North Carolina State University Athletics
ATHLETIC ACHIEVERS: Cristy Earnhardt McKinney
7/4/2005 12:00:00 AM | Pack Athletics
July 3, 2005
• The third in an occasional series of former Wolfpack athletes who have worked their way up to other top jobs in college and professional athletics, either in coaching, administration or some other facet of operations.
BY Tim Peeler
RALEIGH -- For all the things Kay Yow has accomplished in her career at NC State - do we really need to go through the list? - the veteran Wolfpack women's basketball coach will experience something new this coming season.
 |
Other Achievers
|
In April, Clemson named former Wolfpack basketball star Cristy McKinney as its women's basketball coach, setting up a head-to-head coaching battle that neither really wants, but each must face at least once a year.
"That's something that hasn't happened to me yet in major competition," Yow said. "It's going to be really different."
As forward Cristy Earnhardt, McKinney was one of Yow's first star players in the early days of the Wolfpack women's basketball program. From 1976-79, she scored 1,359 points and grabbed more than 600 rebounds. She once held the AIAW record for hitting 39 consecutive free throws, and during her career she shot nearly 80 percent of her free throws.
"She was at the ground level of building our program at NC State," Yow said of her former pupil. "She was a very strong competitor. She had a very strong desire to do well and succeed. She had a great turnaround jumpshot all out from the basket, particularly deadly from the baseline."
 Cristy Earnhardt had a deadly turnaround jumpshot from the baseline  |
|
"And I had never played volleyball in my life," she said. "Coach Yow was a good enough coach to make you competitive at whatever sport you were playing."
Besides a strong foundation of basketball knowledge, McKinney learned plenty about how to become a coach while playing for Yow.
"I learned a lot about how to treat people," McKinney said. "She is a really good people person, very even-handed. I learned not only basketball stuff, but also relationships and other things like that."
McKinney got her degree in math education in 1979 from NC State, then added a masters degree in physical education from Western Carolina.
After her playing career ended, McKinney went to work as a graduate assistant at Western Carolina, then to Western Kentucky. She was the head coach for two years at Montevallo, an NAIA school where she compiled a 27-28 record from 1984-86. She returned to Western Kentucky as an assistant for seven more years, from 1986-93.
In the spring of 1993, McKinney was named the head coach at Rice, where she built unprecedented success by leading the Owls to the only two NCAA appearances in school history. She was twice named the Western Athletic Conference Coach of the Year in her 12 seasons there. The Owls had nine straight winning seasons under McKinney, and averaged more than 20 victories over her last eight seasons at the school.
Last season, the Owls won a school-record 24 games and earned their second berth into the NCAA Tournament.
But McKinney also had another impressive accomplishment as a coach that caught the attention of Clemson administrators: 100 percent of her four-year players graduated from Rice.
So after veteran Tiger coach Jim Davis stepped down following an eight-win season, Clemson athletics director Terry Don Phillips got strong recommendations to hire McKinney, who had long hoped to return to the East Coast, close to her elderly parents.
"A friend of mine alerted us about Cristy, so we looked into her background," Phillips said. "She brings impeccable credentials as a person. She is a good fit to work with all of us in the Clemson athletics department."
McKinney knows she has a huge challenge in getting the Lady Tigers back to the upper half of the ACC. But she is excited about the challenge.
"I was an ACC fan growing up," she said. "Always have been, even when I was in Texas. When you grow up in this part of the country, that's natural if you like sports at all. I knew a little bit about Clemson, felt like it was a good school in a great place, in a great conference and a step up from where I was at Rice."
But to get the Tigers where she wants to take them, McKinney realizes she will have to go head-to-head with Yow and her alma mater.
"That will be tough," McKinney said. "She is such a great lady. We have stayed in touch. I have so much respect for her. I think we'll be all right."
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
