Kaye Cowher, the wife of ex-Steelers coach Bill Cowher and a former basketball player at North Carolina State and in the now-defunct Women's Professional Basketball League, has died of skin cancer. She was 54.

Cowher died Friday in her native North Carolina, where the family relocated at her urging during Cowher's final year as coach in 2006, one season after the Steelers won the Super Bowl. The family had lived in Raleigh since.

The Cowhers met at North Carolina State, where Bill played linebacker. They married in 1981, after the former Kaye Young played alongside twin sister Faye in college and during a three-season pro basketball career.

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