NC State Basketball Coach Kay Yow Dies Of Cancer (Photos)

Posted on January 24, 2009

North Carolina State’s Hall of Fame women’s basketball coach, Kay Yow, who won over 700 games has died after a long fight against breast cancer. Kay Yow was 66. Read more on Kay Yow’s death below.

Kay Yow was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1987, and died Saturday morning at WakeMed Cary Hospital.

“I think she understood that keeping going was inspirational to other people who were in the same boat she was in,” Dr. Mark Graham, Yow’s longtime oncologist, said Saturday.

As the coach of NC State’s basketball team, Yow won more than 700 games. Yow even coached the U.S. Olympic team to a gold medal in 1988, won four Atlantic Coast Conference tournament championships, earned 20 NCAA tournament bids and reached the Final Four in 1998.

Kay Yow was inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame in 2002, while the school dedicated “Kay Yow Court” in Reynolds Coliseum in 2007.

Many knew Kay Yow for her work for breast cancer, from raising awareness and money for research to staying with her team through the debilitating effects of the disease and chemotherapy treatments.

Kay was on the board of the V Foundation for Cancer Research, which was founded by ESPN and her friend and colleague, former N.C. State men’s coach Jim Valvano, who died of cancer in 1993.

“Kay taught us all to live life with passion and to never give up,” said fellow board member George Bodenheimer, president of ESPN and ABC Sports. He said the network would remain committed to a research fund established in Yow’s name.

“She’s a driving force for what’s going on today in the battle against cancer,” ESPN commentator and former Notre Dame men’s coach Digger Phelps said.

At Duke — one of N.C. State’s closest ACC rivals — there was a moment of silence to honor Yow before the men’s basketball game against Maryland on Saturday.

Yow was on hormonal therapy as the cancer spread to her liver and bone. But she never flinched or complained, relying on her faith as the disease progressed. She commonly noted there were other patients with “harder battles than I’m fighting” and said it was inspiring for her to stay with her team.

“We’re all faced with a lot of tough issues that we’re dealing with,” she said in a 2006 interview. “We know we need to just come to the court and let that be our catharsis in a way. You can’t bring it on the court with you, but we can all just think of basketball as an escape for a few hours.”

Yow announced earlier this month that she would not return to the team this season after she missed four games because of what was described as an extremely low energy level.

The team visited Yow in the hospital before leaving Wednesday for a game at Miami. Associate head coach Stephanie Glance — who led the team in Yow’s absences — met with the team Saturday morning to inform them Yow had died, Myers said.

Kay Yow always remained upbeat and would not dwell on her cancer.

“If you start to dwell on the wrong things, it’ll take you down fast,” Yow said in ‘07. “Every morning, I wake up and the first thing I think of is I’m thankful. I’m thankful for another day.”

Our condolences to Kay Yow’s friends and family.

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