North Carolina State University Athletics
TIM PEELER: "There's Hope Everywhere"
2/19/2006 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Feb. 19, 2006
BY TIM PEELER
RALEIGH - With a simple statement, Kay Yow wrapped up what the inaugural "Hoops for Hope" game meant to her.
"There's hope everywhere," Yow said, following Sunday's game, in which the Wolfpack closed out its regular-season home schedule with a 65-57 loss to No. 4 Maryland.
Yow, who has been through two public battles with breast cancer, was surrounded by 7,781 spectators, which included many, many friends and former players, for the fund-raising and awareness-promoting game at Reynolds Coliseum.
Yow's father, Hilton, and her sister, Susan, sat behind the Wolfpack bench. Long-time friend and golfing legend Peggy Kirk Bell sat on press row. And more than 40 former players, from all-time scoring and rebounding leader Dr. Genia Beasley to Summer Erb, filled an entire second opposite the home bench.
Yow regretted that she missed what was the most important and emotional part of the entire event, which was organized by Wolfpack Sports Marketing and supported several corporate sponsors, including Time-Warner Cable.
Just minutes after NC State senior associate athletics director Nora Lynn Finch and Time-Warner's Tom Adams presented a check for $23,280 to the Triangle-area chapter of the Susan G. Komen Foundation for Cancer Research, a total of 56 breast cancer survivors marched onto the court, including one wearing a "Cancer Sucks" T-shirt and one who trumpeted her 20-plus years of being cancer-free.
Dozens of spectators who had survived breast cancer and had been affected by a family member with the disease were asked to stand.
The Maryland team even got involved, presenting a check for more than $3,800 that they raised from soliciting donations prior to a Maryland men's basketball game. In all, the event raised more than $27,000 for the Komen's Triangle chapter.
After the game, Yow thanked the spectators for being there. And then she was presented with a water-color painting from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., artist Todd Dawes, who spent the entire game completing a portrait of Yow and her players.
For Yow, the event was a high point in her drive to help inspire others who are fighting their battles with cancer.
"It always means a lot to me when the community gets involved and really shows their support for our program and for my own battle," Yow said. "They have done so much for me, in terms of cards and letters and prayers and calls, that I am so grateful for.
"I wish I could have shook every person's hand that was here, personally and say `Thank you' and told them what it meant to me. I hate halftime that I missed the best ceremony of all, all the survivors, as they came out. That's really special."
The event was also special to Billie McDowell, one of the five Wolfpack seniors who played her final home game at Reynolds. Billie's mother, Vera McDowell, has also battled breast cancer.
"It is a big motivator," McDowell said. "All those people are fighters. It's a very special event, and I am glad they did it."
Yow, in fact, was so happy with the event that she would like to see it become an annual part of the school's Senior Day, a fund-raising and awareness event to benefit the Komen Foundation. It would fill a void left by the Jimmy V Classic, the now departed four-team event that was played annually at the RBC Center.
"Since it has gotten too expensive to have the Jimmy V, we would like to replace it with the Susan G," Finch said. "We would like to see it become an annual event to raise awareness and to support the foundation."
Nothing would make Yow happier.
"I don't know if it is possible, but it would mean a lot to me," Yow said. "Just being able to bring so many people together, with the common interests of basketball and raising awareness for cancer, is special.
"And, as I told my team during the game, we need to show all these people how to keep fighting, how to keep encouraging and keep inspiring people in the battles they are facing."
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
