(Guru's Note: This is AP's coverage of North Carolina State Hall of Fame Women's Basketball Coach Kay Yow's Funeral.)
By AARON BEARD
AP Sports Writer
CARY, N.C. — Kay Yow didn’t ask one of her famous friends to speak
at her funeral. Instead, the longtime North Carolina State women’s
basketball coach had a message for them.
“And now I say farewell,” Yow said. “And it’s been a wonderful
journey, especially since the time I accepted Jesus as my lord and
savior.”
In a video played to the hundreds of fans and colleagues who
gathered Friday at a suburban Raleigh church for Yow’s funeral, she
thanked the legion of supporters who guided her through a two-decade
long fight with breast cancer and recounted with passion her deep
Christian faith.
“It has changed my life,” Yow said. “It has changed the life of
every person who has accepted him.”
Yow was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1987, yet went on to lead
the U.S. Olympic team to the gold medal the next year. She won more
than 700 games in her career and was inducted into the Naismith Hall
of Fame in 2002.
But for many, Yow was best known for her unwavering resolve while
fighting cancer, which recurred during the 2004-05 season and had
lingered in the years since. She raised awareness and money for
research while staying with her team through the debilitating effects
of the disease and chemotherapy treatments.
She had to take a four-game leave in December due to what was
described as extremely low energy. She announced shortly after the new
year that she would not return this season. She soon entered a
hospital for treatment and spent about a week there before she died
last weekend. She was 66.
“Her battle with breast cancer was never about herself,” said
Megan Smith, an employee at the Kay Yow/WBCA Cancer fund in Atlanta,
before the funeral. “She was such a courageous and humble person at
the same time.”
UConn coach Geno Auriemma, North Carolina coach Sylvia Hatchell
and Miami coach Katie Meier stopped at a viewing for Yow, while Duke
coach Joanne P. McCallie and her team, Tennessee coach Pat Summitt,
Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer and Texas coach Gale Goestenkors, the
former coach at Duke, arrived early for the service.
Others paying respects included former N.C. State football coach
Chuck Amato and current coach Tom O’Brien, and N.C. State alumnus and
former NFL coach Bill Cowher. Yow will be buried Saturday in her
hometown of Gibsonville.
But none of Yow’s famous friends were slated to speak at a service
she designed.
“She did not want to show any kind of favoritism because there was
just none in her heart. None,” the Rev. Mitchell Gregory, her pastor
at Cary Alliance Church.
Retired professor Janie Brown, the former chair of the physical
education department at Elon University, remembered speaking to Yow a
couple of years ago for a project on the history of women’s sports.
She said Yow spoke about balancing teaching, academic advising and
even the little things like taping her players’ ankles.
“I think that was always her attitude. Whatever the situation, you
deal with it. That’s what she’s done,” Brown said. “I’m a good friend,
but I’m also a great admirer of what she does. And I think we would
hope we could live a life with that kind of influence.”
Friday’s events are part of an emotionally draining week for the
players and coaches she left behind at N.C. State. On Monday, the team
went to an area mall to pick out clothes for Yow’s funeral, a task
that interim coach Stephanie Glance said was easier to do together
than individually.
The team returned to practice Tuesday, then attended the campus
tribute ceremony at Reynolds Coliseum, home of “Kay Yow Court,”
Wednesday night. The next day, the team played its first game since
her death, falling to Boston College 62-51.
At each public event, there have been numerous fans wearing pink —
the color of breast cancer awareness — and eager to share their
stories of how Yow inspired them while battling the disease.
She spent 38 season as a coach, 34 with N.C. State. She won four
ACC tournament championships, earned 20 NCAA tournament bids and
reached the Final Four in 1998.
Yow took a 16-game leave to focus on her health during the 2006-07
season. Her return that year sparked an emotional late-season run to
the NCAA tournament’s round of 16.
She also served 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.
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