The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
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from a grudgingly forced addition to athletic programs, due to Title IX, to its present status as a viable national sport capable of attracting sellout crowds, national media coverage and some of the best female athletes in the world. From her start as a full-time athletics administrator at NC State, Finch has gone on to what is now a 10-year tenure as an associate commissioner in the ACC, primarily responsible for women's basket- ball. It's a long way from the self-described "small but quick" second of four children of Dr. Henry and Emma Finch who grew up loving horses, playing tackle football with older brother Phil and aspiring to be a teacher. "I'm a teacher, no matter what career profile I took," she explained. "I get angry when I read or hear someone say, 'Those that can't do, teach.' Teaching is a learned skill — and most people are not good teachers. "I've always enjoyed watching others learn a new skill or be able to do something they couldn't do before. I'd rather help somebody else do something better than I do it myself. It's so much fun and so rewarding. I just enjoy helping people reach their own dreams." Influenced by ownership of a horse given to her by her mother when she was eight and a next-door neighbor who insisted she learn how to play tennis on their court, Finch was already an accomplished athlete by the time she was a teen. "I played tennis, swam on the local country club team, played softball in the summer and bowled in an adult league," she recalled. But when she got to Henderson High, basketball was the only sport offered for girls — and her future path was born. Still hoping to be a teacher, Finch enrolled in Western Carolina University in 1966, where she wound up playing four sports — field hockey, volleyball, basketball and tennis — with an unusual twist. "You couldn't always get the best officials to come to Cullowhee," Finch recalled, "so I was asked by my basketball coach to take the test to be an official. One of my biggest weaknesses is not being able to say 'No' when asked to help." So, at 19, Finch took and passed the test to become the youngest nationally rated basketball official in the U.S. Her abilities were such that even opposing coaches asked her to officiate games that Western was involved in, so Finch only played her final two years at WCU in away games, while officiating home contests, both in basketball and, eventually, volleyball. After earning bachelor's and master's degrees in education from WCU, Finch began her coaching career at Wake Forest, her father's alma mater, in 1971, running the new women's volleyball, field hockey, basketball and tennis teams, as well as the intramural pro- gram — as a part-time employee. "I don't know how many people they interviewed, but they got a 22-year-old who was willing to take the money they were willing to pay," she said. Two years later, after being asked to officiate a basketball game between Meredith and Peace colleges, Finch was offered the job as head basketball coach and women's athletics director at Peace. By this time, she had already met Yow, who was coaching multiple sports at Elon College, which was a regular on Wake Forest's schedule. "I know my teams all had winning records for two years," Finch noted, "but when Kay got [younger sister] Susan at Elon, she got the better of everybody." Finch took Peace, the smallest school in the then-Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) annual national bas- ketball tournament, to three top-five showings in her five years the school, including a national runner-up finish in 1976. She was also one of three recommendations made to Casey in 1975 when the Pack AD decided to hire the school's first full-time female coach. Yow was the first interview and his eventual choice. It probably didn't help that Finch had written a letter to Casey a year or two earlier, decrying NC State's lack of women's sports. Finch played a Pack basketball team in 1973 she thought was a var- sity program, but it turned out to be a club team. NC State's women's program didn't start until the following year. When Yow, in 1977, asked Casey to allow her to hire a full-time associate coach, Casey granted Yow's request — with one stipulation. "'You can hire anyone — except that girl at Peace,' he told Kay," Finch recalled. Yow and Finch had known each other for more then seven years by that time. The two were living together since Finch was the only person Yow knew in Raleigh when she took the NC State job in 1975. Despite Casey's preference, Finch became Yow's associate head coach in basketball. And since Yow had also started the Pack vol- leyball and softball programs, the two reversed roles for those two teams, with Finch the head coach and Yow the associate. As it turned out, Casey proved to be as important a figure in the advancement of women's athletics at NC State as his two new hires. "He wasn't someone who welcomed being told what to do," Finch said. "When Title IX passed in 1972, he didn't wait until the deadline of 1978 to comply. He started the basketball team in 1974 because he knew what was coming. He allowed the team's scholarship players to eat in what had been the men-only dining hall, and he hired Kay as the first full-time women's coach. "He trusted Kay and me, and we flourished during our time together." A Pioneer Former Wolfpack Coach And Administrator Nora Lynn Finch Has Helped Shape Women's Basketball WHERE ARE THEY NOW? JANUARY 2019 ■ 51 Nora Lynn Finch Coach, Administrator (1977-2008) Age: 69 Living: Greensboro, N.C. Occupation: Senior associate commissioner for the ACC Did You Know? Finch was a finalist for the Women's Bas- ketball Hall of Fame in 2017.