Marissa Kastanek Relishes Lasting Link to Kay Yow

In their last conversation, Kay Yow and Marissa Kastanek talked as much about basketball as they did about life.

Perhaps the ratio should have been different given that Yow, the legendary former North Carolina State women's basketball coach, was battling breast cancer.

Wolfpack basketball was at the essence of Kay Yow's life, so much so that it was only natural for her to talk up the game and the school, even at the end of that life.

"She wasn't really one of the people to wallow in pity or anything," said Kastanek, an N.C. State freshman. "It (their conversation) was mostly just basketball talk. She asked me how I was doing."

By the time they talked in December, 2008, Yow, who fought cancer for 21 years, had left the bench on a leave of absence in early January to fight the disease, which was then at stage four.

Nonetheless, Yow, who died a year ago last Sunday, wanted to impress upon Kastanek, a Lincoln, Neb.native how much the Wolfpack needed her.

"It was pretty inspiring just to know that she was still fighting," Kastanek said. "Many people would have given up at that point if they knew the cancer had come back. But she just kept on pushing and she kept on fighting."

Kastanek, one of Yow's last two recruits (Kelsie Lliteras, also of Nebraska was the other), initially knew little of either N.C. State or of Yow, a Naismith Hall of Famer who led the United States team to a 1988 Olympic gold medal, when the recruiting process began in earnest in her sophomore year. "She didn't treat anybody any different and she didn't expect to be treated differently. She was a woman who had a goal. I saw that and I was very attracted to it."
- Marissa Kastanek
On Kay Yow

When her AAU team visited North Carolina for an Easter tournament that year, Kastanek took time to drop in on the Raleigh campus on an unofficial, fact-finding visit.

What she came to find in Yow was a coach who had marquee credentials, yet was plain-spoken and down-to-earth.

"She just acted like a regular person who was just trying to help girls play basketball and had a goal to get to and win a national championship," Kastanek said. "That, to me, was amazing. She didn't treat anybody any different and she didn't expect to be treated differently. She was a woman who had a goal. I saw that and I was very attracted to it."

Kastanek committed to N.C. State at the beginning of her junior year and was eager to play for Yow and the coaching staff, despite the distance from her home.

Yow's death and the school's decision to hire former Western Carolina coach Kellie Harper, rather than Stephanie Glance, Yow's lead assistant and her preferred choice to succeed her, shook Kastanek.

"I had talked to the previous coaches for a couple of years,'' Kastanek said. "I got to know them and I felt like they were family. But when the (new) coaching staff got hired, it was a different situation."

Harper, who was the starting point guard on the Tennessee team that won three consecutive championships in the late 1990s, immediately set upon convincing Kastanek and Lliteras that her Wolfpack team would give them a sense of family.

"I felt like I didn't need necessarily need to sell them on N.C. State, but I needed to reassure them that they were still going to be care of, and make sure that they felt comfortable with the new staff," Harper said.

"For Marissa, in particular, that comfort was crucial. One reason that she chose to come from Nebraska to North Carolina was having confidence that her staff would take care of her."

Kastanek, a 5-foot-9 guard who is third on the Wolfpack (12-10, 2-5 ACC) in scoring at 10.2 points per game, has come to trust Harper, finding encouragement in her decision to impose a curfew on the team.

"That, to me, just shows that they care where we're at and what we're doing," Kastanek said. "They want us to be safe. I think that's a big thing for me.

"I really thought that that was really cool, that they care about us, not only as basketball players and athletes, but as people too and kind of like their daughters."

Just the way Kay Yow would have wanted it.