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2015 <strong>NC</strong> <strong>STATE</strong> <strong>FOOTBALL</strong> <strong>BOWL</strong> <strong>GUIDE</strong> / ADMINISTRATION<br />
motto: “Wolfpack Unlimited: Refuse To Accept the Status<br />
Quo.”<br />
Yow’s expectations are clear and concise:<br />
• Every sport with a full complement of scholarships should<br />
be among the nation’s top 25, working towards the top 10<br />
and competing for conference and national championships.<br />
• Every student-athlete should be provided the opportunity<br />
and resources to be as successful in the classroom as on the<br />
field of competition.<br />
• Every alumnus and supporter should be treated as a valued<br />
customer, with dedicated service from athletics department<br />
personnel.<br />
In her first four years on the job, Yow has made significant<br />
changes to the structure, branding and outcomes of the<br />
athletics department.<br />
She has hired nine new head coaches. The department has<br />
established Wolfpack Sports Properties in a new working<br />
agreement for multi-media rights with Learfield Communications;<br />
a department-wide apparel agreement with Adidas;<br />
and a new Five-Year Strategic Plan. She also led in the<br />
creation of the comprehensive <strong>NC</strong> State Athletic Hall of<br />
Fame, which inducted 10 members in its inaugural class<br />
in 2012 and added another 10 members each in 2013 and<br />
‘14.<br />
The $14 million Close-King Indoor Practice Facility opened in July and Yow<br />
also announced a major renovation for Reynolds Coliseum, the home of<br />
multiple Wolfpack sports. In a joint venture with the university, a $35 million<br />
renovation began in March to reconfigure the coliseum and to create a Walk of<br />
Fame and History to honor <strong>NC</strong> State’s athletic legacy in all sports and to have<br />
a permanent home for its Hall of Fame.<br />
Yow knows the importance of her position, leading the gateway department<br />
of the largest university in North Carolina. The ACC’s first female athletics<br />
director also knows <strong>NC</strong> State’s reputation as a pioneering program that first<br />
established basketball as a dominant sport in the South, was the first to integrate<br />
varsity athletics in the Atlantic Coast Conference and was the first public<br />
school in the state to dedicate full resources to women’s athletics.<br />
Hardly unfamiliar to Wolfpack fans, the native of Gibsonville, N.C., has been<br />
deeply connected to <strong>NC</strong> State since her youth, when her parents Hilton and<br />
Lib Yow introduced their three daughters and one son to college athletics.<br />
Later, she watched her older sister, Kay, become the first full-time women’s<br />
coach in the state of North Carolina, when she was hired by then-athletics director<br />
Willis Casey to coach <strong>NC</strong> State’s first three women’s sports: basketball,<br />
volleyball and softball.<br />
Debbie Yow served as a high school coach at Burlington’s Williams High<br />
School and Gibsonville’s Eastern Guilford High before becoming the women’s<br />
basketball coach at the University of Kentucky. She also served as the<br />
head coach at Oral Roberts University and the University of Florida, before<br />
switching career paths to become an administrator, at both Florida and U<strong>NC</strong><br />
Greensboro. In 1990, she was named the athletics director at Saint Louis,<br />
where she hired Charlie Spoonhour as men’s basketball coach. In his first<br />
season, Spoonhour was named ESPN National Coach of the Year.<br />
Director of Athletics Debbie Yow with 2011 Belk Bowl MVP Mike Glennon.<br />
At <strong>NC</strong> State, Yow oversees a department that includes approximately 185 fulltime<br />
staff and 550 student-athletes.<br />
Yow has served as president of the National Association of Collegiate Directors<br />
of Athletics and the national Division I-A Athletic Directors Association. She<br />
is a member of the National Football Foundation board of directors, and has<br />
served on the <strong>NC</strong>AA Division I Men’s Basketball Academic Enhancement<br />
Committee, as well as having represented the ACC on the <strong>NC</strong>AA Management<br />
Council.<br />
Both Street and Smith’s Sports Business Journal and the Chronicle of Higher<br />
Education have cited Yow as being one of the 20 most influential people in<br />
college athletics. She was selected to serve on the President’s U.S. Department<br />
of Education Commission on Opportunities in Athletics to review the<br />
status of Federal Title IX regulations. She earlier served as the chair of the<br />
Atlantic Coast Conference Committee on Television, which is charged with<br />
overseeing the league’s TV contracts and other related broadcast issues.<br />
Like her older sister, Yow has been inducted into the North Carolina Sports Hall<br />
of Fame.<br />
Yow has written numerous articles and books on athletics management and<br />
human behavior. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Elon University and a<br />
master’s degree from Liberty University. She also has been awarded honorary<br />
doctorates for professional achievement from Elon, Liberty and the United<br />
States Sports Academy. She is married to Dr. William W. Bowden.<br />
She moved to the University of Maryland in 1994 and in 2000 selected Ralph<br />
Friedgen as football coach. Friedgen was named consensus National Coach of<br />
the Year in 2001 after leading the Terps to the ACC championship and an appearance<br />
in the Orange Bowl. In 2002, she brought in Brenda Frese, the 2002<br />
Big Ten and AP National Coach of the Year, to guide the Terrapin women’s<br />
basketball program. In 2006, Frese led Maryland to the <strong>NC</strong>AA championship.<br />
Under her leadership, Maryland’s 27 varsity programs won a remarkable 20<br />
national championships and consistently graduated student-athletes, including<br />
an all-time high federal graduation rate of 80 percent. In 2009, the <strong>NC</strong>AA<br />
News named Maryland as one of the Top 10 athletics programs in the nation.<br />
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