NC State’s Debbie Yow Named 2019 James J. Corbett Memorial Award Recipient

NC State Athletic Director Dr. Debbie Yow has been named the 2019 James J. Corbett Memorial Award Recipient, becoming the 53rd person to receive the prestigious honor. The Corbett Memorial Award is the “highest honor one can achieve in collegiate athletics administration.”

“During her time as a coach and an administrator, Debbie has positively impacted tens of thousands of student-athletes, and everyone involved in NACDA is fortunate she chose that administrative path,” said Bob Vecchione, NACDA chief executive officer. “Debbie was an annual speaker at the D1-A/LEAD1 Institute and always willing to participate in sessions or workshops at NACDA meetings. Nearly 20 years ago while serving as NACDA President, Debbie orchestrated the creation of the Association’s mission statement, which reiterates our core value of education. As an English major, she has always exhibited that educational mentality throughout her entire career.”

The Corbett Award is presented annually to the collegiate administrator who “through the years has most typified Corbett’s devotion to intercollegiate athletics and worked unceasingly for its betterment.” Corbett, athletics director at Louisiana State University, was NACDA’s first president in 1965. Additionally, Yow will receive an honorary degree from the Sports Management Institute (SMI), an educational institute sponsored by NACDA and the universities of Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Notre Dame, Southern California and Texas, and automatic induction into the NACDA Hall of Fame.

“The Corbett Award, for lifetime achievement, represents the pinnacle of recognition for those of us whose careers have been in the enterprise of intercollegiate athletics,” said Yow. “For that reason, it is a special type of honor that I consider somewhat overwhelming, especially because it is awarded by our peers. I have such high regard for those individuals who have previously received it, and I am honored to be counted among them as a recipient.”

Yow knows the importance of her position, leading the gateway department of the largest university in North Carolina. The first female athletics director in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) also knows NC State’s reputation as a pioneering program that first established basketball as a dominant sport in the South, was the first to integrate varsity athletics in the ACC and was the first public school in the state to dedicate full resources to women’s athletics. (NACDA)