Summons Snags 700th Career Victory
Susan Summons has garnered a plethora of milestones during her storied basketball coaching career, including induction into seven different Hall of Fames, a National Coach of The Year honor and now—700 career wins.
Summons, who has patrolled the sidelines at Miami Dade College for 38 years, picked up the landmark victory on Jan. 25 during a Lady Sharks 77-51 win versus Florida Southwestern State College at Kendall Campus.
“I really didn’t realize that happened until the game was over and they said ‘you did it’ and I was like, ‘did what?,” Summons said.
The loquacious coach ranks 12th all-time in wins in National Junior College Athletic Association history with 703.
Summons’ climb up the collegiate basketball mountaintop started at Roxbury Community College in Boston, Massachusetts in 1977. The ultra gregarious point guard led her hometown team to two state championships.
Then she took her playmaking skills to Lamar University, in Beaumont, Texas, where Summons once scored 43 points in a game, an Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women record that stood for 15 years.
“I had a mean crossover,” Summons fondly recalled. “They didn’t have a three point shot then, so I had to work pretty [hard] to score 43 points.”
That hard work took Summons to the Women’s Professional Basketball League, the first of its kind. The trailblazing organization was active from 1978-81. Summons played for the New Jersey Gems and New England Gulls.
But her professional basketball career hit a snag due to a serious health issue.
Summons soon shifted her focus from being a player to a team builder as a head coach. Her first opportunity came at Madison Park Technical Vocational High School in Boston. She led them to two state titles.
During that period she was also a police officer.
“For two and a half years, I would juggle taking off my bulletproof vest, holstering my gun, taking the bullets out, changing my apparel—my police outfit—and putting on my sweatsuit and my whistle,” Summons told The Reporter in an interview in 2021.
In 1982, Summons returned to Roxbury Community College as the women’s head basketball coach. She led the school to a No. 5 Division I national ranking in the mid-80s before migrating to MDC in 1986.
Summons has built a basketball temple in Miami. Under her guidance, the Lady Sharks have qualified for the state tournament 26 times, won seven conference titles and the more than 400 student-athletes she has mentored have a 95% graduation rate.
One of her former athletes—Madeline Pumariega—is now the president at MDC. Pumariega was the school’s first female president, but in 1987, she was just a lanky basketball player who was on the court when Summons picked up her first win at MDC.
“[Coach Summons’] legacy goes far beyond the extraordinary number of wins,” said Rob Chaney, the associate director/athletics commissioner for the Florida College System Activities Association. “Throughout her career, she has been equally committed to fostering the growth of young women as students, athletes and citizens, and the FCSAA is a better association for her contributions as a coach, mentor and leader on the Miami Dade College campus.”
Daliyah Brown is one of Summons’ success stories. During her recruiting visit to MDC in 2017, Summons told the Chicago-bred combo-guard: “I have a vision for you. I think you can be an All-American.”
Brown fulfilled that prophecy. She was tabbed as an All-American as a freshman and sophomore. Brown averaged 26.6 points, 9.1 rebounds and 7.3 assists a game during her final season at MDC.
Today, Brown has bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Liberty University in Virginia. She works as a registered behavior technician helping children with autism and as an assistant basketball coach at Trinity High School in Illinois.
“Coach Summons means the absolute world to me,” Brown said. “She saved me, and taught me to not only be a basketball player but a woman, and I can’t thank her enough for the love and wisdom she poured into me consistently.”
Summons, a two-time endowed teaching chair at MDC who retired from the College for one year in 2021, said she has no plans to retire again.
“Coach is always going to be a mentor to anyone that will listen, and even to those that don’t, because she wants to see you win at what you put your mind and heart toward,” said Shameir Quimby, a sophomore guard, who leads the Lady Sharks in scoring this season with a 19.6 points per game average. “She makes you see the bigger picture in life. She doesn’t just want you to be an outstanding player, but an outstanding individual.”
Summons’ latest challenge is rebuilding the Lady Sharks basketball program. After a 24 loss season last year, she has this year’s squad primed for the playoffs with a 17-8 mark.
“Reaching 700 wins is a testament to her hard work and commitment,” said Michaela Lane, a center on this year’s team. “We’re all incredibly grateful to be part of her journey.”
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