There are many responsibilities that face an athletics director when they take over at a new school. One of the most important is making sure the right coaches are in place. As NC State Director of Athletics Debbie Yow prepares to wrap up her tenure in the coming weeks, hiring the right coaches is one of the biggest pieces of her legacy.
All but three of the Wolfpack’s current coaches were hired by Yow, and all either have their programs in strong positions or on the rise.
“I’m thrilled that they’re here,” Yow said. “The coaches across the board are pretty extraordinary, including the ones I inherited. Track and field is still the same, Rollie [Geiger] is still here. Elliott [Avent] is still here with baseball. Most of them have changed.”
The hire closest to home is women’s basketball coach Wes Moore, who completed his sixth season as head coach this winter. Moore served as an assistant coach from 1993-95 under Kay Yow, Debbie Yow’s sister, who died after a battle with cancer in 2009. Since coming back to NC State, Moore has been nothing but successful. He’s coming off back-to-back trips to the Sweet 16 and had the program ranked as high as No. 7 in the country this season.
“It was a great honor,” Moore said. “Of course, I was with Kay Yow in the mid-‘90s as an assistant. It meant a lot to me to have an opportunity to come where coach Yow was such a legend and such a great ambassador, not only for women’s basketball but for NC State and even the state of North Carolina. To step on that court and see coach Yow’s name on it, and to know that some great coaches have been on that sideline like coach Valvano and coach Sloan, it’s a great honor to be able to step into that position for sure.”
Moore is just one of the many noteworthy hires in recent years. Debbie Yow also hired head football coach Dave Doeren.
Since taking over as the Wolfpack’s head coach in 2013, Doeren has elevated NC State football. The Pack has gone to five straight bowl games, won nine games in back-to-back seasons and is second to Clemson in ACC wins the past two seasons.
“I wanted to work somewhere where the chancellor, the athletic director and the head football coach would have a straight line of communication and similar goals and dreams about what the program could do and their commitment to the program,” Doeren said. “In talking to Debbie, you could tell that this was home to her as well, and it was personal. It wasn’t just a job. It was something that meant more than just being the athletic director.”
That’s not to say every hire has gone perfectly. Yow has hired two men’s basketball coaches in her time at NC State. The first, Mark Gottfried, started in 2011 and took the Pack to the NCAA Tournament in his first four seasons.
Things went south quickly from there, however; and the Pack had back-to-back terrible seasons to close out Gottfried’s tenure. Yow moved quickly to uphold NC State’s standards and dismissed Gottfried following the 2016-17 season, but his replacement has been a great fit already.
Yow brought in Kevin Keatts from UNC-Wilmington the day after the Seahawks’ 2017 season ended. In his first season, Keatts took the Wolfpack back to the NCAA Tournament.
In his two years working under Yow, Keatts built a strong relationship with the Wolfpack’s outgoing athletics director.
“We have a very good relationship, because she comes as an athletic director with a way different perspective,” Keatts said. “Her being a head coach at the highest level, her understanding coaching, her understanding players, her willingness to be involved with the program, just to be around the program; I’ve learned so much from her and am excited that she gave me the opportunity to be the head coach here.”
Yow has hit home runs with a number of her nonrevenue hires as well. Pat Popolizio has built wrestling into a consistent top-10 program; ditto for Braden Holloway with swimming. George Kiefer of men’s soccer and Tim Santoro of women’s soccer have both those teams competing for the NCAA Tournament every year.
The volleyball team won its first NCAA Tournament game ever under Linda Hampton-Keith in 2017. The men’s golf team qualified for the NCAA Championships last year in Press McPhaul’s debut season and finished sixth at ACCs this season.
Women’s cross country continues to dominate the ACC under Laurie Henes. Gymnastics has been to NCAA regionals two years in a row behind Kim Landrus. The women’s tennis team set a new program record this year with a No. 9 national ranking with Simon Earnshaw at the helm. The list of impressive hires by Yow stretches across the board, and everyone she hires knows they are set up to succeed.
“She means business,” Holloway said. “My interview process with her, I was fairly intimidated. I didn’t know her and I heard she was straight and direct and to the point. I kind of left there nervous of her intensity level, but also that I fit right in … I left there thinking that she’s not just making a change in swimming and diving, but she’s making a change all over the place and it could be a pretty cool situation to be in.”
One coach at NC State who knows Yow well is Kyle Spencer of men’s tennis. He has been hired by Yow at two different schools, spending his first season at Maryland while she was in her last.
He took over NC State’s men’s tennis program in 2017 and has gained an appreciation for Yow’s leadership in both places.
“She does give you the reins and let you do what you need to do,” Spencer said. “At the same time, you do feel through your individual meetings with her that she’s up on everything that’s going on, and you really feel like she has your back.”
One of Spencer’s fondest memories of Yow came when he was still at Maryland and she at NC State. In his second year coaching the Terrapins, Spencer took his team to the NCAA Tournament and won a first-round match against Michigan.
After the victory, Yow both sent Spencer a letter and called to congratulate him.
“That just said everything I needed to know about her that she still valued what we were doing and it was still part of her family,” Spencer said.
As Yow prepares to retire from her post, she leaves NC State Athletics and incoming Athletics Director Boo Corrigan in a great spot.
The foundation for continued success is in place, through the coaches Yow’s hired and the winning culture she’s fostered.
“A legacy more of people thinking bigger when they get here as coaches,” Holloway said. “Thinking bigger than what NC State’s done before. I think she created a standard of not being OK with just being mediocre. I think before she got here there was too much, and I’m an alum saying this and this doesn’t make me feel good to say, but I feel like NC State got into a comfort zone of just being OK. Her legacy is she came in and challenged us, challenged us, to want more and to think bigger. I think that’s the biggest legacy that she leaves behind.”
Head coach Kevin Keatts acknowledges a play as Devon Daniels, Markell Johnson, and Torin Dorn celebrate a three point basket. The team shot nearly 50 percent from three during the 100-67 win over Western Carolina on Wednesday, Dec. 5 in Reynolds Coliseum.
