Russ Rose Then (2006): “Katie is a key player for this team as she was one of our primary passers last year and will have additional responsibilities this year. She immerses herself in certain things and if we can get her healthy and she can return herself to where she was physically on the trip to Italy [in the summer of 2005], then she is a player who needs to be on the floor all the time . Katie is a great passer and I think has the team’s best volleyball IQ from playing the game for such a long time. She has always been the go-to hitter on her previous teams, but she is very open to helping this team, even if that means giving some swings back to the younger players or looking at playing the libero position. She has indicated that playing libero is not her first choice, but she wants to do what helps the team. I know Katie plays the game hard and she brings a lot of tools to the table that can allow a team to be successful. Katie has multiple talents and it is our charge to channel her in the right position.”
Russ Rose Now (2025): “Katie was one of the top recruits in the country in 2004 and was one of the best natural passers that I coached during my career at Penn State. She was a confident and fearless competitor and was the Big Ten Freshman of the Year as an outside attacker for the 2004 season. She transitioned to playing a different role the next couple of years, because we had outside hitters come in like Nic Fawcett in 2005 and Megan Hodge in 2006. It’s hard to beat out two people who are going to be playing for Team USA. In hindsight, what I especially love about Katie is that she could easily have left and gone somewhere and been an All American. But she stayed at Penn State and helped us build the program, get better, and win the National Championship in 2007. From the time Katie arrived at Penn State as a freshman to the end of her playing career at Penn State, she always cared about the team, and she would do whatever was asked to help the team, whether it was to play front row or back row or in practice, go the other side of the net and be a player that we had to focus on for match preparation. After Katie graduated, she was a college coach for a few years. Katie was a really fine volleyball player. And I think if she would have stayed in coaching, she would have had a great career as a coach. I heard from her a couple of weeks ago that one of her younger children wants to get into volleyball, and she might come back and help in a volleyball club in some way. I told her ‘this is what people get for lessons.’ And she said, ‘Oh, I would never want to do that for money. I’d do it because people helped me when I was young.’ So that’s pretty nice, you know? Yeah, she is 100% loyal to Penn State and the volleyball program and, in hindsight, that was and is still now the most important thing to me. I’m a big fan of Katie Price.”
2006 Season (Junior): Played in 100 sets and all 35 matches, starting 12 … began the season as the squad’s libero before transitioning to a utility player with the ability to play both front and back row … recorded 42 kills, 12 service aces, 214 digs and 21 total blocks … tallied 26 digs at LSU (8/26), the first time a Penn State player had recorded 25 or more digs in a match since Kaleena Walters accomplished the feat versus Wisconsin on Oct. 28, 2005 … tallied 6 double-digit dig matches, including providing 10 digs against Wisconsin (10/7) and at Northwestern (10/13) … started the first 8 Big Ten matches at opposite while also acting as a primary passer before again playing the role of a utility player … recorded a season-high six kills twice, including hitting a career-high .667 (6-0-9) against Miami (Ohio) (9/16) … passed at a .959 clip for the year.
Before Penn State: Four-year volleyball letterwinner at Fraser High School in Fraser, Mich. … team captain in 2003 for the Ramblers … led Fraser to the Michigan state title in 2002 and 2003 … a three-time first team all-state selection … earned honorable mention all-state following freshman year … also won the state championship in the high jump … was a three-year track letterwinner and a three-year basketball letterwinner … named a Volleyball Magazine ‘Fab 50’ selection in 2003.