Matt Brown of SportsOnEarth took a stab at ranking the Top-25 College Athletic Directors in the business, and NC State’s Debbie Yow was ranked 17th.  Here is what he had to say about Yow.

17. Debbie Yow, N.C. State. Like much of the rest of top-tier sports management, athletic directors tend to be male and white, sorely lacking in diversity. Dow is one of only three women running athletic departments at the Power Five level, joining new Penn State AD Sandy Barbour and Rutgers’ embattled Hermann. A former head women’s basketball coach at Kentucky and Florida, Yow has been AD at Saint Louis, Maryland and now N.C. State. Her sister, Kay Yow, was a legendary head coach at N.C. State and died of breast cancer in 2009. Since arriving in 2010, Yow’s two major hires have been promising, with Mark Gottfriend in men’s basketball and Dave Doeren in football, even if the firing of Tom O’Brien seemed strange at the time. Gottfried has taken the Wolfpack to four straight NCAA tournaments after they had a five-year absence, while Doeren struggled in his first year but improved to 8-5 last year and is currently 4-0. Under Yow’s leadership, N.C. State has achieved school bests in the Director’s Cup and graduation rates. An indoor football facility also opened this summer. (SportsOnEarth)

Yow was one of 7 ACC athletic directors on the list, ranking 4th out of the group.

1st – Tom Jurich – Louisville
13th – Whit Babcock – Virginia Tech
15th – Kevin White – Duke
17th – Debbie Yow – NC State
18th – Jack Swarbrick – Notre Dame (partial member)
23rd – Craig Littlepage – Virginia
24th – Dan Radakovich – Clemson