RIP

1/25/2009 6:07:55 PM

man this is sad

1/25/2009 10:44:30 PM

Pink on monday and pink to the men's game tuesday

1/26/2009 12:58:30 AM

I couldn't believe it when I saw the news Saturday morning. I lost my grandpa to cancer when I was 7, and hate to see anyone suffer through it. She's in a better place now, but it's still sad for us still here.

RIP Coach Yow.

1/26/2009 1:12:35 AM

Quote :

"Pink-Out the RBC for Men's Basketball vs. UNC-CH Saturday, January 31 at 3:30 PM"

i predict the worst organized color-out ever seen incoming.

1/26/2009 1:29:53 AM

^ what I thought

RIP

1/26/2009 8:49:44 AM

Why wouldn't we have the Pink Out at the Miami game tuesday?

You know people will want to wear red to the UNC game.

1/26/2009 8:52:40 AM

Heard the news while out of town at my GF's. Was instantly saddened. RIP Yow, we will miss you.

No Sig...

1/26/2009 9:10:59 AM

pink should be worn for the next home game against Miami.

i am wearing pink today at work and even some coworker UNC fans wore their pink today to remember Coach Yow which made me happy to see.

1/26/2009 9:40:42 AM

i've got a pink NC State shirt with the ribbon on it that i bought at one of the volleyball games earlier this year that i plan on wearing to most all the rest of the seasons games

1/26/2009 9:57:27 AM

Just FYI. The women's game Thursday is vs Boston College, not UNC, as the Technician said in their editorial.

1/26/2009 10:35:42 AM

having a "pink out" in the RBC center would be cool...but the biggest deal is to pink out Reynolds on Thursday night for the Woman's team

1/26/2009 1:29:59 PM

Doors open at 6pm for a 7pm Tribute to Coach Kay Yow at Reynolds 1/28/09

1/26/2009 3:07:40 PM

bttt.....

1/27/2009 12:26:54 AM

i wonder if attendence at the miami game is going to suffer...

1/27/2009 12:29:42 AM

^ why would it suffer? Something else going on?

1/27/2009 12:34:33 AM

oh scratch that... i was thinking today was the 28th.

1/27/2009 7:22:51 AM

fantastic article to read about Coach Yow and who she was as a person regarding Coach Hatchell at UNC.

I never knew some of this stuff.

http://www.accsports.com/articles/200901294640/crothers-hatchell-shares-her-yow-memories.php


Hatchell Shares Her Yow Memories

They were two girls from smalltown North Carolina who grew up playing basketball way before it was cool for young women to do such a thing. Both kept on playing in college. Both rode the powerful wave of Title IX into coaching jobs, eventually in the same conference, at rival schools just 20 miles apart. Both won plenty of ACC championships and more than 700 games. Both loved to win, but having seen the game through its fragile infancy, both thought teaching and growing the sport were just as important. Both Kay Yow and Sylvia Hatchell are now in the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame together.

“We were both little girls dreaming big dreams,” Hatchell says, “but even our dreams were never as big as what actually happened.”

I met Kay Yow only once. It was after an N.C. State game against Temple on Jan. 11, 2001 when I was reporting a story about the other coach, Dawn Staley. I don’t recall a single thing Yow said that day, but I remember her talking about Staley, a former star guard at Virginia, making the commitment to coaching. I remember how proud Yow was.

In the wake of Yow’s death on Saturday, this just isn’t enough of a memory, only a faint glimmer, which is why I visited Hatchell at the UNC women’s basketball office on Tuesday, so I could share some stories from someone who really knew Kay Yow.

Hatchell first met Yow during a coaching clinic at Raleigh’s Peace College more than 30 years ago. She was so inspired by Yow’s speech that she introduced herself afterward. Yow had just taken the coaching job at N.C. State, the same year that Hatchell accepted her first coaching job at tiny Francis Marion College in Florence, S.C. Shortly thereafter, Hatchell phoned Yow, whose team had a shoe contract, asking if Yow could help her get a good deal on shoes for Francis Marion’s players, because Hatchell paid for the team’s shoes out of her own pocket. When Yow learned that Francis Marion’s colors were red, white and blue, she sent a shipment of red and white sneakers from her N.C. State allotment, enough for Hatchell’s entire team. A few days after Hatchell’s Swamp Foxes won the 1982 AIAW championship, there was a fruit basket waiting outside Hatchell’s office with a congratulatory note from Yow. Same thing when they won the NAIA title in 1986. Hatchell marveled at how Yow was always there for her.

“When I first started coaching and we’d lose I wouldn’t sleep a wink and I applied for a job at UPS because I hated losing so much,” Hatchell recalls. “I’ll never forget one day Kay telling me, ‘Don’t get too up with the wins and don’t get too down with the losses. You’ve got to persevere. You may have to count to ten. Bite your tongue. Whatever it takes. But you’ve got to persevere.’”

Nobody knew persevering like Yow.

She began her struggle with cancer in 1987 and never really stopped. She recognized a kindred spirit in Hatchell, who mirrored her in so many ways from her competitive fire to her love of beach music and dancing the shag. When Yow became coach of the U.S. women’s national team, Hatchell joined her as her assistant, and they would go on to win gold medals at the 1986 World Championships and 1988 Olympics. In 1986 Yow wrote a letter to UNC athletic director John Swofford recommending an anonymous coach from Francis Marion to take over the Tar Heel program. The two were together at a national team camp when Hatchell learned that she had gotten the UNC job. “When I told Kay, I remember saying, ‘We’ll be OK. We can handle this.’ And Kay said, ‘I’m not worried about you and me. It’s our fans that don’t understand how we can still be friends.’ She was right.”

Hatchell began her UNC career 1-11 against Yow, but eventually evened the ledger after more than two decades of coaching against her mentor. They would sit beside each other at every conference meeting, concocting plans and then politicking together to get everybody else on board. Yow would close the deal with her trademark phrase,

“YouknowwhatImean?,” a declaration camouflaged in a question.

It was karmic coincidence that so often when Hatchell reached career milestones—her 500th, 600th, 700th career victories—they occurred against Yow’s Wolfpack. (Hatchell’s 800th also took place against N.C. State on Jan. 11, though Yow had already begun her final leave of absence from the team.)

In 2000 when Hatchell endured her own cancer scare, it was reassuring to have Yow to lean on. At so many points in Hatchell’s life it was Yow blazing the trail and then extending her hand back to lead Hatchell down the right path. But Hatchell says that hers is hardly a unique story, that Yow reached out to dozens of Sylvia Hatchells during her 66 years.

Last Wednesday afternoon, Hatchell visited with Yow in her hospital room. It was just the two of them and Hatchell knew it would likely be their final conversation. “It was a very special time,” she says. “Kay was pretty weak. She could only say a few words. I held her hand and got up in her face and told her how much she meant to me and to my coaching career and how there were some tough times when I would stop and ask myself, ‘How would Kay handle this? What would Kay do here?’ And Kay smiled and that’s when tears started streaming down her face and she said, ‘Thank you. I love you.’”

Yow was such a fighter that somehow, even though she’d been battling cancer for more than two decades, the news of her death on Saturday morning came as a shock. After all these years, you expected Yow to keep winning. It was poetic that Yow’s passing occurred in the midst of a three-game UNC losing streak, the team’s longest in seven years, because once again Yow helped Hatchell maintain perspective, reminding her of the vast difference between losing and loss.

Hatchell chuckled on Tuesday when she talked about watching a tape recently of herself and Yow swaying arm in arm at a coaches’ convention this past June and singing “Baby I Need Your Loving.” She laughed quite a bit while reminiscing about her friend, talking for 45 minutes in an interview that was supposed to last 10. She said that during the current losing streak she keeps hearing Yow’s words ringing in her ears: Don’t get too up with the wins, don’t get too down with the losses.

Hatchell never choked up during our talk, never got too down, despite her heartbreaking loss. She’s comforted by the idea that for a long time now she hasn’t needed to talk to Yow to know how Kay would handle this. In the days since Yow’s passing, Hatchell has often found herself counting to ten, biting her tongue, persevering.

1/29/2009 4:08:12 PM

So when will Lee go ahead and take off that interim tag off of Stephanie Glance? She's been here so long and been so committed, when I'm sure she could have gone elsewhere and got a head coaching gig. If Lee goes off and doesn't make Glance the head coach I will seriously consider writing the Wolfpack Club and asking for my donation back. I'm not a big donor, but it will perhaps get the point across that as a fan I don't like the athletic department fucking family members over, and Glance is most definitely a member of the Wolfpack family. She deserves to be made the new head coach.

1/29/2009 6:52:42 PM

My 8 year old cousin died of a rare complication of the coxsackie virus about 2 hours before his 9th birthday and Kay Yow, despite being just an acquaintance to my cousin's grandmother, showed up at his viewing (my Aunt and Uncle are big NCSU fans). She was always a person who went the extra mile and it meant a lot to our family that she took the time to come.

[Edited on January 29, 2009 at 7:10 PM. Reason : quick grammar edit]

1/29/2009 7:09:41 PM

^^ While I agree with your point, I think we can wait until the season's over to make the change.

1/29/2009 10:19:17 PM

RIP Coach...

1/29/2009 10:41:18 PM

Hard to stomach first half (15 points), but an effort Coach Yow could be proud of in the second. Cut a 31 point deficit down to 9 only to lose by 11. Great atmosphere tonight to pay respect to coach. Kids were really into it with their "N-C-State, N-C-State" chant. Rest in peace, Kay. Hope this team made you proud tonight and continues to for the rest of the season.

1/30/2009 12:00:06 AM

http://www.wral.com/news/local/video/4439265/

Yow's video that she recorded for her funeral, which was played today. 20 minutes, so get comfortable.

1/30/2009 7:27:10 PM

at the wake/UM game today:

2/1/2009 6:28:25 PM

Women pick up 1st ACC win at VT today. Great effort today and they have two more road games vs Maryland and Georgia Tech before returning home vs Wake Forest. If you were at the BC game, please come out to the Wake game and continue to show your support for this team.

2/1/2009 10:27:17 PM

It really is humbling how much support the rest of the women of the ACC are showing. Shows just how much Kay Yow affected ACC basketball and the people in it. What a great woman

2/2/2009 12:58:42 AM