In eight-plus years of coaching, Abby Conklin has gained experience and lost a nickname.

For her, it's a fair trade-off.

"I think I've changed a lot since my younger days,'' the former Tennessee women's basketball player said. "I've found there's a lot more ways to skin a cat."

Conklin is starting her third season as an assistant coach at San Francisco, which plays Tennessee in the regular-season opener at 1 p.m. Saturday at Thompson-Boling Arena.

San Francisco is Conklin's fourth stop in a coaching career that has wound its way from an assistant's position at North Carolina-Asheville through a high school head coaching stint in River Forest, Ill., and then back to the collegiate assistant ranks at Wyoming. Along the way, Conklin said that she's shed the "Pat Summitt Jr." byname she had in Asheville, where the players detected a resemblance to UT coach Pat Summitt.

"You get a lot of different influences after graduating,'' Conklin said. "I haven't had that much contact with Pat."

To date, Wyoming coach Joe Legerski probably has had the most influence on Conklin. She said he employs a laid-back approach that "probably spoke more to my style."

Conklin now works on the staff of coach Tanya Haave, another former UT player, but also someone who isn't necessarily trying to be a Summitt clone.

"She's intense and demanding,'' Conklin said of Haave, "but she's not Pat Summitt."

And that's the way it should be, said Lady Vols associate head coach Holly Warlick, who played four years at UT and is starting her 24th season on Summitt's staff.

"I don't think too many people are going to emulate Pat; I don't emulate Pat,'' Warlick said. "You have to be yourself.

"No one coaches like Pat. No one coaches like Tanya."

Still, there are a growing number of Summitt proteges who are coaching. Her coaching tree has sprouted many branches, which are growing in all directions. Approximately 70 coaches with connections to the program are working at all levels of the sport. Former Lady Vol player/assistant Nikki Caldwell, who's starting her first season as UCLA's coach, has a former Lady Vol (Tasha Butts) and a former UT male practice player (Tony Perotti) on her staff.

Haave and Conklin will begin a coaching parade of Lady Vol alums on Tennessee's schedule this season. Coach Kellie Jolly Harper and Western Carolina are here on Nov. 23. Former Lady Vols Carla McGhee and Nikki McCray Pinson, first-year assistant coaches at South Carolina, and Kentucky assistant Kyra Elzy, will be joining the procession.

Conklin came to Tennessee knowing she wanted to be a coach and knowing of Tennessee's coaching lineage. Haave, meanwhile, developed an affinity for the work while playing here from 1980-84.

"I remember in college I'd observe Pat and (assistant coach) Nancy Darsch and think, 'That's something I want to do,' " Haave said.

Haave has other coaching influences as well. She was on Ceal Berry's staff at Colorado and was an assistant for former UT graduate assistant Pam Tanner at Denver.

Haave's strongest link to her UT past is the prevailing philosophy.

"I've tweaked it a bit but the foundation is there,'' she said. "A lot of what we do is Tennessee-influenced."

Warlick said that any Summitt protege is better off channeling Summitt's system than replicating her manner.

"It is the discipline and doing it the right way, teaching them to do it the right way,'' Warlick said. "There's different ways to get that point across."

Notebook: Center Kelley Cain, who bumped heads with a male practice player on Monday, and Angie Bjorklund (back spasms) sat out Thursday's practice, which ran more than three hours at the behest of an agitated Summitt.

"It took forever for (the players) to decide to compete,'' Summitt said.

© 2008, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.