CONGRESSIONAL RECORD— Extensions of Remarks E1390 HON
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E1390 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD Ð Extensions of Remarks July 26, 1996 a stable perimeter around the South Korean I urge my colleagues and my fellow Ameri- So Richard Head moved his family of seven port of Pusan. cans, each in their own fashion, to honor the some six miles down the road, to tiny unin- The U.N. counterattack led by the United veterans of the Korean war on this anniver- corporated Henrietta in neighboring States in September 1950 rolled back the Cheatham County. Then, Trish could play sary of the armistice. ball over at Cheatham County High School North Korean invaders, forcing the North Ko- f in Ashland City. Her first year, she caught a rean Army up the Korean peninsula nearly to Trailways bus home every day. the Chinese border. The amphibious landing A TRIBUTE TO COACH PAT HEAD ``Everybody thought I had lost my mind,'' at Inchon was a brilliant strategic move that in SUMMITT Hazel Head says. The family moved from a one bold stroke transformed defeat into victory new home to an old, drafty house near their and destroyed the bulk of the North Korean HON. JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR. community grocery. ``That old house was Army. The Chinese entrance on the side of OF TENNESSEE cold as kraut.'' the North Koreans changed the nature and the Richard Head says simply: ``I just knew she IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES wanted to play ball.'' dynamic of the war. For the next 6 months, Friday, July 26, 1996 Pat Summitt coaches basketball the way the battle lines surged back and forth along she played basketballÐintensely. the Korean peninsula as U.N. and Communist Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I recently had ``The amount of work it takes to be suc- offensives met with varying degrees of suc- the privilege of hosting a luncheon in honor of cessful does not detour Pat,'' says former cess before the front stabilized just north of the Tennessee Lady Vols basketball team, the UCLA coach Billie Moore, who coached 1996 national champions. The team was later Summitt on the 1976 silver medal U.S. Olym- the 38th parallel. For the next 2 years, a bitter pic team. ``In the coaching game, she is not but more limited war was fought as truce ne- honored along with the Kentucky men's team in a special ceremony and reception at the going to leave anything for granted. She was gotiations dragged on. Chinese tactics often that way when I first met her.'' neutralized the U.N. forces' superior firepower, White House. Growing up on the family's Middle Ten- and the war became a brutal battle of attrition. Coach Pat Head Summitt, who has coached nessee dairy farm meant workingÐand work- An armistice agreement was signed in Pan- the Lady Vols for more than 20 years now, is ing hard. ``Daddy said he wanted Mama to munjom on July 26, 1953, and hostilities finally unquestionably one of the finest coaches in have a girl, but he treated me like one of the guys,'' Summitt says. came to an end. this Nation. She has achieved her great suc- cess through much hard work, determination, Summitt wasn't any older than 10 or 11 The valor of U.S. troops in Korea is legend- when she was driving a tractor. She set and ary. The U.S. forces that served in Korea con- and perseverance. The Knoxville News Sentinel recently ran a harvested tobacco, raked and baled hay, ducted themselves bravely in difficult cir- plowed fields and raised 4-H calves. cumstances, fighting at times against over- very fine article about Coach Summitt which I When the doors were open at Mount Car- whelming odds and often in brutal, life-threat- would like to call to the attention of my col- mel United Methodist Church near Ashland ening weather. Names like Task Force Smith, leagues and other readers of the RECORD. I City, the Heads were there. Summitt Dean's delay, the Pusan perimeter, Inchon, was particularly impressed by the great influ- couldn't date until she was 16. Living 15 Chosan, the Iron Triangle, and the Punch ence that this article shows that Coach miles from town, she didn't go out for pizza until her senior year in high school. ``We Bowl all call to mind the heroism, sacrifice, Summitt's family had in helping her become the great leader she has become. worked, and we played basketball in the hay- and resilience that American troops displayed loft,'' she says. in the course of this war. TENNESSEE'S PAT SUMMITT CREDITS FAMILY Richard Head ran the farm and the store, One and a half million Americans served in FOR HER ZEAL FOR HARD WORK built houses, served as water commissioner the Korean Theater during this conflict. 5.7 (By Amy McRary) and on the county court. ``Miss Hazel'' million Americans served in the military during Minutes after winning her fourth national worked as hard as her husband, mowing the the conflict. 54,246 Americans died in KoreaÐ basketball crown, Tennessee Lady Vols yard and cooking huge, country meals. The 2,300 of them from Pennsylvania. 8,000 Amer- Coach Pat Summitt went looking for the first to bring food to families after the death icans remain missing in action. people who taught her about the game. of a loved one, Hazel Head is ``the hardest Tennessee had just trounced Georgia 83±65 working person I know,'' Summitt says. Last year the Congress passed and the in the March 31 NCAA finals at the Charlotte ``I've often said I wish I had more of my President signed legislation designating July Coliseum in North Carolina. When Summitt mom in me. I think I learned a lot from my 27 of each year through the year 2003 as Na- got to the seats where her parents, Richard mom about being a good mother. You can al- tional Korean War Veterans Armistice Day. and Hazel Head, sat, the 43-year-old coach ways count on Miss Hazel.'' Under this law the President is directed to call got a reward she'd waited for all her life. Today, the Heads are likely the hardest- upon the American people to observe the day Tall, stern Richard Head wrapped his daugh- working retired people in Tennessee. Richard with the appropriation ceremonies and activi- ter in a bear hug and gave her a kiss. Head still works the family farmlands and ties in honor of the Americans who died as a ``I'm glad you finally got to see one,'' does some work in Springfield, over at the Summitt said to the quiet Middle Tennessee tobacco warehouse. Hazel Head helps over at result of their service in Korea. farmer with a gruff voice and sometimes the family laundry in Ashland City almost It is only appropriate that we take such ac- gruffer manner. every afternoon. The friendly and down-to- tions to remember these heroes of America's It was only the second hug and first kiss earth 70-year-old still fills three freezers of forgotten war, and to honor the supreme sac- the 73-year-old Head had ever given this her own and keeps friends and family sup- rifice that they made. We must also use this child he raised as a hardworking fourth son, plied with vegetables from the Heads' 10-acre occasion to remember, praise, and thank the the young woman he cheered for to play garden. They still live in Henrietta, but in a veterans of the Korean war who put them- harder, the demanding coach he'd once wor- newer and warmer house Richard Head built. selves in harm's way but survived that terrible ried would be fired. Except for Summitt, all their now-grown and Patricia Sue ``Trish'' Head's first basket- conflict. These men and women served their married children live within a five-mile ra- ball court was one end of a 100-foot hayloft. dius. country faithfully and well in a distant and Her daddy hung a goal at one end and strung In the Head family, good work was ex- often inhospitable part of the world. some lights. Her first teammate was her old- pected and didn't need praising. Excuses Several years ago a group of concerned citi- est brother, Tommy, seven years older than weren't accepted; laziness wasn't tolerated. zens in western Pennsylvania decided to build his little sister and now a state legislator. Not that the Head kids questioned. a memorial in Pittsburgh to honor the men and Her first opponents were older brothers Ken- ``Rebel? Are you kidding?'' laughs women who served our country in the Korean neth and Charles. Summitt. ``A lot of discipline came as a re- war. The Korean War Veterans Association of Trish gave as good as she got when they sult of fear. We had to get our own switch Western Pennsylvania Memorial Fund, Inc., played two-on-two after raking hay, milking out of the yard. And if you got a little one, cows, working tobacco. Summitt praises her Mama would get her own. I hated that.'' was established in 1993 to design and build parents, saying they protected her from her Trish's 16th birthday was spent on a trac- this memorial. The city of Pittsburgh donated brothers. Her only sister, Linda, is six years tor. Friends were feting her and a friend at a a site for the memorial in 1994. A national de- younger than Summitt. country club. But rain was coming and bales sign competition was held in the spring of To hear the family tell it, Trish didn't of hay were still in the field.