The retirement of Pat Summitt as head women’s basketball coach at the University of Tennessee marks the end of an incredible reign of success.

Hopefully, it doesn’t mark the end of an era.

Because Summitt proved that in big-time collegiate sports, you really can have your cake and eat it, too.

In 38 years as coach of the Lady Vols, she won 1,098 games — an average of 28 wins per season — and lost just 208. Her teams won 16 Southeastern Conference regular season titles and another 16 SEC tournament crowns.

Tennessee reached the Final Four of the NCAA Women’s Tournament an incredible 18 times. Summitt’s teams were never seeded lower than fifth in the NCAA Tournament and her team never missed qualifying for the national tourney.

There’s something else her players never missed.

Graduating.

Every one of Tennessee’s players who completed her basketball eligibility with the program under Summitt graduated.

Every one.

Summitt has also watched 74 of her former players or assistant coaches wind up coaching the sport for other programs.

No other coach can even sniff such a record.

Fittingly, Summitt will be replaced at Tennessee by Lady Vols’ assistant Holly Warlick, who served as an assistant under Summitt for 27 years and was a three-time All-American as a player for her.

Unfittingingly, Summitt had not taken a Tennessee team to the Final Four since 2008 — the longest drought in her career.

Regardless, her consistent career, longevity and player graduation record shows that winning and academics really can go together.

It would be nice to see this trend become evident in big-time men’s college basketball, where the trick these days is to bring in the best high school players in the country and provide them with a one-year playground with which they can vault themselves into the NBA.

NCAA women’s basketball isn’t totally pure, but it’s close.

The WNBA awaits female players who want to turn pro and basketball opportunities are available overseas. Slippery Rock High School and Vanderbilt graduate Jence Rhoads took advantage of the latter.

Summitt and others like her — 37-year coaching veteran and Slippery Rock University graduate Vivian Stringer, North Carolina’s Sylvia Hatchwell (33 years) and Stanford’s Tara VanDermeer (29 years), etc. — have helped women’s basketball evolve in a very positive way.

On the men’s side, even legendary Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski has resorted to recruiting the one-and-done player in recent years.

The average basketball fan’s interest is on the men’s game. TV ratings show that.

But the men’s game can surely learn from the women’s — with Summitt as the main professor.

John Enrietto is sports editor of the Butler Eagle