday that he believed Summitt belonged in a class of her own.

“We lost a legendary person and coach with (the) passing of Pat Summitt,” Self wrote. “No one has done it better. She set a standard that all should strive for.”

More than most, Schneider experienced Summitt’s impact from an early age. Growing up with a women’s basketball coach for a father, the second-year KU coach said Summitt’s name was a popular one during family discussions about the game they loved.

That’s what made it especially sweet, years later, when Schneider first encountered Summitt in person when he was on the road recruiting talent for his own program.

“I went right up to her and just introduced myself,” Schneider said. “I just respected her name, what she had done for the game and everything she stood for so much that I wasn’t going to let that opportunity pass by.

“I’m not an autograph person,” he added. “But to be able to say I got a chance to meet coach Summitt and sit by her and watch a game with her was just an incredible experience.”

Asked what aspect of her philosophy — outlined in her book as the Definite Dozen: Rules to Live By — had the most profound impact on him throughout his coaching career, Schneider pointed to the way Summitt respected the game and those who played it.

“I remember watching one of those HBO specials that went behind the scenes and showed glimpses of her practices,” Schneider began. “And she was talking to those young women like they were basketball players, not girls. “It was no holds barred and I always thought that was so cool how she did that because that’s what those girls wanted, to be respected as basketball players first and foremost.”