The Gustavus women’s basketball team will host a Pink Zone event in memory of Kay Yow, former head basketball coach at North Carolina State University, this Saturday, Feb. 14 against St. Thomas at 1:00 pm. Coach Mickey Haller and her squad will be asking fans to donate to the Kay Yow FundTM to fight breast cancer sponsored by the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association.
The Gustavus coaching staff will wear pink during the game and the players will wear pink accessories including hair ribbons, shoe laces, wrist bands and head bands. The team is also inviting its fans to wear pink for the game and the officials will be using pink whistles to support the fight against breast cancer.
Information will also be available about opportunities to support breast cancer research as well as literature about the disease and encouraging women to get checkups for early detection.
The late Kay Yow, former North Carolina State University head women’s basketball coach, was a past president and founding member of the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA), and a galvanizing voice for the Association.Yow was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 1987, and passed away on January 24, 2009, after facing her third bout with the disease. In her 38 years as a head coach at the college-level, Yow was one of only six Division I head women’s basketball mentors to achieve 700 career victories. Yow was also the head coach of the 1988 US Olympic Team that won the gold medal in Seoul.
The Kay Yow/WBCA Cancer FundTM was announced on December 3, 2007, during the Jimmy V Classic. The Kay Yow/WBCA Cancer FundTM, in partnership with The V Foundation for Cancer Research, will raise money in the fight against women’s cancers. It was appropriate to announce this Fund during the Jimmy V Classic because of the connection between the late Jim Valvano, former North Carolina State head men’s basketball coach, and the late Kay Yow, former North Carolina State head women’s basketball coach. The Fund was the first women’s initiative that the WBCA has chosen in its 28-year history, and is also the newest women’s initiative for The V Foundation.