The whistle blows, the sneakers squeak, and the game tips off. But tonight, it’s about more than just basketball.
When Kentucky takes the floor against Texas in the Play4Kay Classic, they won’t just be playing for a win. They’ll be playing for a woman who never stopped fighting, a woman whose courage outlasted her time on Earth.
They’ll be playing for Kay Yow.
The Coach Who Never Stopped Fighting
Long before her name became a rallying cry, Kay Yow was just a girl in Gibsonville, North Carolina, dribbling a basketball with dreams bigger than the small town where she grew up.
She chased those dreams all the way to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, building North Carolina State’s women’s basketball program from the ground up. In her 38 seasons as a head coach, she won over 700 games, took her teams to 20 NCAA Tournaments, and even led Team USA to an Olympic gold medal in 1988.
But the game she played best wasn’t basketball. It was life.
She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1987—before pink ribbons lined jerseys, before awareness campaigns filled arenas, before women’s basketball had the platform it does today. She fought quietly, with the same grace and resolve that made her a great coach. When the cancer faded into remission, she went back to doing what she loved. Coaching.
And when it returned, she did the same. She fought and fought, never giving in and honoring those around her.
By the time the disease took her in 2009, she had fought cancer for 22 years. But it never took her spirit.
It can never take her legacy.
Bigger Than the Game
Kay Yow didn’t want her battle to be just her own. She wanted to help others.
So, in 2007, with the end of her fight close, she started the Kay Yow Cancer Fund. It wasn’t about her. It was about everyone who would come after her—the mothers, the daughters, the sisters, the teammates. Those who she loved, and those she never even met.
“I have to go through it,” she once said. “I accept that, and I’m not panicked about it because the Lord is in control. But it just would be so saddening if I had to go through it and I couldn’t help people.”
Her vision became a movement.
Each year, teams across the country lace up in pink, raise money, and play in the Play4Kay Classic, a game that reminds us that some fights never end at the buzzer.
Tonight, Kentucky will take on Texas in that very game. The players will run the floor, battle for rebounds, hit big shots—but deep down, they’ll know it’s bigger than basketball.
They’ll play because Kay Yow fought.
They’ll play because someone in the stands, someone watching at home, is still fighting. They'll play because maybe one day they will fight, or their kids will fight. They will fight and fight.
They’ll play because somewhere, maybe in a small town like Gibsonville, another little girl is dribbling a basketball, dreaming big, and hoping for a future where no one has to fight the same battle Kay Yow did.
And when the final horn sounds, no matter the score, Kay Yow still wins.
Because her fight never ended—it just lives on in every game like this.