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Candace Parker stood center stage at the Tennessee Theatre, captivating the crowd in the final speech of the evening at the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame induction.
She talked for 20 minutes, the audience hanging on every word the Lady Vols legend spoke to commemorate her career on June 27.
Parker's outfit for the special night was a reference to one of legendary Tennessee coach Pat Summitt's iconic suits she donned on the sidelines, with orange pants and a white jacket with orange trim.
Parker's version was immediately recognizable to anyone who had seen Summitt's, and it was the perfect touch to her induction speech, which began with a Voltaire quote: "Originality is nothing but judicious imitation." "Nobody actually becomes or creates in a vacuum, right?" Parker said.
"Every great athlete, musician, business person, or artist they have influences ..
It's not blind copying, it's discerning imitation.
You study your influences closely enough to know what it takes and what you want to take from that." Parker herself is a product of the role models she chased.
First it was her older brothers, Anthony and Marcus, who she refused to not be part of everything with, despite eight and 11 years separating her from them.
Anthony had a 10-year NBA career while Marcus went to Johns Hopkins and became a doctor.
Learning from their example is part of what led Parker to redefine what was possible for women's basketball players off the court.
Parker got into broadcasting long before she retired from playing, owns a production company with two documentaries already, wrote a book and immediately transitioned into president of women's basketball at Adidas after she retired in 2024.
"It just allowed me to understand that I can take my basketball career and I can do other things with it and capitalize on other opportunities," Parker told Knox News on June 26.
"I was always huge into reading and studying and getting to know people and things like that.
And so I think all of those things are kind of helping me pivot." Parker gave a beautiful tribute to her mother, Sara, whose quiet strength was the driving force to greatness.
When Sara saw how heavily Parker's ambition and impatience to become everything she dreamed, the way that pressure brought her daughter to tears, she gave her a reminder.
"She would see it, and she would whisper, 'Can do, right?' It would remind me to push doubt away, that if I couldn't do it now, I just had to keep working for it and keep building," Parker said in her speech.
"Whenever I was doing something that frightened me, I would whisper it to myself.
I still do, and it reminds me of that little girl who dared to dream, who dared to try, who dared to do anything." Parker whispered that to herself before the high school state championship in 2003; when she laid in bed with a torn ACL before her freshman year at Tennessee; when she led the Lady Vols in the Final Four in 2007 and 2008.
She whispered it when she took the court for her first WNBA game with the Los Angeles Sparks, after she found out she was pregnant with her daughter, Lailaa, when she decided to go home and play for the Chicago Sky and before she hit post on her retirement announcement.
"I whispered it through every up and down, every fork in the road, every obstacle, and that mindset never faded," Parker said.
"I'm grateful for my mom for being present for every step of the way, wiping my tears as I battled through injuries, celebrating me when I won titles in foreign countries that nobody saw." Parker recounted the time her father, Larry, made her run home behind his car after she didn't put in much effort at a basketball workout.
He was the one who always tried to raise the bar, challenging her to do push-ups during commercials and brush her teeth with her left hand.
Larry was the one who made her run point guard as the tallest player on her youth team, turning her daughter into the blueprint of the point forward in the women's game.
Just as her family gave her purpose and motivation growing up, now Parker's own family carries that on.
Lailaa has been her "reason" since she was born 17 years ago, and now her wife, Anna, and their two sons, Airr and Hartt Summitt, are too.
"I hope that they know the expectations and standards that come with being a Parker, but we're also always here to help you chase your wildest dreams," Parker said.
"In the words of James Baldwin, children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them." Which led Parker to explain her choice wardrobe, which was an imitation of one of the greatest role models of all.
The coach whose influence on Parker can't be quantified in words, but by the way she lives her life and carries Summitt's spirit on.
It was a metaphor for the lessons from Summitt that Parker has made her own, tailoring them to her own journey, like the suit.
"Since (Summitt) would be the first to tell you that I was not the best listener ..
this is a tangible representation that I was watching and I was indeed paying attention, even if I liked to test boundaries a little bit and I'm stubborn and hardheaded," Parker said.
"But my continued desire to imitate Pat, and how she attacked life every day, proves why there is nobody like her." Cora Hall is the University of Tennessee womens athletics reporter for Knox News.
Email: [email protected]; X: @corahalll ; Bluesky: @corahall.bsky.social.
Support strong local journalism and unlock premium perks: knoxnews.com/subscribe This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: How Candace Parker paid tribute to family, Pat Summitt at hall of fame induction.