Kay Yow: Amazing Grace!

 

I first met Kay Yow when she brought her North Carolina State Women’s Team to play us at Penn State in the first round of the 1985 NCAA Women’s Championship Regionals. We held off a game Wolfpack team 63-59, led by a talented young center by the name of Trina Trice.   I don’t remember a lot about that game other than we won. What I do remember was the grace, kindness and professional manner Kay Yow demonstrated to everyone around her even in the heat of a hard fought NCAA Tournament game. And to be perfectly honest she was that way every time I crossed her path over the past 20 years at the WBCA Conventions, Coaches Clinics, or just on the street. I didn’t run into her often, but whenever I did, she was a lady of “amazing grace”.  
 
It is said that you can tell best what drives a person when they are faced with unfathomable adversity. There was an incredible amount of integrity and human decency in Kay through her faith, personal strength, and desire to help others even in the midst of her greatest battle in life. She not only faced this battle, she chose to embrace her it, make it public. Coach Yow was a warrior in the world’s deadly fight to find a cure for cancer. She sought to educate, fund raise, and use her position to bring public awareness to the challenges many women face with breast cancer to a whole new level. I don’t think I’ll ever see a pink ribbon again where I don’t think of Kay Yow. And I shouldn’t forget.   Its too important of a battle for us to allow ourselves to become complacent in our search for solutions to cancer. I know I lost my beloved mother to cancer this past summer. As Jimmy V said “Don’t give, up, don’t ever give up”. And we simply can’t give up. Kay Yow didn’t sit there and complain, run away from her challenge, or think of what was best herself. She raised her game, and made a difference.   She was truly an inspiration to a whole generation of her own players, those who competed against her, coaches, and sports fans. We will miss you Kay.
 
She was one of but a handful of Women’s Division I coaches to win over 700 games. She started and built the North Carolina State women’s program beginning in 1975 and was leading this season until her tired body could physically lead no more. She won ACC Championships, took her team to the 1998 NCAA Final Four, was the head Coach of the USA Women’s Team that won the Gold Medal’s in the Goodwill Games, The FIBA World Championships, and the Olympic Gold Medal in Seoul, Korea in 1988. She produced generations of coaches, and players who became important public servants. No one could ever doubt ability to coach and lead one court. More importantly she led off the court through her years support and leadership within the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association, and being a catalyst to demonstrate the power of collegiate athletics to do something exceptional through the Kay Yow WBCA Cancer Fund. In the fight to defeat cancer she has been a National Champion every year. How many of us can say that about a cause we believe in or have embraced.  She has helped us all adversely affected by the tragedy of cancer now or in the future to be winners.   She isn’t the only coach to ever faced cancer and lost. Those of you familiar with the early year’s of women’s basketball won’t forget Carol Eckstein, or others who lost the battle. But Kay let us into her home, to embrace the fight with dignity, determination, faith and her amazing grace.  Those who's lives she touched can only say she left an indelible impression of geniune concern for the. welfare of other, and especially those affected by cancer.
 
Thank you Kay for your lifetime of selflessness and courage in an age where an increasiing majority of the world has sunken into a “what’s in it for me mentality”.   I only hope many more of us in the game will pick up and further your crusade to make a difference in the lives of others through your example. Become a part of Kay’s legacy and help stamp out cancer.
 
Donations can be made to the Kay Yow/WBCA Cancer Fund at www.JimmyV.org, by calling 1-800-4JimmyV, or by mailing checks to the WBCA with attention Megan Smith at 4646 Lawrenceville Hwy. Lilburn, GA 30047.  Find a way you can help either directly by donations or setting up a Coaches against Cancer, or Yow/WBCA Cancer event at your school.
 
Coach Lambert
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