North Carolina State University Athletics
TIM PEELER: Goring Glad She Stuck Around
3/3/2007 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
BY TIM PEELER
GREENSBORO, N.C. – Gillian Goring was so frustrated, she was ready to quit basketball. She had been through so many injuries, so many setbacks, so many mornings of rehabilitation.
And here she was, at her third school in five years, just trying to figure out if she would be able to contribute. She was also homesick and lonely. So she went to talk to NC State head coach Kay Yow.
“When I was ready to give up, she was there for me,” Goring said. “She was there motivating me to take every thing day-by-day and trust in my faith.”
This was prior to last season, when Goring had just transferred into Yow’s program from the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith. She hadn’t contributed anything yet to the Wolfpack program.
Still, the Morvant, Trinidad, native who was once named the best high school player in the country was quickly running out of options. She decided to stick around, but her productivity was no better than her aching knees and ankles. Last year, she averaged just 4.6 points and 2.9 rebounds. Worse, she could barely stay on the court eight or nine minutes.
But something has changed in Goring in the last few months. First, she’s healthy again, even though the early part of her season was wiped out by back surgery she had in the preseason. She missed the Wolfpack’s first six games. She returned just about the time that Yow was informed of her recurrence of breast cancer.
Something about that diagnosis clicked with Goring, who originally signed with Connecticut but was forced to go to junior college for two seasons of competition and a red-shirt year.
“It just hit me: here I am complaining about all these nagging injuries and she is fighting cancer,” Goring said. “Why am I complaining?
“For her to be consoling me when I was hurting, when she was having such a rough time herself,” Goring said. “I just saw in her eyes how much she cared about me. I knew I had to pick it up and keep my promise to her.”
She started slowly, averaging just 5.1 points and 10.8 minutes per game. But on Jan. 26, when the Wolfpack hosted Boston College, Goring made the first start of her career. Fittingly, it was the “Hoops for Hope” game to raise breast cancer awareness. Hope was what Goring had been missing for so long.
Goring has started every game since. She’s averaged 12.7 points, 8.9 rebounds and, most importantly, 23.3 minutes per contest. Her performance – almost as much as the return of Kay Yow, which coincided with Goring’s appearance in the starting lineup – has been a key factor in the Wolfpack winning nine of its last 10 games, including Friday afternoon’s 76-49 whipping of Florida State in the quarterfinals of the 2007 ACC Tournament.
Goring has never had a better day on the court. She set new career highs with 22 points, 19 rebounds and 37 minutes played. She was basically unstoppable, as the Wolfpack advance to Saturday’s semifinal contest against top-ranked Duke.
“The encouraging thing for us is that she played the most minutes she has played in these recent games,” said associate head coach Stephanie Glance. “We saw some of the things she could do at this time last year, when she really started playing well. But then she had the back injury and we thought she might have to start over.”
But that hasn’t happened, primarily because Goring has spent so much time with her conditioning since she arrived from Arkansas. Team trainer Stephanie Aronson has made sure that all of Goring’s ailments aren’t because she’s out of shape.
“She came in with all of these injuries,” Aronson said. “What we noticed was that when she aggravated those injuries, it was usually late in the game or late in practice when she was tired. Our biggest focus through out the summer and the fall was just her conditioning so she wouldn’t get tired and put herself at risk of re-injury.
“At NC State, we have tremendous facilities and great resources. We utilized all of those. We were able a week or two out of her back surgery to get her in the pool and go at it, and that has paid off.”
And no one is happier to see it than Yow, who sees a particularly bright future for Goring, the top-rated prospect who almost never got a chance to shine.
“People expected great things from her, but she had all those injuries,” Yow said. “She had to take another route. I think one of my happiest moments will be later this spring. She is scheduled to graduate, she is playing the best basketball of her career, and she is going to get married in June.
“What more could we ask?”
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
