The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
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52 ■ THE WOLFPACKER That trust and respect eventually led Casey to give Finch the title of coordinator of women's athletics within a year of her hiring. In 1981, he made her the school's first female assistant athletics director — a few weeks after recommending her to then-NCAA president Walter Byers, who was seeking someone to be on the new women's bas- ketball championship committee that would oversee the first NCAA women's tournament. "After Mr. Casey said I'd be a good person for the committee, Walter asked if I'd be a good chair for the committee," she said. "Mr. Casey replied, 'Not if you're looking for a token.' I consider that the best compliment anyone's ever paid me." Finch continued to coach basketball with Yow through the 1984 season, simultaneously serving on NCAA committees that helped shape the game. While serving on the rules committee that year, she led the change from the standard-size ball used at the time by both men and women to the smaller women's ball, after data from camps run the previous offseason showed it helped improve skills. In the ensuing years, Finch took on greater responsibilities within the NC State athletic administration. She represented the school at both the ACC and NCAA levels for the next 24 years while assum- ing responsibility for the men's golf and soccer programs in 1986, and being named senior associate AD for sports administration and internal operations in 1987. In 1998, 17 years after helping lead the first NCAA women's tournament, Finch was back in Kansas City with her best friend when NC State made its first — and to date, only — trip to the women's Final Four. "That's my fondest memory," she said. "Back in 1981, Kay and I went to Philadelphia to watch the men's Final Four to learn all we could so we would know what the NCAA expected for the women's championship. "Then, to be in Kansas City, with Kay and State, for that Final Four, was seeing all the work come to fruition." In 2008, ACC commissioner John Swofford contacted then-Pack AD Lee Fowler to ask if he thought Finch would be a good candidate to replace associate commissioner Bernadette McGlade, who left to become commissioner of the Atlantic 10 Conference. "By then, I'd served on every NCAA cabinet and committee I was eligible for," Finch explained. "I didn't have a voice at the national level anymore, conference offices were playing a more significant role at that level, and the women's game wasn't particularly healthy. Those 31 years at NC State will always be my core, but there comes a time when you've done all you can do at a place." Joining the ACC, first as an associate commissioner and senior women's administrator, and then serving as the senior associate commissioner for women's basketball since 2013, Finch has helped revamp the women's game, transforming what had become a drawn- out, foul-marred physical tussle into the streamlined showcase of finesse and quickness it is today. As part of the Committee of Women's Basketball Officiating, Finch helped institute the 10-second backcourt violation, the switch to four 10-minute quarters from two 20-minute halves and the elimination of bonus free throws after five team fouls, all to make the game more attractive to both players and fans. Her list of awards and honors would fill an entire page, and include honors from Western Carolina (two inductions into its Hall of Fame); the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, North Carolina's highest civilian honor; the 2017 Josten-Berenson Lifetime Achievement Award from the Women's Basketball Coaches Association; the Wolfpack Club's Shavlik Lifetime Service Award; the 2007 Women's Sports Founda- tion's Billie Jean King Lifetime Achievement honor; and selection as the No. 12 Most Influential Person in Women's Athletics by the Orlando Sentinel in its "50 Most Influential Women of the 20th Century" series. "I've been abundantly blessed, more so than most people," Finch admitted. "I've enjoyed my work and been enriched by the people in my career, both the ones I have served and the ones that have served me. "I've always had the attitude of wanting to help others, and I'll always enjoy helping people achieve their dreams." ■ In 2008, Finch left NC State after 31 years to become an associate commissioner in the ACC. PHOTO COURTESY NORA LYNN FINCH