April 1, 2025
NORFOLK STATE’S LARRY VICKERS RECIPIENT OF 2025 KAY YOW AWARD
Presented annually to the top head coach in Women’s division I college basketball.
SAN ANTONIO, TX -- Norfolk State’s Larry Vickers is the recipient of the 2025 Kay Yow National Coach of the Year award. The award is presented annually to the top head coach in Women’s division I college basketball, who embodies a winning spirit while displaying great character, on and off the court.
Vickers led the Spartans to a 30-5 (14-0 MEAC) record this season, and earned a No. 13 seed in the NCAA Tournament, the highest ever for the program.
Norfolk State became just the eighth team in MEAC history to go undefeated in conference play. The Spartans also made a mark in the nonconference slate, taking down two SEC opponents in Auburn and Missouri.
“The former walk-on at Norfolk State, who spent five seasons as assistant with the men’s program, completely turned around the women’s basketball at Norfolk State,” said Angela Lento, Vice President of CollegeInsider.com. “Larry Vickers took over a program that had just two winning seasons and turned it into one of the top programs in women’s college basketball. With a foundation built on hard work, discipline and good old fashion defense, there are a lot more wins in his future.”
NSU, which cracked the CollegeInsider.com Mid-Major Top 25 poll for the first time in program history on Nov. 30, 2022, finished the regular season ranked No. 4. That's the highest ever ranking for an HBCU program, men or women.
Vickers received MEAC Coach of the Year honors for the third consecutive season, becoming the second MEAC women's basketball coach to receive the honor in three straight years.
Vickers spent 10 overall and nine full seasons as the head coach of the NSU women's basketball team, producing a 177-99 record with a 97-41 mark in MEAC play. He led Norfolk State to three consecutive MEAC Tournament titles (2023, 2024, 2025) and four consecutive regular season championships (2022, 2023, 2024, 2025).
Prior to taking over the women's program, Vickers spent eight seasons as an assistant coach with the men's basketball program. He served the last three as the associate head coach.
CollegeInsider.com pays tribute to one of the true icons of women’s college basketball with the Kay Yow Award.
Yow became the sixth head coach in the history of Division I women’s basketball to reach the 700-win plateau, finishing with a sterling record of 737–344 in her 34 seasons at NC State.
She was the first women’s coach in ACC history to eclipse 600 wins at the same school and directed NC State to 19 top-three finishes in the ACC standings. Her 1997-98 squad advanced all the way to the Final Four in Kansas City.
She was wildly successful in every forum in which she coached, leading gold medal winners at the 1981 World University Games, the 1986 Goodwill Games, 1986 World Championship Games and the 1988 Olympic Games.
As an assistant, Yow was on the Olympic gold medal winning 1984 coaching staff in Los Angeles. In addition, she was an assistant on the gold medal-winning teams at the 1979 World University Games, the 1983 Pan American Games and the 1984 R. Williams Jones Cup.
Coach Yow had been on a leave of absence from coaching since early January 2009 because of her battle with cancer. She passed away from stage 4 breast cancer on January 24, 2009.
