Kay Phi Yow

Mechelle Voepel has an excellent article about Kay Yow, her players and how some are paying tribute to her:

You’ve heard/read a lot of Kay Yow stories in the last few months after her death. But as you read this one, keep in mind Gardner’s situation. Many coaches maintain good or at least decent relationships with players who excelled for them for four seasons. However, Yow cared for and remembered everyone who ever went through her program.

“Think of it, 34 years _ that’s a long span of time and a lot of young women whom she impacted,” Gardner said. “She was a mother to all of us, even those of us who had mothers and had good relationships with them. We still felt like we were Coach Yow’s kids, too.”

Kay Yow

From the AP:

Few coaches won more, none won more gracefully

By JIM LITKE – 3 hours ago

Kay Yow was around at the start of the debate. It's just one measure of how influential she was to women's sports that three decades later, even at the moment of her passing at age 66, Yow's insistence that how you win was as important as whether you win never seemed more relevant.

She was two years out of graduate school and just beginning to carve out a career as women's basketball coach and athletics coordinator at tiny Elon College in North Carolina when the groundbreaking piece of legislation known as Title IX was passed in 1972. But to pioneers like Yow, just as important as the promise of equal opportunity was the sense of responsibility women owed one another in developing a game of their own.

Some argued in favor of following the model long provided by men, focusing on competition, skill development and winning at all costs, the faster the better. Others argued for taking the high road, stressing cooperation, character-building and slow growth.

Both by example and through the force of her personality, during her long tenure on the bench at North Carolina State and her long fight against cancer, Yow proved over and over there was a middle ground. Few coaches won more and none, arguably, exhibited more grace doing it.