When Johnnie Harris and Auburn’s women’s basketball team take the floor of Neville Arena Monday as Auburn hosts Georgia, the Tigers will do so wearing special warmup shirts to honor the life and legacy of legendary University of Tennessee women’s basketball coach Pat Summitt, who led the Lady Vols to eight national championships during her 38-year tenure in Knoxville.

Auburn’s warmup shirts represent one piece of a week-long initiative around the SEC, which dedicates a week of women’s basketball games as “We Back Pat” games, which set out to bring awareness and recognition to the Pat Summitt Foundation and its fight against Alzheimer’s disease.

Summitt was 64 years old and just four years removed from retirement when she died of complications from an early onset Alzheimer’s-type dementia in June of 2016.

And while the initiative strikes a cord with those whose lives or love one’s lives have been impacted by Alzheimer’s disease, as well as women in sports who have continued to reap the benefits of Summitt’s years of pioneering, the initiative also hits home for Auburn men’s basketball coach Bruce Pearl.

“I think it’s great that the SEC has embraced the legacy of Pat Summit, the greatest women’s basketball coach in college basketball history,” Pearl said during a press conference Friday. “All that she meant to the game — at a time when women’s basketball was just getting started and women’s sports were just getting started. We miss Pat’s leadership.”

For six years, Pearl and Summitt each held titles of head basketball coach at the University of Tennessee — Pearl for the men’s team and Summitt for the women’s team.

And it was during that time the two nurtured a strong friendship.

In 2007, Pearl famously graced the stands of a Tennessee women’s basketball game — shirtless, with his torso painted Tennessee orange and with a silver ‘V’ as he helped a group of Tennessee fans spell out “GO VOLS” with their bodies.

Later that same season, Summitt issued her appreciation by showing up to a Tennessee men’s basketball game wearing a cheerleading outfit and singing the university’s fight song, “Rocky Top,” in front of a crowd of 21,000 fans. Pearl’s Volunteers went on to beat the defending national champion Florida Gators that night in Knoxville.

“What a great leader of a community she was,” Pearl said of Summitt. “Yeah, she was a brilliant basketball coach, but she was a better American, she was a better person, she was a better patriot, she was a better mother, she was a better friend and she was a pretty good coach of basketball.”

Needless to say, Pearl can appreciate the efforts of the SEC as it continues to honor the life and legacy of Summitt, who at the time of her retirement was the most winningest coach in college basketball history — regardless of men’s or women’s — with 1,098 career wins.

“It means all the right things about intercollegiate athletics,” Pearl said of the SEC’s “We Back Pat” initiative. “It means a lot about the fight for women’s rights. Pat demonstrated that, whether she was a coach or whether she was a teacher or whether she would’ve been a CEO… you know, she created a brand called the ‘Lady Vols.’ She’s right up there with the great coaches in American sports history.”

Auburn’s turn at hosting a “We Back Pat” game comes Monday night at 6 p.m. as the Tigers host the Georgia Bulldogs in a game that will be televised on the SEC Network.