WRAL Sports Fan

North Carolina State University

NC State team visits Yow in hospital

By Tim Hall and Jeff Gravley

Jan 21, 2009

Raleigh, N.C. —  The NC State women's basketball team wanted to visit their coach. So before the Wolfpack took flight to Miami Wednesday night, they stopped by a local hospital to see coach Kay Yow.

The hardest part was having to leave.

Kay Yow, head coach of N.C. State University's women's basketball team, has been hospitalized, a university spokesman said Wednesday.

Yow, who is battling breast cancer, has not coached the Wolfpack since Dec. 22. On Jan. 7, the team announced that she would not return to the bench for the balance of the season.

N.C. State spokesman Mark Kimmel confirmed Wednesday that Yow had entered a hospital last week but would not say which hospital. Kimmel said Yow's oncologist, Dr. Mark Graham, recommended she be hospitalized.

When Yow announced she would not return, she said, “Stepping away from coaching is one of the hardest decisions I have had to make, but I have great confidence in the experienced staff I have been working with for such a long time and the character of everyone involved in the program to respond positively to my decision.”

Yow is under contract to NCSU through 2012.

Yow, 66, missed 16 games in the 2006-07 season. She stepped aside when her cancer reappeared in November 2006. She returned in January of that season, and her inspired Wolfpack club reached the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament.

She did not miss a game last year.

Yow was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1987 and has been a public figure in the battle against the disease ever since.

Stephanie Glance has stepped in as the interim head coach and coached the Wolfpack to overtime losses to Top 5 teams in consecutive games against North Carolina and Duke.