North Carolina State University Athletics
Yow To Be Inducted Into FIBA Hall of Fame
8/31/2009 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
GENEVA, Switzerland - Including legendary USA coaches Kay Yow and Pete Newell, as well as Olympic gold medallist Oscar Robertson, the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) announced on Aug. 31 the list of 11 inductees for the FIBA Hall of Fame Class of 2009.
Yow led USA basketball teams to gold medal showings in the 1986 Goodwill Games, 1986 World Championship and the 1988 Olympics, while Newell coached Roberston and the 1960 U.S. Olympic Team to a flawless 8-0 record and the gold medal.
2009 INDUCTEES:
Mr. Artenik ARABADJIAN, Referee Bulgaria
Ms. Jacky CHAZALON, Player France
Mr. Pedro FERRÁNDIZ, Coach Spain
Mr. Ricardo GONZÁLEZ, Player Argentina
Mr. Al RAMSAY, Contributor Australia
Mr. Oscar ROBERTSON, Player USA
2009 PHOSTUMOUS INDUCTEES:
Mr. Luis MARTÍN, Contributor Argentina
Mr. Pete NEWELL, Coach USA
Mr. Ubiratan PEREIRA, Player Brazil
Mr. Marcel PFEUTI, Referee Switzerland
Ms. Kay YOW, Coach USA
The official enshrinement ceremony of the 2009 Class of the FIBA Hall of Fame will take place on Sept. 20 in Katowice, Poland, coinciding with the Finals of the 2009 EuroBasket, and on Sept. 22 in the FIBA Hall of Fame located in Alcobendas, Spain.
Coach Yow was a member of nine USA Basketball staffs over a 10-year span, the pinnacle of her USA career came when she led the 1986 USA World Championship and 1988 U.S. Olympic teams to gold medals. In the two FIBA major competitions, Yow led USA teams to two gold medals and a 9-0 overall record.
It took the USA team five successful trips to the floor of Chamsil Gymnasium to win the coveted gold medal in Seoul, South Korea in 1988 and those five contests were not all easy. The U.S. opened its Olympic competition with a hard fought 87-81 victory over a determined team from Czechoslovakia. Three days later, the Americans went over the century mark for the first time in USA women’s Olympic basketball history, recording a convincing 101-74 victory over Yugoslavia. The USA claimed a 94-79 win over China to advance on to the semifinal round. Meeting the Soviet Union, a team the USA women had never defeated in Olympic competition, the USA’s pressure defense and fast breaking offense powered the American women to a surprisingly easy 102-88 victory. Advancing to the gold medal finals, the USA faced a rematch against Yugoslavia and from there the Americans cruised to a 77-70 gold medal victory. The U.S. squad averaged a then record best 92.2 points a game and won by an average margin of 13.8 points a game.
In 1986, Yow helped the USA defeat the Soviet Union not once, but twice in the same summer. The first victory came in July at the 1986 Goodwill Games that were played in Moscow. The second victory was in August in the gold medal game of the prestigious 1986 FIBA World Championship that also took place in Moscow.
Although the women’s World Championship was slated for later in the summer, the inaugural Goodwill Games competition was significant in international basketball for two reasons—It was the first major event in 1986, and it offered the first match-up between the USA and the USSR since the two teams had met in the 1983 World Championship gold medal game.
Rolling to a 4-0 record at the ’86 Goodwill Games, the U.S. women faced the also undefeated Soviet Union women in a historic contest. The Soviet women, who had dominated international basketball for nearly three decades having compiled an incredible 152-2 record in major international competitions (Olympics, World Championships and European Championships). Their two losses were to Bulgaria in the 1958 European Championship and to the U.S. in the 1957 World Championship, and they had never lost a game in the Soviet Union! Making matters worse, the Soviet’s also had the decades’ most dominant player, 7’2” Ivilana Semenova. A capacity crowd of 7,000 filled Druzhba Sports Center for the game and with 9:25 left in the opening half the Soviets led 21-19. But the U.S. defense came to life and the Americans went on a 20-4 scoring rampage to take command 39-25 at halftime. The Soviets never recovered as the USA sailed to the remarkable 83-60 victory.
A little over a month later, the American squad opened World Championship play by winning its first six games in easy fashion, with the closest score being a 15 point victory over Hungary. The World Championship gold medal contest was a rematch of the Goodwill Games title contest with the USA and USSR both owning perfect 6-0 records. Yow’s USA squad opened with eight straight points and never looked back, recording a 108-88 victory.
The USA’s double gold medal effort of 1986 marked the end of one basketball dynasty and the beginning of another.
Yow also led the USA to a 7-1 record and a silver medal at the 1981 World University Games and was head mentor of the 1981 USA Select Team. As a USA assistant coach, she was part of coaching staffs that won gold at the 1984 Olympics; the 1984 R. William Jones Cup (8-0); the 1983 Pan American Games (5-0) and the 1979 World University Games (7-0).
As a collegiate coach, Yow won 737 games, No. 6 on the women’s career list. She coached NC State to four Atlantic Coast Conference tournament championships, 20 appearances in the NCAA tournament and one Final Four, in 1998.
She received the Wooden award as the Division I women’s basketball coach of the year in 2000 and was inducted as the fifth women’s coach in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2002. Her career record was a stellar 737-344 (.682 win percentage).
Yow died on Jan. 24, 2009, she was 66.
