Kay Yow Court

You’d have to have been hiding under a rock the last few days to have not been touched by Kay Yow’s return to the NC State bench and big wins, including Friday night’s shallacking of UNC-Chapel Hill on Senior night in Reynolds Coliseum.

Check that. Not just Reynolds Coliseum…but at newly named ‘Kay Yow Court’ at Reynolds Coliseum.

The story around Coach Yow’s 2007 season and stage 4 cancer is of national interest. ESPN ran this feature today on the heels of the Charlotte Observer’s feature on Coach Yow this weekend.

These stories are MUST READS for everyone.

Friends told her to rest and return to coaching next year. “But I have Stage 4 cancer. There is nothing that assures me that next year I could do it any more than I could now,” Kay Yow said.

Shortly before Valvano died 14 years ago, Yow attended a Wednesday mass with him. Afterward, they went to a breakfast place Valvano liked. They talked about faith and life and death.

Yow’s mother fought cancer for nearly six years and did not respond well to treatments. Almost every Sunday afternoon of her adult life, Yow would drive to Gibsonville and eat dinner with her family. Her mother’s illness changed that.

Lib Yow, Kay’s mother, and Valvano ended up one floor apart at a Raleigh hospital in their dying days. At night, Kay would sit by her mother’s bed. When her mother went to sleep, Yow would go upstairs and sit with Valvano’s family outside his room. Valvano died a few months before Yow’s mother.

“There’s no secret answer to this,” Yow said. “Just let Him be in control. I’d like to be in control, but He’s in control. If His final say is that I don’t make it, as long as I know it’s His say, then I know it’s right.”

Near the end of his life, Valvano gave the world his message of hope, explaining that cancer could take his body but not his mind, his heart and his soul.

Yow has a copy of that speech and has seen it several times — but not recently.

Her favorite part, she said, is when a stage manager tries to hurry Valvano off the stage. He responds, saying: “That screen is flashing up there 30 seconds like I care about that screen right now, huh? I got tumors all over my body. I’m worried about some guy in the back going 30 seconds, huh?”

Yow laughed softly at the memory, the tissue at her eyes again.

“I know how he felt ,” she said.

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33 Responses to Kay Yow Court

  1. packpigskinfan23 02/20/2007 at 7:46 PM #

    no cause its just ripped off from some other joke and replace with “AAC” fans…

    what a fucking douche.

  2. xphoenix87 02/20/2007 at 8:37 PM #

    “Weird, but the other night I told my wife that I couldn’t remember the women’s coach before Yow. Then it hit me! There wasn’t any women’s team!”

    Not entirely true, but very close. Coach Yow took over in the program’s second season, following “Peanut” Doak as head coach.

  3. redfred2 02/20/2007 at 8:45 PM #

    Before anybody thinks I’m looney about that earlier post on Piggy Hargrove, that was a feeble attempt a humor about claiming “titles” way back before ANYTHING ever existed.

    Tomorrow night looms. Come hell or high water though, no matter the outcome, the sheer HOPEFUL anticipation of a basketball game against UNC, is a feeling that I’ve MISSED for so, sooooo long now. It’s been a great week, and I’m looking so forward to tomorrow night, that I can smell it.

    GO WOLFPACK!!!

  4. redfred2 02/20/2007 at 9:04 PM #

    highstick

    The details are fuzzy but it’s burnt into my mind anyway, I remember Sloan walking away, standing away from the huddle with a look of disgust on his face, as the players talked it over among themselves in crucial timeout. If I am not mistaken that was when the PACK fell behind in overtime against UCLA. I may have the wrong game, but I don’t think so. It looked to me like the team got it together and the went on to win in spite of their coach. Though he may have known what he was doing at the time it didn’t appear so to me, along the fact that he accomplished much at NC State, that single image has always tainted my memories of Norman Sloan.

  5. redfred2 02/20/2007 at 9:07 PM #

    ^ correction……although there’s the fact that he accomplished much at NC State, that single image has always tainted my memories of Norman Sloan.

  6. xphoenix87 02/20/2007 at 9:27 PM #

    http://www.theacc.com/ot/videovault.html

    check out the video titled “Women’s Basketball: A Tribute to N.C. State’s Kay Yow”. It’s a great tribute to Kay featuring a lot of distinguished coaches both from the area and from around the nation talking about her. An amazing testament to the number of lives she’s touched.

    “I think she’s probably the best that’s ever been in our game.”
    -Sue Semrau, FSU Women’s Head Coach

    “There’s not a coach in any profession, whether it’s football, basketball, baseball, college or highschool, that I respect more than Kay Yow.”
    -Kelvin Sampson, Indiana Men’s Head Coach

  7. highstick 02/20/2007 at 9:48 PM #

    My roommate played with Nelson Isley, I think, and there was a bunch of dissension, and that’s when Isley transferred to LSU to play with Pete and for Press. I don’t remember all of the details because time passage plus being in the Army at the time.

    Fred, I do remember that picture and it sticks in my mind also. There’s no doubt he was a good coach and could definitely recruit the guys from Dematha, but there was always something that “you just couldn’t put your finger on” that was missing. He sure lost control in 75, not that you could blame it on him though. It was really weird watching all of that talent including DT and Towe underachieve. I guess we got spoiled in 73 and 74 and probably never gave Burleson the credit that was due him in those years.

    Peanut Doak? Wow, until I read the article, I never knew that. I’d bet that team was “way under the radar”. Did they play in Reynolds or Carmichael then? I was still in Raleigh then, but darned if I remember a women’s BBall team. I was probably too busy “burning up the Raleigh City League” then! LOL! Was approaching 30 at that time and, but I still think I could outrun Barkley!

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. StateFans Nation » Blog Archive » Lowe: ‘NC State fans will be at their finest’ - 03/16/2007

    s31bH5 Really informative post.Thanks Again. Great.

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