Russ Rose Then (2004): “Kate is a player who I’m very optimistic about contributing immediately because she is coming off a championship high school season and her club team played well at Nationals. I know she brings a number of postitive intangibles to the court because she is a taller, experienced, go-to player. We can count on the fact that Kate knows what an outside hitter needs to do, has a variety of shots, and isn’t afraid to take a big swing.”
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.”
2004 Season (Freshman) Highlights and Awards: AVCA Honorable Mention All-Mideast Region … Big Ten Freshman of the Year … Big Ten All-Freshman Team … Stanford Invitational Most Valuable Player … Penn State Invitational All-Tournament Team … was the only non-junior or senior to rank among the top 10 in the Big Ten in kills/set (3.94) and ranked 5th in the league in conference-only matches with 4.07 kills/set.
Season Recap: Played in all 32 matches and 108 of 109 games … led the team with 3.93 kills per game and also averaged 2.01 digs per game and 0.44 blocks per game … … recorded a career-high 28 kills in the five-game win over eventual National Champion Stanford on the road, 2 days after her 18th birthday … surpassed her previous career high of 10 kills in the first game alone against the Cardinal … had 6 double-doubles for the season, including a career-high 18 digs versus then-No. 1 Minnesota (10/2) … posted double-digit kill figures in 26 matches, including 25 of the last 28 contests … recorded at least 6 kills in every match of the season … notched at least 1 dig in every match of the year, including 7 double-digit dig matches … equaled her previous career-high of 3 blocks on 4 occasions, including 3 times in the last 6 matches (vs. Illinois, 11/20; at Michigan State, 11/26; vs. American, 12/3) … ranked 2nd on the team with 25 aces.
NCAA Tournament: Equaled her previous career-high of 3 blocks vs. American 12/3) …had a career-high 5 service aces at Iowa (12/6) … set a new career high with 4 blocks in the NCAA Tournament loss to UCLA (12/10).
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.