Russ Rose Then (2002): “Cara needs to have a year where she steps back into the picture as one of the premier players in the conference. As a freshman she had some real good flashes and then last year she was in a bit of a sophomore slump. Cara is a very bright student-athlete. She works hard every day and I know she is competitive and likes to get into the mix, which is very good. Hopefully, the experience of her sophomore year will be motivating to her to get her to do the things she has to do to make a larger contribution. I believe she is willing to make the commitment to have the type of year we want for her, and hopefully she wants for herself. She is a key player for us because she has started for two years, knows the conference opponents and she knows the system. Her greatest strength is her quickness and her desire to succeed. We will need Cara to provide additional leadership and feed off her emotion.”
Russ Rose Now (2025): “Cara was an exceptional volleyball and basketball player at Harrison High School in Indiana, and certainly was one of the most competitive players that we had in the program. She never backed down from competition and she wanted the ball. Cara was very mature as an athlete and as a person. One can assume that all teams are filled with Alphas who are really competitive human beings, who hate to lose more than anything, and Cara was all that as a freshman. But she didn’t play like a freshman. She competed in practice, and she competed in matches, and she was somebody that we knew we wanted to get the ball to in key times. She was skilled at all facets of her game. At the net, with her basketball background, she was especially good off of one foot. She was one of our top attackers because she was so good off of one foot. She did this ‘take off and go,’ and we had good setting — first with Jessica Hayden and Shannon Bortner, and then with Sam Tortorello — and she would be able to score and do things to give us a chance to win. She was running slides like Teri Zemaitis had for us a few seasons earlier, and like players like Ari Wilson, who led the nation in hitting, and Christa Harmotto, who did some amazing things, did a bit later, but Cara was every bit as terminal an attacker as those players. Like all those players, Cara was quick, and she was strong in the air, and her hitting the slide was money for us a lot of times. She was terrific. She married a middle blocker from the men’s team and they have two daughters. She’s involved in coaching and they live up in New York.”
2002 Season (Junior) Highlights and Awards: Named a Second Team AVCA All-America, First Team AVCA All-Mideast Region, and unanimous All-Big Ten and Academic All-Big Ten … named to the all-tournament teams at the Penn State Invitational (where she was named MVP), the Penn State Classic, and the American Volleyball Classic … Big Ten Player of the Week (12/2).
Season Recap: Started all 33 matches and played in all 112 sets in the season … finished the season with a team-best .423 hitting percentage, which ranked 2nd in the nation and was good for 4th on the Penn State all-time single season record chart … ranked 2nd on the team with 3.34 kills/set, 3rd in blocks/set with 1.21, and 2nd in service aces with 29 (0.26 aces/set) … recorded at least 6 kills and 1 block in every match … totaled a career-best 19 kills three times during the season, including at Michigan State (11/1), at Wisconsin (11/22), and vs. Temple in the 2nd round of the NCAA Tournament (12/7) … posted double-digit kills in 16 matches, including 9 of the last 13 matches of the season … posted a Penn State record hitting percentage of 1.000 against Army (9/14) by recording 11 kills on 11 attempts … never hit below .208 in any match of the season … notched 8 blocks in a three-set win at Wisconsin (11/22).
NCAA Tournament: Tied her career-best 19 kills in the season-ending 1-3 loss to Temple in the 2nd round of the NCAA Tournament (12/7).
Before Penn State: A four-year starter at middle hitter and three-time captain at Harrison High School; was a member of the Junior National team in the summer of 1999; in 1998, led high school team to a school-record 31 wins and a state final four appearance; played in the 2000 Indiana State All Games in both volleyball and basketball; also lettered four years in basketball and one year in track.
“Smith eclipses 1000-kill milestone in Lions’ weekend win,” The Daily Collegian, Sept. 22, 2003