| | Associated Press
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- Kay Yow had no basketball role models
growing up. On Saturday, she stood in a hall full of them.
The longtime North Carolina State and 1988 Olympic coach was
inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame with 23 other
coaches, players and key contributors to the sport.
"I was an all-state player in high school (in Gibsonville,
N.C.), but there was no opportunity to play in college. There was
no real career in coaching for women at that time," Yow said. "I
mean there were no role models. There was nothing there. And it was
a way of life.
"I grew up at a time that I think that people accepted the way
it was, more or less. We answered questions in those days, we
didn't question answers."
She graduated from East Carolina in 1960 with an English degree,
later to start her coaching career at the high school level. It was
16 years before the first U.S. Olympic women's team.
"Times have changed," she said.
In 1998, Yow became just the third coach in women's basketball
to win more than 500 games at one university. On Saturday, she
joined the other two -- Tennessee's Pat Summitt and Texas' Jody
Conradt -- in the hall.
"This definitely is the group that had to pave the way," said
another new inductee, Betty Jaynes, CEO of the Women's Basketball
Coaches Association. "We are the ones that know what it was like
not to have anything, as far as money, facilities, uniforms,
support. That's what makes this class great and why I am so honored
to be part of it."
Another inductee, Louisiana State and Olympic coach Sue Gunter,
agreed.
"There is a very common bond, because we have all been addicted
to this sport," she said. "Everyone you talk to here has a
passion for this sport and it carries over. It is a sisterly
fraternity."
The Class of 2000 included eight coaches and eight Olympians.
Some are both.
"I feel very humbled by the fact that I would even be
considered for induction," said new Baylor coach Kim
Mulkey-Robertson, a longtime assistant at Louisiana Tech who was
coached by Yow in the 1984 Olympics and by another new inductee,
Fran Garmon, in the 1983 Pan American Games.
Nancy Dunkle, a three-time Kodak All-American at Cal
State-Fullerton, was a member of that first Olympic team in 1976.
They came home from Montreal with a silver medal.
"None of us really planned for that, it just happened," Dunkle
said. "But I definitely feel that we laid very good groundwork for
what has developed since."
"The girls today are faster, can jump higher and they know the
game more," said Cindy Noble Hauserman, a Kodak All-American at
Tennessee and two-time Olympian in 1980-84. "That's probably more
because they start at age 6. I was a freshmen in high school before
I even picked up a basketball."
Hall officials say the large, second-year class reflects a sense
of urgency in trying to make up lost time -- the women's game traces
its roots to 1901. Next year's class will have only 10 inductees,
and future years perhaps even fewer.
Other inductees: Alline Banks Sprouse, AAU All-American in the
1940s; Mildred Barnes, former chair of the U.S. Olympic Women's
Basketball Committee; former Baltimore-Western High coach Breezy
Bishop; E. Wayne Cooley, executive secretary of Iowa Girls High
School Athletic Union; Chicago-Marshall High coach Dorothy Gaters;
the late Rita Horky, five-time AAU All-American; George S. Killian,
former president of the International Basketball Federation, and
Illinois Center College coach Lorene Ramsey.
Also, Patricia Roberts, Tennessee's first Kodak All-American in
1977; Sue Rojcewicz, 1976 Olympian and member of the first Kodak
All-America team in 1975; Immaculata College and Olympics coach
Cathy Rush; Juliene Simpson, co-captain of 1976 Olympic team; Boris
Stankovic, secretary general of Federation of International
Basketball Association; Olga Soukharnova, member of gold
medal-winning Soviet team in 1976 and 1980; Katherine Washington,
six-time AAU All-American in 1950s; former Wayland Baptist and
Spearman High coach Dean Weese, and Marcy Weston, NCAA national
coordinator of women's basketball officiating. | |
ALSO SEE
Hoop pioneers join elite sorority
|
