A beloved college basketball coach has lost her battle with cancer.
Hall of Fame N.C. State women’s basketball coach Kay Yow died on Saturday at the age of 66. Yow died after a long battle with breast cancer, which was first diagnosed in 1987.
Yow’s death comes mere weeks after she announced that she would not be able to coach N.C. State for the remainder of the 2008-09 season. In her career at N.C. State, Yow won over 700 games and reached the NCAA Tournament 20 times.
Yow is the second prominent N.C. State basketball coach to lose a battle with cancer. Jim Valvano, who coached the N.C. State men’s team to the national championship in 1983, died of bone cancer in 1993. In 2007, Yow established the Kay Yow/WBCA Cancer Fund in partnership with the Jimmy V Foundation.
