Melissa Young has watched an incalculable amount of basketball throughout her adult life. It comes with the territory when you marry a coach.
But she never expected to listen to as much of the sport as she did this past year.
As her husband, Kevin Young, opened his second season at the helm of BYU’s basketball program in the fall of 2025, he and Melissa started a new chapter in their parenting odyssey by welcoming their fourth child, Lillie, just 18 days before the Cougars’ first preseason exhibition.
None of the Youngs’ previous children had been born so close to the start of a new hoop campaign — and none of them ever cried as much as Lillie.
Upon discovering that her colicky newborn fell asleep most easily in the car, Melissa began taking Lillie on nightly drives to help soothe her into slumber. Sometimes all the Young kids came along; other times it was just mother and daughter, logging what became hundreds of miles weaving through Utah County neighborhoods, all for the sake of Lillie’s rest.
“She and I looked at a lot of Christmas lights this winter,” Melissa told the Deseret News. “We lived in the car late at night ... I’d never had that with any of my other babies.”
This driving often prevented Melissa from seeing Kevin’s early-season games, whether in person or on television. While he was at the Marriott Center or an arena in other state, she was behind the wheel, listening to the Cougars on the radio. Greg Wrubell’s radio play-by-play work practically became Lillie’s lullabies.
It would have been nice to have been in the crowd for the games she could only listen to, Melissa admits. Missing out on BYU’s trips to Las Vegas, New York City and a Thanksgiving tournament at Walt Disney World in Florida initially weighed on her.
But Melissa is no stranger to sacrifice — it’s been a true constant over the past nearly 15 years as the wife of a coach, and such sacrifices have yielded incredible blessings for her family.
Her selflessness has become strength. Exhaustion has allowed for endurance. Inconvenience and affliction have led to necessary perspective, organic inspiration and unshakable faith.
To those who know her best, Melissa — affectionately called “Missy” by her loved ones — is an admirable example of grace under pressure, especially in this most recent transition of adding a newborn to her care.
“She’s got a good pulse for keeping our family together,” Kevin said of his wife.
“In the early days, it just felt like all we were trying to do was survive. Anyone that’s had young kids, you know you’re just in survival mode. I feel like now it’s a lot more thriving instead of surviving, and she’s the leader of that. She’s done a phenomenal job of raising the kids while I’ve been away.”
Melissa could easily feel bitterness toward her burdens. Instead, she exudes joy for the journey.
Being a coach’s wife is not for the faint of heart, and while she won’t claim to have been perfect or free of any tears, she wouldn’t trade her family experience for anything, gratefully embracing the unique circumstances in living her lifelong dream of motherhood.
“The close relationships you have with your kids and the love that you have for them and that they have for you, there’s nothing greater in life, to just feel like your kids love you, they can open up to you, they can rely on you and they can feel safe with you,” Melissa said.
“I feel like that’s my purpose in life, to make them feel safe, loved and to teach them that they’re children of God, and raise them so they can be their own amazing humans and know their purpose in life.”
Baby Lillie joins the family
It was the first time Melissa ever saw Kevin speechless.
His face — seen on her phone screen via FaceTime from nearly 1,500 miles away in Cincinnati — was plastered with emotion, but he was unable to produce any words to complement his physical reaction.
Melissa had yet to say anything either. She didn’t need to. The positive pregnancy test she held up for Kevin to see had delivered the message.
“I couldn’t hold it in as a secret until he got home, I was just so shocked that I was pregnant,” Melissa said of that memorable day in February 2025.
“I mean, we have a 7½ year gap (between kids), so it was just not the news he was expecting.”
And Kevin definitely wasn’t expecting such news right before a pivotal Big 12 road matchup with Cincinnati. “Yeah, probably pretty bad timing on my part,” Melissa said with a laugh.
Lillie arrived a little less than eight months later in September. Her aforementioned fussy phase is behind her, as she’s “just so happy” now, receiving lots of affection from older siblings Jude (12), Van (10) and Zoey (8).
“They love her, they’re obsessed with her,” Melissa said. “Zoey thinks it’s her baby. Jude just wants to hold her any second that he can. They’ve just really embraced her and love her.
“It’s kind of cool to see my older boys softening. They’re kind of tough boys, you know? But this has totally softened their hearts.”
In just a few short months, Lillie has already helped improve the Youngs’ quality of life.
“It’s forced us as a family to kind of slow down and just have some slower, quieter times with the baby, and that’s been really cool for us to just slow down in life a little bit and be more present,” Melissa said. “Being present is so hard these days for people, so it’s been the best reset for all of us. I think being fully present is the most important thing we can do for our children.”
The Youngs may chuckle about the timing of Melissa’s pregnancy announcement to Kevin last year, but Lillie proved to make her debut at the perfect time.
This past basketball season featured unprecedented expectations and attention for BYU, which could have easily translated to heavy pressure for Kevin. However, having Lillie at home helped him maintain an optimistic, appropriate outlook toward everything on his plate, especially in moments of struggle or disappointment.
“Just staring down at this sweet little newborn, it just puts everything into perspective,” Kevin said. “You can get super caught up in, you know, winning, losing, recruiting and all the things that come with being a coach at the college level, and obviously it’s all wildly important, but nothing is more important than my family.”
Lillie eventually learned how to sleep outside of a car, allowing Melissa to bring her to the Marriott Center to watch her dad at work and experience more from basketball than a mere radio broadcast.
“We had her in the little baby headphones and she loved them,” Melissa said. “I feel like basketball, the loudness and the dribbling and the sneakers on the court, it’s like her white noise. She would just fall right asleep at Kevin’s games and her brother’s games. We get her in an arena and she’s like, ‘OK, it’s my nap time.’”
‘A little bit more at ease with everything’
Each of the Young children have been born during a different stage of Kevin’s coaching journey.
Jude arrived while Kevin was between G-League jobs after being fired by the Iowa Energy. Van came along during Kevin’s subsequent stop with the Delaware 87ers, a period which helped him get on an NBA staff with the Philadelphia 76ers, where Zoey was born.
And of course, Lillie is the Youngs’ BYU baby, and having her in Utah gave Melissa no shortage of support.
“It was actually a really amazing blessing to have her here, and to have Kevin home so much,” Melissa said. “He was busy, but he was home the majority of the nights. It was such a blessing to have him just be home to help me.”
Additionally, Melissa’s parents spent more than a month with the Youngs to help out, and ward members ministered through bringing meals and chipping in with pick-up and drop-off duty for the older Young kids.
Melissa feels fortunate to still be learning so much on baby No. 4, especially when it comes to humbly allowing others to serve her and realizing it’s perfectly fine to ask for help — and she hopes other fellow mothers can understand the same.
“Now that I have (Lillie) and a little different perspective as I’m older, I wish I would’ve asked for more help (in the past) and gotten more breaks so I could show up better for my kids,” Melissa said. “I’ve gotten more help with Lillie, and I can show up a happier mother for my children because I’m taking care of myself.”
Even with all the support, raising children will never be simple or easy. There are still plenty of tough nights and long days.
But Kevin is quite proud of how his wife has handled all of her unique challenges, acknowledging the divine assistance that he feels has aided her in so gracefully balancing Lillie, their older kids, her own personal well-being and the chaos of basketball season.
“She seems a little bit more at ease with everything,” he said. “I think Heavenly Father has just blessed her with a little more patience this time around, a little less anxiety, and more experience to rely on.”
Melissa always wanted to be a mother — it helps that her own mom has been so wonderful.
“She is the most Christlike person I know,” Melissa said of her mother, Tammy Bailey of Omaha, Nebraska. “She’s the most serviceable person. She’s taught me everything I know about service, just always serving someone in some capacity, especially her children. She would do anything for her kids. She was just the best example to me of that.”
The third of five Bailey children, Melissa was an “old soul” and never gave her parents any trouble, Tammy says, praising the maturity of her youngest daughter.
“She just has this inner strength about her and has always had this willingness to do good and be good,” said Tammy.
“She always wanted to have a family, she always wanted to be a mother. I think it was just always her focus and she never wavered in what she wanted. She knew she wanted to have a family and she’s just always been strong in her belief.”
When Melissa’s dream of motherhood finally became a reality in 2013, it did look a bit different than what she’d envisioned.
Kevin was scrambling to find a new coaching job when Jude was born, and once he landed with the 87ers, the Youngs moved to Delaware — Melissa had never lived outside of Nebraska or Utah — where they didn’t know a single soul.
With Kevin’s demanding schedule and extensive travel, Melissa spent nearly half the year alone with her infant child, overwhelmed in an unfamiliar place.
Her daily phone calls with her mom, who also visited as frequently as she could, helped her to breathe. Ward members and neighbors regularly came to the rescue, helping make up for the Youngs’ lack of local family support to feel like they belonged.
“Wherever we went, people looked out for us,” Melissa said. “I needed help when Kevin was away, and I had the most incredible ward members looking out for me.”
All of the ministering made Melissa’s burdens lighter, but they weren’t completely erased. She knows it needed to be that way. Being served brought humility and gratitude, and what was still left over allowed for critical growth.
“It was extremely hard,” Melissa recalls of those Delaware years. “But I mean, I think motherhood just toughens you up, you’ve got to be there for that baby. Having Jude just helped me grow up super fast. I grew up with Jude because we were both like, ‘What are we doing?’ But we figured it out, and he helped me really get tough quick.”
Tammy has felt most impressed by her daughter’s attitude amid her trials, remaining upbeat and hopeful in crisis to rarely sulk, murmur or complain.
“She’s always relied on Heavenly Father,” Tammy said. “She’s just very positive, and she’s such an example to her mother. With her inner strength, she doesn’t let things get her down.”
Pushing through those ‘super lonely years’
Melissa has always striven to “bloom where you’re planted,” and words from a prophet became a source of strength in her doing so.
For much of the Youngs’ marriage, their refrigerator has held a magnet with a quote from President Gordon B. Hinckley:
“It isn’t as bad as you sometimes think it is. It all works out. Don’t worry. I say that to myself every morning. It will all work out. If you do your best, it will all work out. Put your trust in God, and move forward with faith and confidence in the future.”
For Melissa, President Hinckley’s words were the mantra she needed to face every challenge.
“(That quote) gave me a lot of belief, like, I can push through, because a lot of our years were really, really hard,” she said.
“I think without having faith, and without the gospel, there’s no way I could have done it. So I think that for sure applies to my motherhood experience. I’m not going to quit, I’m not going to give up. I’ve got to have faith that easier days are ahead and just put one foot in front of the other.
“... I think without having a strong relationship with my Heavenly Father and Jesus, and having that gospel perspective, I for sure couldn’t have done it. They’re the only way I could have pushed through those super lonely years.”
With both heavenly and temporal help, Melissa did push through, but the sacrifices made during all of her “solo parenting” laid positive roots still blessing her family today all these years later.
“I felt like I had to be both Mom and Dad, so I’ve always been extremely present with my kids,” Melissa said. “I also feel like my kids, they’re very mature. I do think it’s because I kind of demanded a little bit more from them, just me having to do so much on my own and so many Sundays on my own.
“I think we’re a super, super close family, and still, my older boys just want to be home hanging out most nights with Mom and Dad. I think it made us very a close-knit family, just always relying on each other.”
The Youngs have come a long way since Bear, Delaware. Melissa may not have expected such a refiner’s fire there and in Kevin’s other professional stops, but she knows it was all necessary in leading them here today.
“They are my purpose in life,” she said of Jude, Van, Zoey and Lillie. “I think all those years alone really just solidified that.”
Completely out of the blue
In the spring of 2024, the Youngs were preparing for their next move — although the destination was still unclear.
Kevin’s four-year stint with the Phoenix Suns was coming to an end, and he’d become a hot name on the coaching carousel. Opportunities to join other organizations were popping up all across the league.
The Brooklyn Nets were especially interested in the longtime assistant, hoping Kevin would become their new head coach. It appeared the Youngs would be Brooklyn-bound.
But Melissa was apprehensive about the idea of uprooting her children to live back east again and be so far away from family. It would be an intense transition.
Then, completely out of the blue, Kevin got a call from BYU. Melissa was ecstatic.
“I knew our kids could (handle moving to Brooklyn), they can do hard things. But I’m so happy that BYU was Heavenly Father’s plan for us,” she said. “It’s been wonderful here.”
With Kevin’s long-term contract from BYU, the Youngs have a sense of extended stability where they’re at, something few NBA coaches ever enjoy.
The demands of coaching in college are comparable to the NBA grind, according to Kevin, but the move to college has allotted a more efficient formula to excel as both BYU’s head man and a family man.
In the NBA, whenever he could be home, Kevin made a concerted effort to avoid bringing work with him. At BYU, his work lets him actually be home more.
“Being around Melissa and the kids, sleeping in your own bed a lot more, tucking your kids in, being able to help in the mornings getting them off to school ... (coaching at BYU) has provided the work-life balance that we were hoping it would,” Kevin said.
And such newfound balance has been greatly appreciated by Melissa.
“I’m not stretched as thin now with him around, and I feel like I can be at my best more by just having his help,” she said. “(Coming to BYU) has been the best blessing for us.”
Kevin may try to be done with work before coming home to Melissa and the kids — but sometimes he needs Melissa’s help at work to get things done.
“She’s been amazing on the recruiting side,” Kevin said. “Some of the athletes will bring their families on the visits. She’s a very genuine person, right? She can connect with people because she’s so genuine.
“The moms in particular who have come on the visits, she’s been able to connect with really well in a real way, and that’s something I admire about her. Just her ability to do it in a real way, it’s not manufactured.”
Since arriving at BYU, Kevin has been known for attracting high-level talent to play for him. Perhaps Melissa deserves some credit there — add a few assists to her box score.
The wives of Kevin’s assistant coaches and players can attest to Melissa’s willingness to lend a helping hand or be a shoulder for them to lean on.
“She just has that inner energy, you feel it when you talk to her. She’s just got this kindness, and she sets everybody at ease,” said Tammy.
“When you talk to her for five minutes, you feel like you’ve known her your whole life. It’s just a gift, she can talk to people and make them feel like you’re her best friend.”
‘That’s what life is supposed to be’
Melissa isn’t shy about sharing how God has influenced her life. She “delighteth in the things of the Lord,” as the Book of Mormon would say, and introducing her children to such principles has brought her immense joy.
“It’s cool to teach them and to see them make their little choices at these ages and see them grow,” Melissa said. “... They’ve had so many great experiences (in Utah) already to grow closer to Christ.”
Kevin recently baptized Zoey and blessed Lillie, Jude has been able to do temple baptisms, and Van is preparing to receive the Aaronic Priesthood.
For Tammy, there is “nothing better ... nothing sweeter” than watching her daughter teach her own children about the gospel of Christ.
“There’s no greater joy. There’s no money, no success (that compares),” Tammy said. “There’s nothing better than seeing your kids teach their children the things that you tried your best to teach them.
“Her family is everything to her. They’re happiness, their safety, their privacy, she protects it, and she cherishes it. She loves that she can be a mother and that she can stay home with her kid. Having the gospel, I think, is the center of it all for her.”
Every lonely night, every desperate prayer, every hospital visit, every FaceTime call, every lost hour of sleep, every cross-country move, and every game listened to on a late night car ride are almost sacred now. They’re where Melissa got to better know God. They’re where he’s shown his ability to guide the Young family throughout every winding road of the coaching world.
They’re what brought Kevin, Melissa and their children to BYU, and what led them to welcoming Lillie into their eternal family.
“My relationship with Heavenly Father, Jesus and the gospel, honestly, the peace that I’ve had during really difficult times could only come from that. That’s the only way we’ve made it to this place,” Melissa said.
Melissa isn’t a fan of the spotlight. Attention is far from her favorite thing. But she hopes sharing a bit of her story will provide other mothers near and far, young and old, and anyone else feeling discouraged with the belief that it’s OK to struggle, it’s OK to ask for help, it’s normal to feel scared of and smothered by life’s challenges.
But most importantly, that better days are ahead, and God will never abandon his children. She’s living proof.
“Those years of going through hard things is what will make you strong and get you to where you need to be. You have to have those hard years to gain the perspective, to reap the benefits and feel the joy,” Melissa said.
“You can’t go through this life without doing hard things, that’s what life is supposed to be. Keep going and keep fighting. Don’t give up, Heavenly Father will get you through it. You’re going to get through it, you’re going to be so proud of yourself, and you’re going to see why God had you to go through it.”
