As of April 12, NC State is in fifth place for the Learfield Directors’ Cup, which measures the overall success of college athletics programs. In 2009-10, the Wolfpack was in 89th place in the Director’s Cup. Athletics Director Debbie Yow was hired the next year and the Pack finished 67th. Since then, the lowest the Pack has finished is 41st.
Yow catches flak from fans but she also gets love. The hiring of men’s basketball head coach Kevin Keatts went well in his first season with the Pack, and Dave Doeren decided to stay after the football team’s first top-25 finish since finishing 25th in 2010 with Tom O’Brien and Russell Wilson, days after a scare when Tennessee pursued Doeren after the regular season ended.
One thing Yow has also done well is build the nonrevenue sports with little to no attention, outside of the loyal members of the fan base who live and breathe everything NC State Athletics.
Nonrevenue sports boast a long list of notable accomplishments encompassing many sports on campus.
The men’s swimming and diving team won five events at the NCAA Championships and finished fourth overall.
The wrestling team had a national champion, redshirt senior Michael Macchiavello, who was one of three wrestlers in the semifinals and one of two to compete for a national championship.
The volleyball team had its most successful season in program history and won its first NCAA Tournament matchup ever.
The men’s soccer team hired a new coach, George Kiefer, who led the team to the NCAA Tournament in his first season, after the team had missed the tournament every year since 2009.
You get the point, and those were only some of the nonrevenue accomplishments in the past year. Yow has taken NC State Athletics to great heights, and has done a great job of getting the athletic department as a whole back to a competitive level comparable to the history of NC State.
Yow has a different way of approaching things compared to other athletics directors. She embraces the high standards that Wolfpack fans have, and enjoys interacting with fans, even those of other schools. Just check out her Twitter if you want some proof.
If anything, Yow needs to be thanked for her dedication to making NC State Athletics better as a whole, revenue and nonrevenue sports included.
NC State fans can say without a doubt Yow has left the athletics department in better shape than she found it.
