(Guru's note: Since Kay Yow's passing, words of eloquence in her memory have been written and spoken with much more to come with the arrival of Pink Zone week in the fight against cancer. Before events of the season accelerate, the Guru thought it be appropriate to at least allow some stories of his relationship with the Hall of Fame North Carolina State coach over the years.)
By Mel Greenberg
When the funeral for North Carolina State Hall of Fame women’s basketball coach Kay Yow was recently held, some might have been surprised when she appeared in a video to say her farewell as part of a ceremony she meticulously planned in advance.
Though I was unable to attend, my reaction in reading the Associated Press account of the services was once again one of how well Yow could harness existing media technology to deliver her message.
Way back in Day One when I was organizing what became the Associated Poll, she was one of my first phone calls in assembling a voting board.
I remember her excitement over what she thought the venture would do for media coverage, thinking way ahead of where I was in the process.
In the won-loss records of positives in life against the negatives, Yow was an unbeaten champion.
And once she quickly got to know someone, they became part of her “family,” be it players, coaches, or even media members.
I remember my first trip to Raleigh back in 1976 when Kay couldn’t wait to introduce me to local sportswriter Mary Garber, a pioneer most definitely in the advancement of female membership in the media.
It’s ironic that Garber passed away a few months before Kay, but I’m sure the two have already had quite the reunion.
In the first season of the poll, North Carolina State hosted Immaculata, still a power at the time, in a game that was played on what became another rare snowy night in the history of the Tar Heel State.
Immaculate won, but Kay was on the phone early the following morning gushing over the hundreds of fans lined up in the foul weather the night before waiting to enter the arena. She was sure the poll had caused the heavy attendance.
I told her that her team had something to do with the crowd, also.
As Title IX helped bring increased support for women’s programs internally on collegiate campuses, Kay’s sports information directors through the years were always top notch.
The first couple of years when wire service coverage was virtually non-existent, the Wolfpack department worked the phones to various sites of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) tournament to get some results and detail and then fed them in my direction to produce roundup stories
Remember this was at a time when computers had yet to become commonplace, and words like fax, telecopier, modem, and internet had yet to enter the daily vocabulary.
Whenever someone phones here with some historical question regarding the rankings in what is now a mega-sized database, I always think of Kay.
Listen, at this point in time someone would have caught up and produced an overall rankings compiliation.
But after Year Five, Kay had her media person call to check on some historical data regarding N.C. State and the rankings. They were stunned to learn I had not kept track – it was enough of an effort just to produce a poll every week and at that time I was tied to several other duties at The Inquirer outside the sports department.
Kay called a while later to give me a soft, but stern, coach-player lecture.
“You’ve got to start keeping a history, Mel, everyone will be counting on your for that,” she said.
“Yes, Coach,” I replied.
She had good reason to care, by the way. Of the teams in the very first women’s poll in November, 1976, Maryland and North Carolina State lasted the longest in terms of consecutive weeks before dropping out at the same time.
“I feel like Kay and I have been together my entire career,” former Maryland coach Chris Weller said to me the day after Kay passed away as I was at the Terrapins-North Carolina game at College Park.
Weller related that she began to get calls from many of her former players after the news of Kay’s passing became public.
To finish the database story, fortunately, between archived copies of the paper and others who were keeping their own records – such as then UCLA assistant Colleen Matsuhara -- along with the fact that the total number of polls in a season were much less than today – I was able to find them all.
A few years later, the cyber-world began to appear and all the info was housed into an early database program. Remarkably, it survived and grew with every software evolvement to now appear in the 1,3000-plus records file in an excel program format.
Furthermore, some Geek friend at the paper was able to create a supplementary program that allows all the special data – Most No. 1s, most top 10s, etc. – that is produced today, but all of it in this particular file is owed to Kay’s lecture.
There were times when Kay thought I might have influence with her athletic department when she wanted to take some particular action and because her superiors and I had come to know each other off my trips to N.C. State games.
I remember one call I had gotten at the time the position Associate Head Coach was non-existent.
Kay wanted to elevate then-assistant Nora Lynn Finch, now the Atlantic Coast Conference head of women’s basketball, to the title Co-Head Coach.
Needless to say, there was resistance to that concept in the home office and Kay thought I might be able to provide some extra support.
“Mel, what is so difficult?” I remember Kay saying to me. “I coach the offense and Nora Lynn coaches the defense. So why can’t we be co-head coaches?”
Eventually, Nora Lynn was elevated as the Wolfpack’s senior women’s administrator and appropriately became the first chair of the NCAA women’s basketball committee in 1982.
In 1991, Kay was president of the WBCA, which was about to present its first media award at the Final Four in New Orleans.
Obviously, I had to be made aware of being the recipient so I would show up at the luncheon considering I was also in town to cover the tournament.
But apparently there was going to be more to the story, and all the while in the holding room, Kay was prancing around with this great little “I’ve got a secret” look that she couldn’t wait to spring on everyone during her presentation.
And so a while later, Kay had me at the podium, went on for a bit, well more than a bit, telling the Immaculata story and a few other things before pausing and then saying, “And we have another surprise.
“Everyone hereafter who wins this award will be receiving the WBCA Mel Greenberg Media Award.”
Needless to say, everything that had been assembled for the acceptance speech, was temporarily knocked from my mind. It still seems like yesterday, though, how overjoyed and excited she was.
I remember being more excited for her happiness then my actually receiving the honor.
Years later she had that same look at a front row seat at the Final Four when she was in on our secret plot to surprise her former player Debbie Antonelli, now an ESPN broadcaster, with the honor.
In 1988, I was sent out to Colorado Springs to collect material for the women’s basketball portion of our Olympic section – Kay was then the coach of the team.
At the end of each practice at the Air Force Academy, the players could be heard yelling “Oreos, Oreos.”
If the session went well, Yow’s players were given Oreo sandwich cookies.
“I don’t remember that exactly, but I do know Kay always had a bunch of goodies to motivate her players,” North Carolina coach Sylvia Hatchell, then an Olympic assistant, remembered.
When it came to winning the first gold medal without the associated Russian United States boycotts in 1980 and 1984, Kay’s team was a heavy favorite.
To get the job done, she had turned most of the way in Korea to a smaller lineup with recently-graduated Penn State all-American point guard Suzie McConnell-Serio running the offense.
But when the outcome was undecided late in the game, she went to veteran post star Anne Donovan, who had been on the bench, to enter the game and Donovan delivered with as few key rebounds and scores to put the gold safely into American hands.
Again, at the time of her USA involvement, Kay was still thinking about media.
“We have to win this, because people who don’t normally watch women’s basketball will be watching the Olympics,” she said. “If we do well, then perhaps we will begin to see more of our games on television.”
There was one memento she received after the Seoul games that delighted her.
Dick Engberg, who broadcasted the gold medal game, gave Kay a board with all his notes mounted.
She thought that was so special and said it was going to have a special place in her office.
I remember Kay was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame and her patience at the morning press availability.
In most years, the media crowd usually flocks around the notable men's inductees.
But in wanting to be fair, they will stop by the table to speak with the women's inductee, but in doing so, some questions are asked that would cause many of the readers of the Guru's blog to, well, roll their eyes, to put it mildly.
The Guru was waiting in line to get some quick quotes of some historical recollections.
However, some of the aforementioned questions were offered from a few in front.
But the Guru remembers Kay answering each one straight up without one glance of negativity and treating each person approaching her as someone special.
A year ago when my mother passed away after a much shorter battle with cancer than Kay’s, one of the first cards we received came from her with a personal and moving note.
Kay did not speak of her own situation, but her words of comfort were remarkable and again another of those ongoing efforts she always made to consider those in constant contact with her as part of her family.
North Carolina State in AP Poll History
Having mentioned the poll database that Kay inspired, her is where she and the Wolfpack stand in Week No. 569.
On the all-time list of appearances by coaches with their teams, Yow is currently seventh at 326, although she will soon be topped by Connecticut’s Geno Auriemma, who is at 323.
Former Louisiana Tech head coach Leon Barmore, now a Baylor assistant, is at 325.
Virginia’s Debbie Ryan (308), and Ohio State’s Jim Foster (307) are next closest.
Former Auburn coach Joe Ciampi (290) is retired and North Carolina’s Sylvia Hatchell is next at 273.
The Wolfpack, who were recently passed by Oklahoma, are 23rd in Top Five appearances with 34, followed by Ohio State (29) and Notre Dame (28) next closest.
In Top 10 appearances, N.C. State is 18th at 133, just behind Texas Tech (134) and ahead of Auburn (127).
The all-time high is a No. 2 ranking, which occurred four times in 1977-78, and four more times in 1990-91.
The most recent Top Five appearance was a No. 3 on Jan. 10, 2000, and the most recent Top 10 ranking was 10th, December 3, 2001. The most recent overall ranking was 18th in the final poll of 2006-07 just before Yow’s team made a dramatic run to the Sweet 16.
-- Mel
