The late N.C. State women’s basketball coach Kay Yow, the late men’s coach Pete Newell and legendary guard Oscar Robertson are the three Americans among the inductees to this year’s class of the FIBA Hall of Fame.
Yow led the Red, White and Blue to gold medals in the 1986 Goodwill Games, the 1986 World Championship and the 1988 Olympics.
Newell coached Roberston and the 1960 U.S. Olympic Team – generally regarded as one of the top amateur men’s teams ever assembled – to an 8-0 record and the gold medal.
Enshrinement ceremonies will be held Sept. 20 in Katowice, Poland, in conjunction with the Finals of EuroBasket, and Sept. 22 at the FIBA Hall of Fame in Alcobendas, Spain.
Yow was a member of nine USA Basketball staffs over a 10-year span. In two major FIBA competitions, Yow’s teams went 9-0. Those 1986 victories represented a changing of the guard in international women’s basketball, as Team USA beat the once seemingly invincible Soviet Union twice during the year.
At NCSU, Yow was 737-344 with four ACC titles and an appearance in the 1988 Final Four.
Yow, who died Jan. 24 at age 66 after a battle with breast cancer that lasted two decades, is a member of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame and the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame.
