By Bret Strelow
bstrelow@salisburypost.com
RALEIGH ó The N.C. State women’s basketball team went to the locker room trailing Boston College by 21 points yet received a standing ovation from fans inside Reynolds Coliseum. The crowd erupted each time Shayla Fields hit a 3-pointer during a wild second-half comeback.
Legendary coach Kay Yow constantly taught her players impactful lessons about resolve while heroically battling breast cancer. Fields and her teammates showed appropriate amounts of resiliency during a 62-51 loss Thursday in the Wolfpack’s first game since Yow’s death.
“When we got down in the first half, I was just thinking not to give up and to keep a positive attitude,” said Fields, a Salisbury native who finished with 17 points, seven rebounds and five assists in 40 emotional minutes. “Coach Yow would have been proud of us in the second half for battling back and making it a reasonable game.”
Battling back is nothing new for Fields, who missed 12 of her first 13 shots.
The Wolfpack trailed 50-19 with 14 minutes remaining and pumped up an already enthusiastic crowd by putting together a 22-2 run. The game mirrored Fields’ college career in many ways.
Fields, N.C. State’s starting point guard, has emerged as a senior leader. She played a total of 25 minutes as an overmatched freshman and is now the ACC’s second-ranked scorer behind Virginia’s Monica Wright.
“Coach Yow was just a great person and an inspiring person to me,” Fields said. “The thing I think about most is how she never gave up on anybody, specifically me. I remember a time when I was ready to give up on myself, but Coach Yow was always there to inspire me to keep going and to never give up.
“If she believed in me, that was enough for me to keep going.”
Fields first attended Yow’s basketball camp in the summer before her sophomore year of high school. Salisbury’s team went, and Yow wondered aloud how Fields could play the point while remaining so quite on the court.
Fields returned to Raleigh for Yow’s individual camp and worked to become more vocal with her teammates.
Fields later committed to the Wolfpack, and Salisbury retired her No. 23 jersey before its regular-season finale on Feb. 11, 2005. Yow and Stephanie Glance, N.C. State’s interim coach, were in the gym.
“It was a special moment to see how much your coach cares about you for me not to have even stepped foot on N.C. State’s campus to play,” Fields recalled. “It was a very proud moment for me.”
Fields appeared briefly in five contests as an N.C. State freshman. Yow missed 16 games the next season and returned in January. The Wolfpack beat second-ranked North Carolina on the same night Yow had the Reynolds Coliseum court named after her, and she was on the bench for an upset of unbeaten Duke in the ACC Tournament semifinals.
N.C. State reached the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament before falling to Connecticut.
“I didn’t know the impact Coach Yow had on people’s lives coming in as a freshman,” Fields said. “I don’t think I really grasped it until maybe my sophomore year. If I wouldn’t have come here, I would have wished I came here and hoped I could have taken it back.”
Yow coached the Wolfpack at the beginning of this season and stepped away earlier this month. Her players visited WakeMed Cary Hospital four days before she died and presented her with a fuschia Build-A-Bear.
They stuffed the bear with accessories such as a heart and a voice box, which featured a recorded chant of “Wolfpack women on the way to No. 1 together” that has become a pregame and postgame staple.
Glance marveled at how alert Yow acted in front of her team.
“I shed a couple tears,” Fields said. “Just to see her with so much energy, she shed a couple tears as well. She was able to fight back most of her tears.
“I know she wanted to cry a river, but it was more like a little pond. It was so good to see her and the spirits she was in.”
N.C. State’s players have been in the public eye all week as they come to grips with the loss of their beloved coach. Fields spoke at an on-campus news conference Tuesday and was in Reynolds for a tribute to Yow the next night.
The Wolfpack took the court Thursday in white uniforms with pink trim to promote cancer awareness, and the name “Yow” graced the back of each jersey. The players’ Nikes were even white and pink.
Fields had a bible verse written atop her left shoe and a “I love Coach Yow” message atop the right one.
“I feel so fortunate to have been around Coach Yow,” Fields said. “It’s not anybody except for the people who’ve been through the program who can say that they’ve been coached by a legend and someone who fought for most of their life.
“You learn so much from reading about her and seeing her on TV, but actually being around her day in and day out and listening to the stories she has to tell is a life experience I wouldn’t take back for anything.”