The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/197085
"What I remember was her determination in the summer of 1987 to be well enough to coach in 1998." ■ NC State athletics director Debbie Yow A Dream Fulfilled Twenty-Five Years Ago, Kay Yow Overcame Cancer To Lead The U.S. Olympic Women's Basketball Team To A Gold Medal L By Tim Peeler ynn Barry remembers getting the call in the middle of August 1987. NC State women's basketball coach Kay Yow, who had just been named the head coach for the U.S. Olympic team, was on the line, telling the National Team's governing committee that a routine checkup had revealed that she had breast cancer. Immediately, Barry began to come up with a mental list of possible replacements. After all, this was breast cancer, and this was serious. And the Olympics were only 13 months away. "I had no idea what we were going to do," Barry said. Before the call was over, though, Yow had already assured Barry, the assistant director of USA Basketball and the person in charge of organizing the women's squad for the Seoul Olympics, that nothing would get in the way of her fulfilling her longtime dream of leading Team USA to an Olympic gold medal. "I don't think Kay ever thought she would not be able to coach the Olympic team," said younger sister and former NC State All-American Susan Yow, who was one of Kay's two assistants on the 1988 squad. "She just never thought that way." Twenty-five years ago, the Americans In 1986, Yow was named the head coach for the U.S. National Team, and she guided the squad through the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. photo courtesy NC State Media Relations repeated in winning Olympic gold, but it was a Yow-inspired victory that completely changed international women's basketball. Sure, the U.S. won the 1984 gold medal, under the direction of Pat Summitt, with Yow as an assistant. But the Soviets, who hadn't lost to the Americans in more than a quarter-century, didn't participate in Los Angeles. It took Yow's persistence — the same positive stubbornness she used to overcome cancer — to defeat the USSR. In 1986, Yow was named the head coach for the U.S. National Team that would compete in both the Goodwill Games and the World Championships. Both events were held in Moscow. The Americans whipped the Soviets by more than 20 points in both events, ending 29 years of futility against America's biggest international rival, outcomes that were so stunning to the home team that both the head coach and several Soviet National team players were dismissed afterwards. Over the next two years, Kay and Susan Yow and the team's other assistant, North Carolina head coach Sylvia Hatchell, traveled the world to scout the Soviet team, watching 30 games in Yugoslavia, Spain and Malaysia. Why was it so important? In 1974, when she was still the head coach at Elon, Yow had coached a team of American all-stars that lost to the Soviet Union 114-41, a loss she never forgot. She spent the ensuing years honing her international skills, coaching in the 1979 and '81 World University Games in Mexico and Yugoslavia. She took a select Ameri- can team to Cuba in 1981 and coached in the Pan-American Games in Venezuela in 1983. Summitt picked Yow out of a pool of U.S. coaches to be on the coaching staff for the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, but the Soviets boycotted, just as the Americans had done for the 1980 Moscow Olympics. After winning the two championships in 1986, Yow was determined to complete the mission she had started to make the U.S. the most dominant team in women's international basketball. But, as Yow liked to say, God has a funny sense of humor. Not only was she diagnosed with cancer, going through a radical modified mastectomy that removed her right breast and 20 lymph nodes, but her mother, Lib, was also diagnosed with lymphoma. "What I remember was her determination in the summer of 1987 to be well enough to coach in 1998," said NC State athletics director Debbie Yow, Kay's younger sister. "The decision to have a modified radical mastectomy was made, in part, to best ensure that could occur. The cancer would be eradicated, and she would be free to move forward in her life's work, including serving as head coach of the Olympics." Susan Yow thought their mother's diagnosis might have an even bigger impact on Kay than her own surgery. Susan almost stepped aside as an assistant to be with their mom through her nine months of successful treatment. "Kay just told me, 'Let's see how it November 2013 ■ 93 92-94.Kay Yow Olympics.indd 93 10/22/13 2:48 PM