KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- Pat Summitts fight against Alzheimers disease continues, and has even gained momentum since her death.The former Tennessee womens basketball coach made sure of that through her efforts the last five years. As soon as she announced her diagnosis in 2011, Summitt vowed to take an active role in leading the battle against the disease that would eventually kill her.She looked me directly in the eye, and she said, `Joan, I thought I was going to be remembered for winning basketball games, but I hope Im remembered for making a difference in this disease, former Tennessee womens athletic director Joan Cronan said.Tennessee is holding a ceremony Thursday at Thompson-Boling Arena to celebrate the life of Summitt, who won eight national titles and 1,098 games with the Lady Volunteers. Summitt died June 28 at the age of 64. A private ceremony was held on June 30.Alzheimers experts say theres no doubt Summitts impact will continue.Her willingness to go public with her diagnosis helped motivate others to do the same and her advocacy helped raise more money to fight the disease.Federal funding for Alzheimers climbed from $448 million in the 2011 fiscal year to $991 million in 2016, according to the Alzheimers Association. It is impossible to measure how much of that can be directly tied to Summitt, though her efforts certainly contributed to the increase.The National Alzheimers Project Act that created a national plan to fight the disease was signed into law in January 2011, seven months before Summitt announced she had early-onset dementia, Alzheimers type.Certainly in the last five years, the amount of support from the National Institutes of Health for Alzheimers research has just skyrocketed, said Allan Levey, the director of the Emory Alzheimers Disease Research Center. Is that all due to Pat? Obviously not. But she was part of that campaign to raise awareness, for sure.Perhaps the most tangible evidence of the difference Summitt made will come in December with the opening of the Pat Summitt Alzheimers Clinic at the University of Tennessee Medical Center. The clinic will offer Alzheimers research while also providing care for patients and providing services for caregivers.Funding for the clinic is coming in part from the Pat Summitt Foundation, an organization the former coach launched in 2011 to help fight the disease. The foundation has pledged to give the clinic $500,000 in grants for each of the next five years. Patrick Wade, the foundations director, said those $500,000 annual grants are expected to continue indefinitely.I think its going to become a real icon in the southeastern part of the (United) States for Alzheimers disease care and research, said Ronald Petersen, the director of the Mayo Alzheimers Disease Research Center in Minnesota.The effect of having someone as respected as Summitt play such a visible role in the fight against Alzheimers is evident by the outpouring of support her foundation has received.Wade said Wednesday that the Pat Summitt Foundation has received $320,000 in donations since Summitts death. That includes about 225,000 in proceeds from the sale of nearly 25,000 commemorative T-shirts.Petersen gave Summitt her original diagnosis at the Mayo Clinic and now is co-chair of the Pat Summitt Foundations medical advisory council. He said the extra attention Alzheimers awareness received after her announcement was similar to when President Reagan was diagnosed. Petersen recalled an address Summitt made at a dementia conference in Minnesota.People raved about her willingness to do this, Petersen said. She maintained a sense of humor as far into the disease as she could. She likened the battle to coaching basketball, and the way the players would react to a challenge on the court is the way she was reacting to dealing with this disease.More than five million Americans are living with Alzheimers disease, according to the Alzheimers Association. Beth Kallmyer, the vice president of constituent services for the Alzheimers Association, said about 200,000 have early-onset Alzheimers and start developing symptoms before the age of 65.Levey said people often tend to withdraw or are reluctant to disclose information about their memory problems or their diagnosis after they learn their situation. Summitt instead came forward as a public face of the disease -- even continuing to coach for a year after her diagnosis -- and showed that Alzheimers could affect anyone.When we look at public figures, there are very few that have come out publicly and said, `I have Alzheimers and then continued to remain public for a period of time, Kallmyer said. The impact of that is significant.A disease like Alzheimers, theres still a lot of stigma around it. There are still a lot of people that arent talking about it. There are doctors that arent diagnosing it. Its not unlike how cancer was seen maybe back in the `50s and `60s. When people started talking about cancer, things got better. People started paying attention to it. Cody Ponce Jersey . The defence is doing its part, too. Drew Brees threw a pair of touchdown passes in the first half and the guys on the other side made sure that was enough, sending the Saints to a 17-13 victory over the Atlanta Falcons on Thursday night. 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Victor Moses converted a 20th-minute penalty after an Ethiopian handball, and Victor Obinna made certain of Nigerias place in Brazil with his powerful free kick in the 82nd at UJ Esuene Stadium.Fletcher Moss Rangers have produced a host of Manchester United stars. So shouldnt they get help? Adam Bate talks to the clubs development officer Dave Horrocks to discuss the struggles of a grass-roots success story and an alternative vision for the future... Dave Horrocks cried tears of pride when Marcus Rashford burst onto the scene for Manchester United. The development officer at Fletcher Moss Rangers, Rashfords boyhood club, was understandably proud, but he wasnt shocked. And thats not just because of the forwards extraordinary talent. Its because Horrocks has seen it before.This one club in Didsbury has also been a home away from home for Cameron Borthwick-Jackson and Tyler Blackett. Before them there was Danny Welbeck and Wes Brown. And thats just those at Manchester United. In total, Horrocks reckons there are 73 youngsters whove been taken on by professional clubs at home and abroad. Marcus Rashford has made a big impact for Manchester United this season I dont want to sound blasé, he tells Sky Sports, but, no, Im not surprised. Im not surprised because of the talent thats out there in the big wide world. There are a lot of kids out there and because of the organisations theyre with, theyre not being put in the shop window correctly.Thats precisely what Fletcher Moss Rangers do. On the back of our signing-on forms for the parents, we have a one liner that says development is winning, he adds. We are not interested in the scores or winning games. Development is the win. While Horrocks feels the club is about far more than its stars, their recent successes speak volumes.Professional scouts have become a familiar sight at the club. Rochdale even wanted to take their entire Under-13 team after one friendly game. We played them off the park, says Horrocks. In the end there was a compromise. At the end of the season, they took six of the players - and the coach. Rashford (second from left) aged 6 with Fletcher Moss Rangers Theres a determination not to jump into bed with any one organisation for the honourable reason that all kids can be assessed fairly by everyone, but the pressures are still there. Five years ago, one Premier League club threatened to flood all of the games with scouts and take the lot anyway unless they agreed to affiliate with them. They will bully us until the FA realises that these kids come from somewhere before they get to the academies, says Horrocks. Its a recurring frustration. Heres a grass-roots coach doing a much-needed role in development but hes hardly acknowledged as being part of the process by those in power.Theres the memory of Trevor Brooking glazing over when discussing their conflicting definitions of grass roots. People who are in influential positions such as Trevor Brooking have forgotten where they came from when they were first kicking a football, he says. It worries me. I realise how English football has got itself into the state it has got itself into. Cameron Borthwick-Jackson has emerged in the United first team this season Its a disconnect thats a particularly sensitive issue right now for Fletcher Moss Rangers as they try to find the investment that will help the club to continue. After all, its not a cheap business running 20 teams and the facilities are far from ideal. At the moment our facility serves a purpose but its not fit for purpose, explains Horrocks.Its a communal changing room and from there, theres the ladies showers, the gents showers, the ladies toilets and the gents toilets. We have an adult disabled team thats men and women so that particular group of players cant get changed at the same and we cant have any children or ladies walking through to go to the toilet. Its a matter of decency.Plans are afoot but the quest for investment hasnt been easy. Its been a frightening time, he admits. When the figures came out it put the fear of God into me. I was almost in tears because I was thinking that theres no way we can do this. I felt I was banging my head against the wall because I was thinking, Where are we going to find this money? Tyler Blackett made his Premier League debut for Manchester United in 2014 Its particularly sad when Fletcher Moss is so obviously at the heart of its community. The aim is to galvanise a group of stakeholders that includes local residents and schools in order to construct some facilities that will serve a wide range of people. For Horrocks, the importance of that can hardly be overstated.Although we are in a ward that is termed an affluent area in Didsbury, so we cant get any council funding, the kids who come to us and use the facility are not from this area, he says.dddddddddddd They come from all the deprived areas of Manchester. Blackley, Chorlton, Whalley Range, Fallowfield, Moss Side, Withington, you name it and weve got them.These are often single-parent families with two or three kids who dont have two pennies to rub together. They come to us without any football boots and we have a recycling system whereby we give the kids the boots and when they grow out of them they give them us back. We are very conscious of maintaining that community identity. Danny Welbeck was an earlier example of the Fletcher Moss conveyor belt The kids pay £2 a week to train and £2 to play. But if you go up the road its different. We played a team last month and in the car park you had a Rolls Royce and a baby Bentley. At that club, those kids are paying £150 a month. And yet, I dont know of one player who has come from those clubs and gone on to be signed by a club.There are those who argue that Fletcher Moss is just a stopping point for these youngsters on their way to the big time; that their talent would emerge regardless. But engaging these children is half of the battle and the club is clearly doing something right - something that others are not.The kids who come to us have a bit more about them and are a bit hungrier to want to win, he adds. When theres a bit of talent, those things shine through. So what price can be put on the role played by the club that harnesses that talent before allowing it to flourish? Horrocks thinks its a question worth asking. RoShaun Williams could be the next former Fletcher Moss boy to star for United We are trying to open up a national debate, he says. Ive had emails from quite a lot of clubs around the country. We went up to Wallsend to meet the officials there because there are quite a lot of similarities. We know were not the only club because we know that all the players came from somewhere, so there are others in the same debate.What should be forthcoming to clubs for players going into one of the richest businesses in the world in the Premier League? One newspaper recently reported that Fletcher Moss were asking Manchester United for £2m in investment but thats a figure Horrocks rejects. What he would propose is something altogether more modest but far more widespread. Rise of Rashford How good is Marcus Rashford? We speak to former coaches to find out the full story. We are interested to know whether we could alter the FIFA solidarity rule, he says. When a player moves from one football association to another, the club that he started with is entitled to compensation. It happened with Fraser Forster. When he went from Newcastle to Celtic, Wallsend were entitled to five per cent of the fee as he was over 12 years old.This is a regulation thats been in place since academies were only taking players in at 12. Now they are taking kids as early as nine years old. We are trying to open the debate so that the rule doesnt only include transfers from outside football associations but within them. Could we get the FA and FIFA to change those regulations? We are not talking about millions of pounds but when I look and see that there are 73 players around the world that have been in our system, we wouldnt need to be asking people to sponsor our trophies. Dave Horrocks, Fletcher Moss Rangers If you were to say that a player who goes from Fletcher Moss Rangers or any other grass-roots club to an academy as a nine-year-old, in that first year, if the grass-roots club is paid £500 for arguments sake but then paid £500 for the second year and consecutive years, If he moved to another league club academy or school of excellence then they could take on that expense. It could go up to £1000 when he became a scholar and so on.By doing that, every year that he is in the system there would be a recompense. We are not talking about millions of pounds but when I look and see that there are 73 players around the world that have been in our system, we wouldnt need to be asking people to sponsor our trophies. The money would be there.The current system isnt broke. Rashfords emergence proves that. But perhaps it is flawed, particularly when a club like Fletcher Moss Rangers isnt obviously sustainable. Ive been with the club for a long time, concludes Horrocks. And I feel like someone somewhere is missing a trick. Given their development successes, its difficult to disagree. Also See: Rise of Rashford Stats LVG wont want to see ' ' '