North Carolina State University Athletics
TIM PEELER: Inspired Dickens Excels in NCAAs
3/20/2007 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
RALEIGH, N.C. – When Kay Yow first saw Marquetta Dickens play at the coach’s summer camp in Reynolds Coliseum, she immediately told one of her assistants: “We have to recruit this player.”
Dickens had just completed the sixth grade.
Yow kept her promise to keep an eye on the young player from Tarboro, N.C. It was fairly easy to do since Dickens’ hero and role model, Tynesha Lewis, also of Tarboro, had just committed to play for Yow’s Wolfpack.
By the time Dickens had graduated from high school, she was a nationally ranked player who had led her team to the 2-A state title game and was named North Carolina’s Miss Basketball in the 2-A classification.
There was never any doubt who she would play for, even though she had been to other camps at Tennessee and East Carolina.
“I came here the first time and I remember meeting Coach Yow,” Dickens said. “She just has this way with words. I fell in love with the team and with the coaching staff.”
Dickens arrived four years ago with unpolished talent and unbridled enthusiasm on the court. Sometimes, she went a little overboard and lost focus. Other times, she was hard to stop, even when playing out of position as an undersized power forward or a bigger shooting guard. Now a senior, Dickens is one the Wolfpack’s most versatile player, one who has started in 72 of her 121 games.
She never had a game quite like Sunday’s 84-52 victory over Robert Morris, when she scored a career-high 25 points, making 10 of her 15 shots from the field and five of seven free throws. She also had four assists and three steals, in helping the Wolfpack advance to the second round of the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2001. State plays Baylor at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday in a second-round game at the RBC Center. Tickets are available here.
“It’s great to see Q’s hard work pay off in a game like she had yesterday,” Yow said. “She made great decisions, her shot-selection was excellent. She continues to develop in all areas of her game. Decision-making is what you see the most improvement in.”
Dickens says she has benefited from Yow’s guidance over the last dozen years. She has been through difficult times, long before she arrived at NC State, and long before Yow was diagnosed with a recurrence of breast cancer.
In August, 1999, Dickens was at home with her family when Hurricane Floyd roared through eastern North Carolina. She was at a restaurant in the nearby town of Princeville, where her grandmother, Delia Perkins, was the mayor. She was just about to order a pork chop sandwich when the lights went out. A few minutes later, someone came and said “The dike has collapsed.”
About 600 homes were destroyed in the ensuing floods in the town of 1,900 people. Dickens remembers panicking about her grandmother’s safety. Like Yow, Perkins was a strong person, concerned more about others than herself.
“She didn’t want to leave until all the people in the town were safe,” Dickens said. “She lost her house and our church we attended. But she persevered, and I love her for that, and for the love she had for what she was doing.”
Perkins helped oversee the rebuilding of historic Princeville, the first town in America incorporated by African-Americans.
For Dickens, there are a lot of similarities in the way her grandmother and Yow have handled difficult situations. It was only natural to see a divine hand guiding her to learn lessons from both.
“I like to think that this is what God has planned for me,” Dickens said. “He placed me here since I was in the sixth grade. I just feel like He has a purpose for all this, whether it is moving forward in life or continuing to learn from Coach Yow. She is not a person who just teaches you something on the court. She teaches you life lessons off the court.”
Teaching those lessons to players like Dickens and the other five seniors on the Wolfpack’s roster has sustained Yow through her health difficulties over the last two and a half years. The result is a team that doesn’t have a star, but is buoyed by the principles they have learned from their Hall of Fame coach.
“We talk a lot about focus, strength, courage and determination,” Yow said. “I think our seniors have grasped those qualities really well, and that’s why this team is really special to me.
“When adversity happens in life, you have to find a way to overcome it.”
Dickens learned that lesson in Princeville, and it has been reinforced almost every day this season.
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
