LOUISVILLE, Ky. — What’s outstanding is just not that two ladies are teaching for the nationwide championship and one will win a title for the primary time within the 44 years of NCAA ladies’s volleyball. It’s outstanding that these ladies, Katie Schumacher-Cawley and Dani Busboom Kelly, are the 2 doing it.
As a result of they’re the best representatives.
On this historic second, as Schumacher-Cawley at Penn State and Louisville’s Busboom Kelly match wits earlier than a sold-out KFC Yum! Heart and a nationwide ABC viewers on Sunday at 3 p.m., they’re the embodiment of what it takes to get to the highest in an business dominated by males.
Eighteen of the 20 winningest coaches in Division I ladies’s volleyball historical past are males.
“It’s going to be superior for the game to get this monkey off its again and transfer on from this, the place it’s not historic {that a} girl wins,” mentioned Busboom Kelly, 39, in her eighth season and making a second journey to the nationwide championship match with the Cardinals. “It’s only a common factor.”
Penn State (34-2) and Louisville (30-5) mirror their coaches’ drive and resilience. They gained nationwide semifinal matches on Thursday in opposition to Nebraska and Pittsburgh, respectively, in dramatic style.
Schumacher-Cawley and Busboom Kelly each coached with a gentle hand. They fostered confidence from the sideline as their squads’ manufactured comebacks in opposition to opponents thought-about to rank first and second nationally in expertise, depth and championship-level expertise.
GO DEEPER
Penn State, Louisville set to satisfy for ladies’s volleyball nationwide title
The Nittany Lions pulled a five-set reverse sweep, combating off two match factors for Nebraska within the fourth set.
At first of the decisive fifth set, junior libero Gillian Grimes heard a voice of reassurance within the Penn State huddle: “We’re made for this.” The phrase didn’t come from Schumacher-Cawley. However she is why it was spoken.
Louisville gamers confronted stress all season to earn a spot within the Ultimate 4 at house. As stress rose when Pitt gained the opening set and took the lead within the second, Busboom Kelly implored the Cardinals to maintain their composure.
“That is going to begin to work,” she mentioned.
With out star attacker Anna DeBeer, the senior was injured two factors into the fourth set, they swarmed Pitt after turning again three set factors for the Panthers within the third.
In brief, Penn State and Louisville refused to go away. They saved taking big swings. They performed to win.
“We’re not speaking about dropping ever,” Penn State outdoors hitter Jess Mruzik. “We’re by no means counting ourselves out, regardless of how huge of a deficit we’re going through.”
In matches performed in entrance of an NCAA-postseason file crowd of 21,726, Penn State and Louisville had been the more durable groups.
Is it any shock, contemplating the coaches?
“Girls are robust,” mentioned Nebraska coach John Prepare dinner, who’s gained 4 nationwide championships. “And people two are actually robust. Have a look at them as gamers. They each gained nationwide championships, so this isn’t a fluke. These guys are winners. They’re nice rivals. And their groups play prefer it.”
Schumacher-Cawley, 44, is a Chicago model of robust. She grew up within the metropolis and starred in a number of sports activities at Mom McAuley Excessive. She performed at Penn State, earned two All-America honors and gained a nationwide championship, the college’s first in ladies’s volleyball, in 1999 for coach Russ Rose.
Rose gained six extra titles. He’s the all-time chief in championships and wins amongst Division I coaches. In 2008, Schumacher-Cawley was inducted into the Chicagoland Corridor of Fame in a category alongside Dick Butkus, Gale Sayers and Andre Dawson.
She ran this system at Illinois-Chicago for eight seasons and returned to Penn State to work for Rose in 2018 — 4 years after the Nittany Lions’ most up-to-date Ultimate 4 look till final week.
Schumacher Cawley took over when Rose retired in 2022.
“Following Russ Rose, to take the staff again to the Ultimate 4 in simply three years,” Busboom Kelly mentioned, “take being a person or girl out of it, that’s a tremendous accomplishment.”
Early in her third season this fall, Schumacher-Cawley revealed a Stage 2 breast most cancers prognosis and he or she started chemotherapy. She misplaced her hair however didn’t miss a observe together with her staff.
“We’re clearly wanting to do that for her as a result of she’s been so wonderful all through this season,” mentioned Mruzik, who hammered a match-best 26 kills in opposition to Nebraska. “In order that gritty five-set win helped put one other brick into the piece that we’re making an attempt to construct this season.”
Schumacher-Cawley deflects questions on her well being and the gender challenge in teaching.
“I’m simply actually excited to symbolize Penn State,” she mentioned.
Perhaps it’ll sink in, she mentioned, the magnitude of two ladies on the bench, each in cost with a trophy on the court docket, after they step out underneath the lights Sunday.
“I’m happy with this staff,” Schumacher-Cauley mentioned. “I feel I’ve mentioned that every single day. I’m happy with their combat.”
The combat transcends volleyball.
Louisville coach Dani Busboom Kelly was the 2021 AVCA nationwide coach of the 12 months. (Sam Upshaw Jr. / Courier Journal / USA Right now through Imagn Pictures)
When Busboom Kelly took over at Louisville in 2017, she doubled the Cardinals’ win whole, from 12 to 24, in a single season.
In 2019, Louisville superior to the spherical of eight for the primary time. In 2021, Busboom Kelly was named the nationwide coach of the 12 months because the Cardinals went undefeated till the Ultimate 4, dropping in 5 units in opposition to Wisconsin. A 12 months later, Texas beat Louisville for the nationwide championship.
“She’s led one of many nice turnarounds in any school volleyball program,” Prepare dinner mentioned.
Busboom Kelly performed for Prepare dinner at Nebraska from 2003 to 2006. He recruited her off a farm close to Cortland Neb. She was a multi-sport star at tiny Adams Freeman Excessive College.
In school, she moved from setter to libero and helped spark the Huskers, alongside future Olympians Jordan Larson and Sarah Pavan, to a nationwide championship in 2006. She gained one other title with Prepare dinner and the Huskers as an assistant coach in 2015.
A 12 months later, she took over at Louisville.
“I hope folks recognize what she’s finished right here,” Prepare dinner mentioned.
Louisville followers recognize Busboom Kelly, based mostly on the reception Thursday that she and the Cardinals acquired.
“I feel the final time I used to be on the mic speaking about Dani, I known as her a badass,” Louisville center blocker Phekran Kong mentioned Friday on the information convention to preview the championship. “So I’m going to double down on that one. As a result of she’s legit.”
Within the fourth set on Thursday, after DeBeer left with the harm that would maintain the senior All-American out of the championship match, center blocker Cara Cresse promised Busboom Kelly that she would ship two blocks.
Cresse produced. Momentum flipped. The Panthers fell aside late within the match. Even sophomore reverse hitter Olivia Babcock, topped Friday because the nationwide participant of the 12 months, felt the stress. The Cardinals embraced it.
“That is for all of the individuals who doubted us,” Louisville outdoors hitter Charitie Luper mentioned.
Her coach seemed on and smiled.
Greater than to shatter a glass ceiling on Sunday, Busbom Kelly mentioned, she’s excited {that a} girl will coach her staff to the nationwide championship in order that athletic administrators and future gamers who would possibly go into teaching perceive that it may be finished.
“It’s extra simply being actually proud that we will be function fashions,” she mentioned, “and hopefully blazing new trails.”
(Prime picture of Schumacher-Cawley: Dan Rainville / USA Right now through Imagn Pictures
