Sandra Kay Finally Falls to Cancer

Sandra Kay Yow went to be with the lord on Saturday Morning January 24th 2009. It ended a nearly twenty two year battle which Kay fought until her last breath.

I had meet Kay Yow several times at Wolfpack meetings over the years,but I never appreciated her until a June in 1993.

At the time I was working for a radio station in Fayetteville. I had just been named the radio voice of the Fayetteville Generals baseball team. There were no games being carried on the radio, but I was my job to create for the station the sponsorship to get the games on the air.

We were also a member of the Wolfpack Sports Network. There was a radio meeting at Carter-Finley Stadium for all affiliates to hear about the upcoming football and basketball seasons.

Just about five minutes before the meeting started the phone rang in Finley fieldhouse and it was Dick Sheridan saying that he would not be able to attend.

He was suppose to be the main speaker to get everyone fired up about the up coming football season. In walks Kay Yow, she is going to fill in for him.

After a few minutes of radio talk about the network Kay stood in front of our group and gave the most inspiring speech that I have ever heard. She talked Wolfpack and how great it was to be a Wolfpacker for thirty minutes.

When it was all over I was ready to play football for the pack.

As we have found out that is the way Kay was all the time. I have met her through the years several times and each time it was like she was so glad to see me, even though I knew as she was talking to me she probably had no Idea who I was. She might have recognized the face but no way she could remember my name.

By the way that day when Sheridan had called to say he wasn't going to be able to be at the meeting was the day that he resigned as football coach at State.

N C State hired Kay Yow to be the women's basketball coach before Title IX was even thought about. In the old days there was no NCAA women's basketball but North Carolina had a State Championship that just about every four year college play in.

Elon had won the Championship twice with Kay as coach. Willis Casey then Athletic director at N C State hired Kay to really start the basketball for women at N C State.

N C State dominated women's basketball in North Carolina until 1982 when the NCAA mandated by Title IX started women's basketball where all schools had to give women equal number of scholarships as men.

Kay was so well respected as a coach she was an assistant coach to Pat Summit in the 1984 Olympics and she was the head coach in 1988.

August 5th 1987 Kay was told of her breast cancer. By the time the season started in December she was on the court coaching.

Off and on for the next twenty some odd years Kay fought the fight the way she talked to us that day in June 1993. She gave it all she had.

The only women's basketball coach in N C State history has gone on to be with the lord. She leaves foot prints too big for most of us to even attempt to step in.

But, she has effected every one of us in some way.

God Bless you Kay Yow.

Timing is Everything

Sometimes in life you stumble into something because you were there at the right time. The"early bird gets the worm".

There are other times when you are primed to take the top prize and the rug comes out from under you. 2008 football team would be a prime example.

This years boys basketball team has had a hard time finding itself. Last night the Gryphons without TaShawn Mabry for the 4th time this year gave a good battle but came up short at Fike by a 63-58 score. This evens the Gryphons at 8-8 and most importantly and drops them to 1-2 in conference play and they find themselves two games behind league leaders Fike and Nash Central who are three and zero.

This team has had a hard time getting any timing and practice time is limited as the season barrels toward the end.

Yesterday I was at the conference Swim regular season final meet of the year.

Though the so called football, basketball, and baseball are considered to be the glamor sports. The real athletes are however working out daily in their sports without much fanfare.

Those runners who can run in cross country, wrestlers who have to go face to face against someone else, and swimmers who even swimming fifty yards a major task are just as good of athletes as the major sports if not better.

Some of the best athletes in the NEW-6 were swimming at the Harrison YMCA yesterday. It is a shame for all of us who profess to be sports announcers, or reporters that the names of those are not in the head lines like the big three sports.

I guess everyone has heard by now of the girls high school game in which one team won 100-zero. The school is so embarrassed they have asked to forfeit the game.

I ask why wasn't there one person at the game willing to put a stop to this travesty. Now that it is over I don't think forfeiting is the correct answer. Suspending the coach for the rest of the season would be better as far as I am concerned.

A coach is like the captain of a ship, he is responsible for everything that happens. Having a full court press even with the end of the bench in the game and the score 98-0 is the coach fault.

The players on the team earned the victory when they made the score 2-0. Don't blame them and take away a victory because the leader of the team wanted to set some record.

FIRE THE COACH

Basketball Push Begins

The second half of the high school basketball season takes off starting tonight.

The Gryphons have two big games in the next twenty four hours.

Tonight a trip to Fike and they follow that up with a Pinetops ride Saturday Night.

We will know a lot about the direction of the conference standing by midnight Saturday Night.

The next home game is set for Tuesday when Nash Central comes calling.

Yours truly will be working the PA for the Nash Central games as Wayne Wallace has a PA night at NC Wesleyan that night. This is the only conflict the entire season of NCW and a Gryphon home basketball game.

The conference swim meet is today at 4pm at Harrison Family YMCA.

Next Thursday night is the football banquet. It is being held separate this year from the other fall sports due to the fact the fall sports awards night was the Tueday before the Eastern Final football game.

The conference has a rule that they will not vote on any sports awards like all conference until after all teams have finished their seasons. Sounds to me like a good rule maybe the NFL needs to follow. Since the Gryphon football team was still playing when the fall sports awards were scheduled the football team needed to have their awards night.


Is it just me:


Has anybody noticed that Wake Forest basketball player Al-Faroud Aminu looks like Former Greensboro basketball player and Kansas player Danny Manning. I know Deacon fans hope they he can win the Deacs a National Championship like Manning did at KU.

There is still hope for the Deacs. I heard the other night that the last six years that the last undefeated team in the NCAA had all at least made it to the National Championship game. After the Wake loss there is no undefeated college basketball teams.

The Super bowl has a lot of potential to be one of the greatest games ever or one of the most lopsided ones.

During the regular season the super bowl teams played five like opponents with Pittsburgh winning three while Arizona was 1-4.

JJ Arrington right now is a question mark whether he will be ready to play by Super Bowl Sunday. Arrington hurt his knee is Sunday's win over Philadelphia. Yesterday was the first practice for Arizona for the Super Bowl and Arrington did not practice.

North Carolina women's basketball team was suffering a hang over from their thrashing that they received Monday night from U Conn. Last night in a conference game at Georgia Tech they suffered their second straight loss.

Basketball is a sport where in college you play at least twice a week. Whenever you get on a roll and finally lose a game, the Carolina Women had won 16 straight until the U Conn loss,
sometimes you lose a couple of games before you get back on track.

Hope to see you at th YMCA at the swim meet!

Wake fails to Win One As #1

The Demon Deacons of Wake Forest riding high after being named the #1 team in the country in college basketball on Monday, played the first half as if they kept waiting for Virginia Tech to fold up under the pressure of playing #1.

Wake had no offensive movement in the first half and their defense played as if they were a bull fighter with their OLE' defense. By the time they woke up the Hokies had knocked off the #1 team 78-71 despite shooting only 50% from the foul line the last three minutes.

Wake will not win any games as the #1 team this go round due to the fact they don't play again until next Wednesday and there will be a new #1 come Monday.

This game was eerily like BC's upset of Carolina just a couple of weeks ago. The underdog playing great and the home team waiting for the other to fail.

I just want to tell all Clemson fans that there is hope. New Jersey Institute of Technology who hasn't beaten any body in 51 games dating back to February of 2007 won last night. Did that streak help Clemson? Sorry no way.

Carolina did their annual plastering of Clemson in Chapel Hill last night to beat them at the Hill for the 54th straight time. A five point game at the half was never a game in the second half.

Can you imagine the pressure that Clemson's players feel every time they head to Chapel Hill? I doubt if there is as much pressure on them to win as there is on Carolina players. Who wants to be a member of the first team to let Clemson beat them?

I will get a chance to add to my repertoire of sporting events covered Friday afternoon as I will be at the Harrison Family YMCA to cover the New-6 conference swim meet. The first dip in the pool begins at 4pm.

This at some point in time the meet will appear on the Stretchlon Sports Show.

Basketball returns tomorrow night for the Gryphon basketball teams as they travel to Fike. The way the season is unfolding it looks like the Fike boys are the team to beat in conference play. Before the game Fike High school will honor their 1984 State championship team on their 25th anniversary.

The way the schedule has worked out this year taking a Christmas break and only a couple of weeks later taking a semester break for testing can't help any team that is trying to establish a flow.

Let's wait and see the results of the next couple of weeks and see who stays hot, who gets hot, or who stumbles and bumbles the rest of the way.

Due to this Christmas/Testing break the Gryphons will play Saturday night at SW Edgecombe to make up for having played only two games in the last 14 days.

Life's Odd Turns

This morning our nation is full of hope that our new President can lead us into a good chapter in American history.

I find it very odd that during our new president's first slip up as President he is rescued by an enemy. During the oath of office, President Obama forgot the words of the oath. Chief Justice Roberts repeated the line to help the new President.

Back in 2003 during Roberts' conformation hearing and vote Senator Barack Obama voted against Roberts as Chief Justice. Yesterday was the first time in American history that the Chief Judge swore into office a man who had voted against that judge.

Barack Obama was seconds from being officially President when the first compromise of his Presidency occurred. He is off to a good start.

In Sports:

N.C. State gave Duke all it could handle for 32 minutes.

I see the basic problem for Duke is it is slow a foot in the power game. Ben McCauley for N.C. State has done very well against Duke in his career.

When McCauley touches the ball, State plays much better than when he doesn't. The Wolfpack led 50-46 with eight minutes to play in the game. McCauley goes to the bench and never returns.

State scored six points the last eight minutes while Duke scored 27. Where's McCauley?

Duke's issue to me is when it plays someone who has a power front line, it has have no defense for it. The one thing I have always liked about Coach K is he pressures the ball 30 feet from the basket. That helps hide their weaknesses inside. A halfcourt game is when the front line must shine. The NCAA tournament most of the time is a halfcourt game.

Tonight, Clemson has about as good of a chance to break the losing streak in Chapel Hill as it ever has. Clemson has lost a kzillion straight games in Chapel Hill. I think tonight's game will have the same result, but it will be close.

The Carolina Hurricanes go into the All Star break on a two game winning streak. If the playoffs started today they would miss the playoffs.

Boy, this Super Bowl game could be a dilly. I am having trouble deciding what I think is going to happen. These teams are Mutt and Jeff. Completely opposite of each other. I'm glad this game has an extra week to make my pick!

Snow's Coming Down

I realize that I can't hardly remember back that far any more, but I don't recall that while I was growing up going to school that we ever got a snow on a Saturday or Sunday, which we would have missed a school day if there had been school that day.

Nash-Rocky Mount Schools are already closed due to the semester break which runs through Thursday. I wonder how many kids will be glad it's snowing when they realize that they didn't have to go to school anyway?

Last night the No. 1 and No. 2 women's college basketball teams met in Chapel Hill and UConn showed everyone why it is ranked No. 1. Carolina never had a chance to get any rhythm going and suffered a 30-point loss at home.

In a matter on eight days N.C. State's women have played Carolina to overtime in Chapel Hill and last night took No. 4 Duke to overtime and loss to the Devils, 61-58. The Wolfpack women are playing hard for Coach Yow who continues fighting hard for her life.

The last five years the NFL playoffs has become a wide open affair when you are a lot better off being the underdog.

This year may be the the ultimate underdog year, however as the Arizona Cardinals who haven't won any type of championship in 61 years, take on one of the premier NFL franchises in the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Pittsburgh has a chance to possibly steal the title of team of the decade away from New England if they can win their second title this decade. They would have won two titles since New England last won one.

The oddsmakers have made the Steelers the favorite, but I am still thinking on this one. So far in the 10 NFL games played in the playoffs, just four games have the winning team scored 30 points. The Cardinals played in three of them.

This Super Bowl will be a classic offense against defense.

The Gryphons return to the court Friday and Saturday night this week for two conference games. The Lady Gryphons find themselves tied for first, while right now after two games, the boys are in the middle of the pack.

High school basketball's regular season has seemingly just started, yet it will be over in three weeks. Seems like we are just getting started.

XLIII Set

Super bowl forty three has two willing teams ready to do battle for the championship of pro football. One team you could have predicted six weeks ago while the other would be a good team to have place a bet on in Vegas. I'm sure you could have gotten 1000 to 1 odds.

The Pittsburgh Steelers who until the merger of the old AFL with the NFL was the laughing stock of the NFL. Since the merger in 1970 when they transferred to the AFC they will now be going to the Super Bowl for the seventh time.

The Arizona Cardinals who had never won a playoff game until two weeks ago will be sunning in Tampa over the next two weeks.

The top three defensive teams in the AFC all year have been Baltimore, Tennessee, and Pittsburgh. Of those three the one with the best offense was the Steelers and they will play one more game this year.

Ben Roethisberger had two passes that covered over forty yards each and that proved to be the difference as the Steelers out hit the Ravens 23-14.

In the last few minutes this games was marred by having to stop play as Willis McGahee had a helmet to helmet hit knocking both players out. This is becoming an all to frequent experience in the NFL and they need to do something with the helmets to stop the use of helmets for weapons. In this case neither player lead with the helmet but both collided with McGahee carted off the field

Rookie Joe Flacco had a rookie day throwing three ints but with four minutes to play his team had the ball down only 17-14 before the Steeler defense could get their third int which was run back for six.

Mean while in the Arizona Desert:

The Arizona Cardinals played a flawless first half racing out to a 24-6 lead. Kurt Warner tossed three touchdowns to Larry Fitzgerald and the Cardinals continue to play the same as they did against the Carolina Panthers.

Fortunately for the Eagles they had a chance to sit down for a minute at the half after the whirlwind first half and stormed back to take a 25-24 lead only to see Kurt Warner methodically lead the cardinals on the game winning drive and throw the winning score to Hightower to Win 32-25.

It is the first Super Bowl appearance by any team named the Cardinals. The Cardinals go all the way back to Chicago and then St Louis before retiring to the Desert of Arizona.

Kurt Warner wins his third NFC championship in three tries while Donavan McNabb playing in his fifth NFC championship in eight years loses for the fourth time.

So far in the playoffs I am 7-3 including getting both right Sunday. I favor the Steelers but I reserve the right to make my final pick next Monday the 26th.