‘Her gift was inspiration.’ Remembering the late Kay Yow and her lasting legacy
Had she lived — had she not died of cancer in 2009 — Kay Yow would have turned 80 on Monday.
And what would the legendary N.C. State coach have been like today, at that age?
“Active,” Debbie Yow said.
“Not on the sidelines, that’s for sure,” Nora Lynn Finch added.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if she wasn’t still coaching, really,” Sherri Pickard said.
And proud of the Wolfpack, say those who knew her best. No one would be cheering harder or be happier about the accomplishments and ACC championships won by the Pack women and coach Wes Moore than Yow, they agree.
She was, after all, the matriarch of N.C. State women’s basketball.
“She’d be ecstatic and I can’t fathom that she wouldn’t be in the stands every single night, and that Wes wouldn’t get a couple of dinners and breakfasts out of the deal to be able to draw X’s and O’s,” said Pickard, a member of Yow’s first NCSU team in 1975-76. “I think the thing she’d be really thrilled about with this State team is the consistent effort, of how they all pull for each other, how they pull on the same end of the rope.”
Debbie Yow, one of Kay Yow’s two younger sisters, is the former NCSU athletics director who hired Moore. Finch was an assistant coach for Yow and later senior women’s athletic administrator at N.C. State, helping build and supervise Wolfpack women’s programs before becoming a senior associate commissioner for the ACC.
Pickard can say she played for Yow at two schools, in three sports. The Graham native first was at Elon, transferring to NCSU in 1975 after Yow left Elon to be the Wolfpack coach. She had Yow as a basketball, softball and volleyball coach.
“If she still was with us she’d still be standing in front of us enthusiastically saying, ‘You know what I mean, you know what I mean?’ and getting you to nod yes,” Pickard said. “Getting you to nod yes and getting you to buy in to whatever she’s so enthusiastic about.
“Her legacy to me, and I practice it daily, is the belief and the commitment that you show up every day. You give it your very best every day. I was with her for hundreds, maybe thousands of practices and I never remember a single time when she had an off day at practice. She was ultra focused.”
Kay Yow exuded ‘energy’
Yow, born in Gibsonville, was a woman of passion and compassion. Her players became her extended family and she had a way of making each one believe they were her favorite when they were with her.
Yow could be intense at courtside during games, her eyes belying her competitiveness even as her voice was reassuring. She never used histrionics with her players, never was threatening or overbearing. She didn’t need to be, Pickard added.
“With her commitment and her energy you wouldn’t dare not give it that same level of energy, effort and commitment,” Pickard said. “That’s the legacy I carry with me today. I show up. I give 100 percent and I trust that the outcomes and results will be great.
“And I feel like she’s looking over my shoulder every day. That might sound corny but it’s true. Her gift was inspiration.”
Yow’s legacy, 13 years after her death, is multi-faceted. She was a championship basketball coach, winning four ACC tournament titles at N.C. State and taking her team to the Final Four in 1998. She guided Team USA to a gold medal in Seoul in 1988 as head coach after being an assistant on the 1984 U.S. Olympic team that also won gold.
But never seeking the spotlight or the credit, Finch said, adding, “It was always about ‘we’ and not ‘me’ or ‘my team.’”
Yow did earn her share of acclaim. She was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2002, then as the fifth women’s coach to go into the hall. “Kay Yow Court” at Reynolds Coliseum was dedicated in her honor in 2007.
Yow inspired as she fought cancer
Yow fought breast cancer for more than 20 years until her death at 66 on Jan. 24, 2009. She was always upbeat, always a woman of deep faith, always thankful for another day.
“When she passed she was still doing what she loved,” Debbie Yow said.
“She always believed that there are things you cannot control but that you can control your attitude,” Finch said. “She taught and coached a lot about attitude, that your attitude dictates your actions. She wanted to inspire people not to be on the sideline of life and to treat every day as a gift, and she wanted to help others.”
In 2007, Yow established the Kay Yow Cancer Fund, which has raised almost $8 million in the past 15 years for cancer research and support. Play4Kay games have been used a fundraisers for the non-profit organization, bringing cancer survivors together at the games.
“There are generations now who have somehow been impacted by Coach Yow,” said Stephanie Glance, a former associate head coach under Yow at NCSU who serves as the organization’s chief executive officer. “I think her legacy at N.C. State and with the Olympic team will be marked by history. They’re in the record books. That’s a huge part of her legacy but the Kay Yow Cancer Fund is heading into its 15th anniversary. It was her vision and she set forth the mission of the fund, and you think of how many lives have been impacted with the $8 million that has been raised.
“That’s a huge part of her legacy and it’s growing and living on. Coach Yow was about giving her life to others and was so selfless, and the Kay Yow Cancer Fund continues to represent who she was.”
Basketball always was a big part of who she was. She was a high school star, once scoring 52 points in a game, always showing a special drive. That continued as a coach for Yow, who was selected for the N.C. Sports Hall of Fame in 1989 and the N.C. State Athletic Hall in 2012.
“Kay said many times that her status in the sport of women’s basketball gave her the platform to do something special in cancer research,” Debbie Yow said. “Her legacy, to me, is a combination of her basketball success and the cancer fund.”
Unmatched N.C. State legacy
Yow won 737 games overall, and 680 at N.C. State. Hired by former athletic director Willis Casey, she liked and enjoyed the homecourt advantage of playing in Reynolds Coliseum, but also hoped to have the arena, first opened in 1949, refurbished as the years passed and given a brighter shine.
Debbie Yow, as the Pack’s athletic director from 2010 to 2019, brought in Moore as head coach in 2013 and worked with college administrators to see that Reynolds finally got that makeover — a $35 million renovation. Moore, once an assistant for Yow for two seasons, has used it to his advantage since its reopening in 2016, enticing recruits and transfers to join the Wolfpack program.
“I know how badly Kay wanted Reynolds to be updated and with Wes, when he’d been here about a year we met and he said, ‘Debbie, I know we all love the place but do you know how tough it is to recruit a 17-year-old to this building? It’s old and tired,’” Yow said. “I told him I hoped that one day we would change that and we were able to, with campus contribution.”
Yow’s teams won a lot of games in Reynolds, old or not. She had 21 teams that won 20 or more games and made many NCAA appearances. But she never won a national championship.
“If that did bother her in any way she never shared that with me,” Debbie Yow said. “I was concerned about it. I wanted that for her and I knew how talented she was as a coach. I would have loved to have seen that happen but it didn’t.”
This year’s Pack should be a No. 1 seed in the 2022 NCAA Tournament. The ACC champs have the talent and experience to make a run at the title that eluded Yow and the Pack.
Pickard, who lives in Wilmington, can only wish Kay Yow was here to watch it all. And if the Pack is the champion when all is said and done?
“She would have been so thrilled,” Pickard said. “There’s always that twinge. I think we all have that twinge where we say, “Gosh, I wish it was mine.’ But it would be hers because she set the foundation. She set a standard at N.C. State that the people who came after her have honored.”
This story was originally published March 14, 2022 at 5:40 AM.
