KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Pat Summitt said Friday it was her decision to step down as coach of the Tennessee women’s basketball team, and she never believed athletics director Dave Hart forced her out.

Summitt, 60, issued a statement in response to the “misunderstandings” created when she said in a signed affidavit released Wednesday that Hart told her she would not be returning, “a decision I would have liked to have made on my own.”

Friday, Summitt said it actually was her call.

“It was entirely my decision to step down from my position as the head coach of women’s basketball at the University of Tennessee,” Summitt, who has been diagnosed with early-onset dementia, said in the three-paragraph statement.

In the signed affidavit released Wednesday as part of former Lady Vols media director Debby Jennings’ lawsuit against Tennessee and Hart, Summitt said Hart told her at a March 14 meeting prior to the NCAA tournament that she would have to step down at the end of the season. Summitt said Hart later told her she’d misinterpreted his comments.

Friday’s statement was more in line with what she had said in an April news conference to announce she would not be returning as the Lady Vols’ coach.

“I did not then, and I do not now, feel that I was ‘forced out’ by the university,” Summitt said. “Anyone who knows me knows that any such effort would be met with resistance. If my affidavit has caused confusion on that point, it needs to be dispelled.”

David Burkhalter, the lawyer representing Jennings, didn’t immediately respond to a message from The Associated Press.

Summitt, whose 1,098 career wins are the most in NCAA men’s or women’s basketball history, stepped down in April after a 38-year tenure at Tennessee that included eight national championships.

She remains on the Lady Vols’ staff as head coach emeritus. Holly Warlick, who played for Summitt at Tennessee and served as an assistant on her staff for 27 years, was chosen as her successor.

“As I stated at my press conference in April when I announced my decision, I loved being the head coach for 38 years, but after consultation with my son, my doctors, my lawyer and several close friends, I concluded that the time had come to move into the future and step into a new role,” Summitt said in the statement.

In the affidavit, Summitt indicated she was initially hurt by the comments Hart had made at the March 14 meeting. In the affidavit, Summitt said Hart told her she would be replaced by Warlick at the end of the season.

Summitt said in the affidavit that Hart later told her that she had misinterpreted what he had said.

Jennings’ lawsuit alleges that age and sex discrimination led to her forced retirement from the school where she had worked for 35 years. The suit was filed Sept. 27 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee.