Teaching self to become a basketball coach
Yow describes her first experiences in coaching, presumably during the 1960s prior to her tenure as the women's basketball coach at Elon University. As a coach at Allen Jay High School, Yow notes that while the men's coach mentored her in her first years, she largely learned just in the process of coaching and by trial and error. Although she was one of the first women to become a prominent collegiate basketball coach, Yow argues that she did not see herself as a pioneer, but rather as a survivor intent on self-improvement.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Sandra Kay Yow, June 22, 2005. Interview G-0244. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- PAMELA GRUNDY:
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That's really interesting, and really gets to the subject of
what we are talking about which is leadership, and I guess you went to
college, and then you came out and got a job teaching and coaching. Is
that right?
- SANDRA KAY YOW:
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Yes.
- PAMELA GRUNDY:
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And I guess that's when you started to then be the role model
for the girls that you were coaching. I'm curious what you
went about trying to teach them especially early on when you were just
starting to be a coach. What were your goals for your team?
- SANDRA KAY YOW:
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Well, I think when I first started out coaching I didn't
really have a mentor. I think this is one of the things that I missed,
because there were very few women coaches. Actually I really
didn't know one, personally. Then I hadn't been
trained to be a coach. So I was sort of on my own, except the
men's coach at Allen Jay High School where my first job was.
He had coached women and men for thirteen years.
- PAMELA GRUNDY:
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Okay.
- SANDRA KAY YOW:
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Okay, and had had championship teams, so he was great. He said he would
help me learn how to draw up practices. Actually, he would sit on the
bench with me during games until I felt more comfortable. He was very
willing to help me. He was a very fundamental coach. He was an excellent
coach. So this was a person who started helping me. But after a while I
started being able to do the practices, and he felt I could be on my own
for the games more. He helped whenever I asked questions, but he had his
own team and his own program. So I attended clinics. I read books. I
looked at films about basketball. I learned on my own. I just had to go
out there and ask the questions and try to learn, and that's
what I did. I think that today, women going into coaching have a greater
opportunity because they have many people who could be role models now,
and many of them actually played at the high school, college level, AAU;
they've run through a number of coaches, and so they were
very fortunate. Somebody like Sue Gunter who played AAU—I
didn't even know about AAU. I lived in
North Carolina, small town, and I didn't know these things
existed except for after my senior year of high school basketball, I was
asked to play for what was termed a 'semi-pro
team,' for Payne Oil Company. I played for just that season
after my senior year. But then when I went to college I
wasn't here to play. I just got a little taste, but I still
didn't know that there was Wayland Baptist [College] or
Nashville Business [College]. I didn't know that. No, nobody
ever told me about it. I had to learn a lot on my own. It is really
great that today there are a lot more role models and a lot more help
for people getting started; so just start at a higher level, just like
players start at a higher level today, so we can reach greater heights
overall because of that. But I can't really remember when I
first started coaching. I think my concentration—as far as
teaching qualities and characteristics—would have been along
the lines of mom: really about staying positive. About maintaining our
confidence, about working really hard, and about being good team
members. Those things I have always known about in other situations, and
I can see how it was magnified in sports. If we're going to
do this we've got to get on the same wave length, and
we've got to come together as one in order to be at our best.
And there's no way we can have one person this direction,
another this direction and expect to accomplish a task with excellence.
So I think that's where I would have been at that time.
- PAMELA GRUNDY:
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You were really a pioneer in terms of being a female coach. Did you
think of yourself that way? Did you have a sense that you were doing
something that women really hadn't done before?
- SANDRA KAY YOW:
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I guess I never thought of myself as a pioneer. I think I was just
trying to survive, trying to get better. I'm big on people
not just getting by, but getting better. Trying to
improve, because it's through improvement that one has a
chance for success and a team has a chance to win. You have to
continually improve. So I was always focused on learning. I know
learning is a lifetime process. I've been coaching basketball
forty years, and I still have much to learn. Look at the tapes. All
those new DVD's that I will be watching, and so
it's nothing within me that ever thinks I have arrived, or
that I know. I know that there's more and more to learn, and
every little thing that you learn. . . knowledge is power, and it can
really help take you to higher levels. I can help take my individual
players and our team to higher levels, the more that I learn. Learning
is a lifetime process.