WRAL Sports Fan

North Carolina State University

Fowler: Yow wanted Glance named successor

By Jason Jennings

Feb 25, 2009

North Carolina State Athletics Director Lee Fowler wants a nationwide search to find the school’s next women’s basketball coach—despite the wishes of the late Kay Yow.

Addressing the Raleigh Sports Club on Wednesday, Fowler said when Yow was diagnosed with breast cancer again in 2007, she had requested the school name associate head coach Stephanie Glance as her successor.

“At that time, I went to the chancellor. I talked to the [board of] trustees. We felt like that’s not something we really do at N.C. State, where we name the successor for somebody—not in the dean’s office, not in the head of departments, not any of those things,” Fowler said. “We always do a search.”

Glance has served as the Wolfpack’s interim head coach since Jan. 6, when Yow stepped down for the season with her health problems. Yow died on Jan. 24 after a long bout with breast cancer. The Hall of Famer became the first full-time women’s basketball coach at N.C. State when she was hired in 1975.

N.C. State posted the job for the next women’s coach on Feb. 9 and is required to keep the opening posted for 30 days. Fowler hopes to have a new coach named by April 1.

“I think it’s very important to make sure we get the best person,” Fowler told WRAL. “If [Stephanie Glance] is the best person, it will give her credibility in the end that she went through the process and was still the best person picked.”