On the eve of what would be her final season as N.C. State women's basketball coach, Kay Yow talked about teaching. "It's all a process of learning," she said during an interview in November. "That's the kick I'm really on right now." With a young team featuring just one senior and a bench depleted by injuries, Yow said the only way her young players could rise above the challenges was by understanding there was a better way to approach the game.
"We can show them a better way, an ideal way for all the fundamentals of the game," Yow said, about three months before her death. "But there is a second component. You have to see the significance of the better way."
Yow, 66, died of breast cancer Jan. 24 after a long battle with the disease. But in the teachings she left behind, for interim women's coach Stephanie Glance, the players, the staff, her friends and those who learned from her on and off the court, she left a legacy.
"The sadness [they] feel right now is worth it because of the rewards they got," Glance said last month. "What she left them will stand forever."
Today, as N.C. State hosts Hoops 4 Hope, its fourth annual event to raise support for cancer awareness and the Kay Yow/WBCA Cancer Fund, a sold-out crowd of thousands will attend a game between State and Virginia. Many will bring with them some piece of how their lives were touched by the lessons of Kay Yow.
lesson 1: find time for those who need you
On Jan. 27, four days before Yow was buried in her hometown of Gibsonville, hundreds of well-wishers filled the red seats at Reynolds Coliseum for a memorial to Yow. Clapping and cheering, they created a festive, almost game-like atmosphere to celebrate the life of a woman who often took the time to send personal, hand-written notes.
That evening, cheerleaders pumped pink pom-poms. Band members belted the notes to the song "Hey! Baby." Former players and colleagues shared their favorite Yow stories.
For more than an hour afterward, Glance met with fans on Kay Yow Court. If they needed hugs, she provided them. If they needed to relay the story about the time they passed Yow in the hall, she listened. She stayed until she was the last person on the court.
That is what Yow would have done. Glance knew more than anyone. She coached as an assistant with Yow for 15 years and ran the team during Yow's leave of absence two years ago and again earlier this season when cancer forced Yow to take another break.
"She had such a great way of stopping and taking the time," Glance said in an interview last week, "and making [people] feel like they were the most important people in the world at that moment."
Glance knew she had much to do, with the rest of the season beginning the next day. The team had not won an ACC game and was 8-11 overall.
But she remembered what Yow would always say, "Don't let the urgent get in the way of the important." Daily schedules, job responsibilities or deadlines never prevented Yow from taking time for people -- her staff, former players, strangers.
So the next day, Glance talked to her team about basketball, but also about the players' needs. Counselors were brought in.
Last week, Glance brought to practice the artist who created the mural of Yow in State's Free Expression tunnel on campus and allowed him to share his story with the team. Players say Glance has been especially attuned to them the past few weeks. After the team rallied for its second ACC win of the season on Thursday night, Glance gave two-handed high-fives to players in a huddle at midcourt.
"If she feels like you're going through some things, she'll bring you in the office, talk to you," State junior Sharnise Beal said, "ask if there is anything she can do to help you. Coach Yow would do that too."
lesson 2: never stop learning
Yow's teaching style was shaped in high school, in part by her sophomore-year English teacher, Vivian Davis, a taskmaster who never accepted excuses.
"One thing you knew: be prepared when you were going to that class," Yow said in November.
Davis expected completed assignments, finished reports, fully read chapters. Ill-prepared students were reprimanded.
It was a lesson Yow remembered when she became an English teacher and later a coach.
"People say knowledge is power," Yow said in November, "but it's power if you apply it."
It's a lesson her players and staff absorbed when they watched how she prepared for a basketball game.
"I can't recall a game that was a surprise," said State assistant coach Trena Trice-Hill, who played for Yow from 1983-87. "She covered the bases, she really did."
A teacher of basketball, Yow never stopped learning, never stopped preparing herself to excel.
Earlier this season, Yow walked into assistant coach Jenny Palmateer's office and handed her a thick new book of plays and drills collected from coaches around the country. "We looked through that book together trying to find things we might use with our team this year," Palmateer said.
Yow's thirst for information took her around the country to clinics and seminars. In 1979, then-DeMatha High coach Morgan Wootten invited State's staff to Maryland for a private, four-hour session where he answered questions and his team demonstrated techniques. Yow often attended N.C. State men's basketball practices when Jim Valvano, who would also die of cancer, was coach. During the mid-1990s Yow spent a week with Roy Williams as his Kansas staff prepared for the season.
"She was looking for the things that made the offense or defense work so she could teach it," said Nora Lynn Finch, a former State assistant.
lesson 3: pray for patience
During Yow's funeral service at Colonial Baptist Church in Cary, supporters of the coach viewed a video testimony prepared months before her death. In it, Yow described the time in 1976 she accepted God into her life.
"I know that he lives because he lives within my heart," Yow said in the video.
Perhaps it was Yow's faith that made her so patient.
In staff meetings, Yow would allow Glance to complete thoughts and discuss the pros and cons of her suggestions. "She would let all of us have our voice," Glance said. "And she appreciated it. But it required patience."
Players were given room to grow and make mistakes, too.
Glance, who had come into her own faith before joining Yow's staff, sometimes felt the need to pray for more patience after watching Yow.
"Every young person who comes to school at 18 ... they require a lot of patience if you're going to coach them," Glance said. "Because they are 18 years old. Her patience with every player is what enabled them to develop and become better players and better people. Because she always saw them for who they could become, not necessarily who they were."
Prayer has always been an integral part of the State women's program, with Yow encouraging the voluntary recitation of the Lord's Prayer before every game.
"As a team it kind of brings us together," redshirt freshman Hanna Halteman said.
And there they were on Tuesday, grouped in a circle, holding hands and ending practice the way State women's teams have for years: with a prayer.
lesson 4: focus on the positive
During the past few weeks, as State players searched for ways to cope with the loss of Yow, Glance shared something the coach often said:
"We have no control over our circumstances, what happens to us, but have 100 percent control over how we will respond, and that has everything to do with a person's attitude."
Faced with stage-four breast cancer, Yow remained remarkably positive. She avoided self-pity, Glance said, and thought more about the "blessings that came from having cancer."
"What you think is what you are," said Virginia coach Debbie Ryan, a cancer survivor and good friend of Yow. "You have to be positive because you have no other choice. You want to be positive because you want to help people."
Yow's persistently positive outlook affected those around her.
Elizabeth Burnette of Raleigh, head of acquisitions for N.C. State University Libraries, tells the story of how she met Yow at the coach's basketball camp back in the late 1970s. She remembers how the coach visited every group and made her feel special. "It didn't feel like you were there with 500 other kids," she said.
In October, she met Yow again. Burnette had rushed to the oncology office of Dr. Mark Graham in Cary after receiving a voice mail message that a cancerous tumor had been found in her brain, a development of breast cancer first diagnosed in 2004. She needed immediate attention and surgery.
A nurse asked the frightened Burnette if she wanted a snack. Burnette replied, "Today, Doritos aren't going to cut it, I'm having a chocolate cake moment."
Yow, who was receiving treatment and up to her nose in blankets, burst out laughing. "I knew she got it," Burnette said. "We looked each other in the eye, and she got me. She knew exactly where I was coming from and that was a comfort to me."
That day, Glance and other assistant coaches also spent time with Yow. They were well aware of how poorly she was feeling. But she cared enough to encourage another person in pain.
"When you're facing death, what will your attitude be?" Glance said. "She never had a negative attitude. She never had a negative outlook."
the legacy
Last month, at her first news conference after Yow's death, Glance spoke into a microphone, flanked by senior Shayla Fields and sophomore Tia Bell.
With misty eyes and a sharp tone, Glance spoke of sadness and grief and tried to articulate what she felt about the coach who had started the basketball program from scratch 38 years before.
"She's a great teacher," Glance said.
It has been less than a month since the death of Kay Yow. State is 10-14 overall and 2-7 in the ACC.
With the Pack making steady improvements and playing teams close, Glance continues to speak about Yow's legacy and encourages players and the people around her to share the coach's lessons, to "pay it forward."
The student has become the teacher.
