Hatchell among four honored with HOF benches

Sylvia Hatchell, who led the North Carolina Tar Heels women’s team to the 1994 NCAA title, and the late Rollie Massimino, Tom Young and Kay Yow are being honored with benches at the Naismith Hall of Fame Coaches Circle in Springfield, Massachusetts.

It’s part of the Hall of Fame’s induction weekend, with the bench dedication ceremony Saturday.

Massimino guided the Villanova Wildcats men’s team to the 1985 NCAA championship, while Young took the Rutgers Scarlet Knights to the 1976 men’s Final Four and Yow guided the NC State Wolfpack to the 1998 women’s Final Four.

Yow, whose long battle against breast cancer launched the ongoing Kay Yow Cancer Fund, died in 2009. Massimino died in 2017 and Young in 2022. Hatchell, 71, began her coaching career in 1974. She won AIAW and NAIA national championships at Francis Marion University in 1982 and 1986 before taking over at North Carolina, where she coached from 1986-2019.

Hatchell was inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame in 2013, Yow in 2002. Both are also inductees in the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in Knoxville, Tennessee, and Massimino is inducted in the College Basketball Hall of Fame in Kansas City.

The Naismith Coaches Circle program began in 2015, launched by Hall of Famers John Calipari of the Kentucky Wildcats, Jerry Colangelo, and George Raveling. The program’s intent is to pay tribute to basketball’s first coach, Dr. James Naismith, and the core values he instilled in his players.