Today, college basketball has lost one of it's great coaches but the human race has lost a giant. Coach Kay Yow's legacy will be someone that faced great personal pain and suffering with class and dignity and passed on the gift of courage to all those who knew her. This morning she passed away after several courageous battles with breast cancer.It was during March Madness of 2007 and our Lady Tigers were in the Regionals in Fresno, California. Joining us was Connecticut, Florida State and Coach Yow's NC State Wolfpack. I can vividly remember watching an ESPN feature on Coach Yow with my wife in the hotel. It spoke of Coach Yow actually taking a chemo treatment while on the charter plane with her team to participate in the regionals. Sherie, my wife, simply commented, "What an amazing women."
Truer words were never spoken. Three months later Sherie was diagnosed with breast cancer. At the Final Four in Tampa in 2008, both Sherie and I had the opportunity to speak at Kay Yow Foundation event, sharing the stage with this amazing person. My wife had the opportunity in front of Coach Yow to tell what an inspiration she had been as Sherie went through her own personal battle.
This will also be her legacy -- inspiring us all to be better, stronger, more giving -- to live the good fight. As I spoke at the Kay Yow Foundation event last spring, I said that often when a loved one is stricken with such a serious illness that we often find ourselves questioning God as to why...why must this person have to fight this battle. But I know why God chose Coach Yow. He went out and found a strong, gracious, courageous warrior that would inspire thousands with the same disease. God chose a woman that would inspire us all to work towards finding a cure for such a tragic disease.
If you are the coach of a girls basketball team, the odds are amazing that at least one of your players will one day hear those difficult words, "You have breast cancer." Are you a spouse, or maybe the parents of daughters? Then learn all you can about early detection and find ways to give to those organizations that are working hard to find a cure as well as to comfort and aid those that have already been diagnosed. There are numerous organizations out there doing wonderful things...of course the organization of choice both Sherie and myself is the Kay Yow Foundation which is a branch of the Jimmy V Foundation. For more information please click on the link below:
Video report on Coach Yow from ESPN.com
A wonderfully written story by Michelle Vopel
