kay yow kicked ass. a lot.

if there was one person i thought could kick cancer's ass from here to thursday, it was nc state women's basketball coach kay yow. and she did, *three* times, starting in 1987, the same year i started as a student at nc state. through her 38-year coaching career and her decades-long battle with breast cancer, she became an icon of strength and courage for women across the country.

among the many times she kicked ass:

• 1975 - nc state university hires yow as associate athletic director of all the university's women's sports and as coach of the one-season-old women's basketball team, as well as the softball and volleyball teams. she remains the coach of the women's basketball team for the rest of her life.



• 1981 - helps to found the women's basketball coaching association (wbca).



• 1986 - leads the u.s. women's basketball team to their first victory over the soviet union at the goodwill games, and to a gold medal at the 1986 world basketball championship.



• 1988 - recovers from bout one with breast cancer to coach the u.s. women's basketball team to olympic gold in seoul. she is the first women's coach to win both the world championship and the olympics.



• 1998 - coaches the nc state women's basketball team to the ncaa elite eight® and final four®. over the course of her 38-year career, her teams won four atlantic coast conference tournament championships and earned 20 ncaa tournament bids.



• 2000 - is inducted into the women's basketball hall of fame.



• 2002 - is one of the first five women to be inducted into the national basketball hall of fame.



• 2002 - launches jimmy v classic women's tournament in 2002 to raise money for breast cancer research.



• 2004 - battles the cancer a second time.



• 2006 – launches "hoops for hope" game to raise money for breast cancer research.



• 2006 – coaches her 1000th college game and becomes the first acc women's coach to record 650 victories. by the end of her career in 2009, she is one of only six women's basketball coaches to top 700 collegiate victories.



• 2006 - battles the cancer a third time.



• 2007 - establishes the kay yow/wbca cancer fund.



• 2008 - continues to coach and support her players in spite of a fourth occurrence of breast cancer.

in one of her hall of fame induction speeches, she said, "my career has been made possible by many people who have dug wells from which I have drunk and by many who have built fires by which I have been warmed." even as she humbly gave props to others, she gave as much to those wells and fires as she got. with her passing today, she leaves an amazing legacy of courage, dignity, empowerment, and perseverance.