North Carolina State University Athletics
UNCG Awards Honorary Degree To Coach Yow
5/16/2008 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
GREENSBORO, N.C. Three North Carolinians a basketball coaching legend, a former judge who is now a college president, and the state’s former poet laureate will receive honorary degrees from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro during its 116th commencement at 10 a.m. Friday, May 16, in the Greensboro Coliseum.
The recipients are:
Sandra Kay Yow, women’s basketball coach at N.C. State University, Doctor of Humane Letters.
Thomas W. Ross, president of Davidson College, Doctor of Laws.
Fred D. Chappell, North Carolina poet laureate emeritus and UNCG professor emeritus of English and creative writing, Doctor of Fine Arts.
Yow has been women’s basketball coach at NC State University for more than 30 years, but she has been an inspiration to the state and nation for her valiant battle with breast cancer. A native of Gibsonville, she started her college coaching in 1972 at Elon College. Yow was named the first head coach of the NCSU Wolfpack women in 1975. She has a college career record of 729-337, the fifth best in women’s basketball, and a 672-318 record in 33 seasons at NCSU. She led the Wolfpack to the 1998 Final Four and has taken NCSU to the NCAA tournament 15 of the last 19 years, including nine “Sweet 16” appearances. In the Atlantic Coast Conference, she holds five regular-season titles and four tournament championships. In addition to coach-of-the-year awards, she is the only women's coach to win a Gold Medal at both the Olympics (1988) and World Championships (1986). In 1987, Yow was diagnosed with breast cancer. She has overcome the illness and has helped raise $1 million for the Lineburger Cancer Institute at UNC-CH. An East Carolina University graduate, she earned a master’s degree at UNCG.
Ross’s most recent challenge came last August when he became Davidson’s 17th president, after three decades of leadership and public service in North Carolina. In addition to serving as a superior court judge and director of the Administrative Office of the Courts, he was executive director of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation from 2001 to 2008. He has been recognized nationally for his work as chair of the Sentencing and Policy Advisory Committee. That work revised the state court system’s sentencing guidelines, and for his efforts, Ross received the William H. Rehnquist Award for Judicial Excellence from the National Center for State Courts. Chief Justice Rehnquist, now deceased, presented the award personally to Ross in the Great Hall of the Supreme Court. In 1999, Ross was appointed as director of the state’s Administrative Office of the Courts. He served on the UNCG Board of Trustees from 2003 to 2007, and as chair from 2005 to 2007. A Davidson graduate, he earned his law degree at UNC-Chapel Hill. Ross will also be this year’s commencement speaker.
Chappell retired from UNCG in 2004 as the Burlington Industries Professor of English emeritus, where he had taught advanced composition, poetry and fiction in the MFA Creative Writing Program since 1964. He is the author of seven novels, 16 volumes of poetry, a book of essays and two books of short stories. A native of Canton, Chappell was North Carolina Poet Laureate from 1997 to 2002. His major literary honors include the 1999 Leila Lenore Heasley Prize, presented by Lyon College; the 1996 Aiken Taylor Award in Modern American Poetry, which is presented by the Sewanee Review; the 1993 T.S. Eliot Award for Creative Writing from the Ingersoll Foundation in Rockford, Ill.; the 1986 O. Max Gardner Award from the UNC system; and as joint recipient of the 1985 Bollingen Prize in Poetry from the Yale University Library. In 2002, he received the Mihai Eminescu Medal from the Republic of Moldova. In 2005, he received the Thomas Wolfe Prize from UNC-Chapel Hill. Chappell holds B.A. and M.A. degrees from Duke University.
