Kay Yow, coach of the North Carolina State University women’s basketball team and a member of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, passed away Saturday morning. She was 66 years old.
Kay Yow won more than 700 games in her career. She coached the U.S. Olympic team to a gold medal in 1988, won four ACC tournament championships, earned 20 NCAA tournament bids and reached the Final Four in 1998.
Despite all her basketball accomplishments, Kay Yow was also universally applauded for her efforts in the raising of awareness and money for research and cancer, and for her resolve to continue coaching even when the cancer recurred.
She had been battling breast cancer since 1987. The disease first recurred during the 2004-05 season, and she had been hospitalized of late at the WakeMed Cary Hospital, where her players visited her this week and where she passed away Saturday morning.
Kay Yow served on the board of the V Foundation for Cancer Research, which was founded by ESPN and her friend and colleague, former NCSU men's coach Jim Valvano, who died of cancer in 1993.
In a NCSU press release interim head coach Stephanie Glance said:
"It has been an honor and a privilege to work with Coach Yow for the last 15 seasons. I suddenly find myself grasping to retain everything she has ever said and ever taught me."
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