Russ Rose Then (2007): “A great deal of our success this year will be linked to how Kate handles the responsibilities of floor leadership as well as being a primary ball-handler. She came strong out of the gate her freshman year and made an immediate impact but has had some injuries over the last couple of years. Hopefully her senior year will allow her to be physically able to compete at the net and do the things that she does well. In my mind she has our team’s highest volleyball IQ and is a key player for our chances of success this season.”
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.”
2007 Season (Senior): 2007 National Champion … played in 36 matches (with 22 starts) and a total of 119 sets. Averaged .62 assists/set (third best on the team) and 1.88 digs/set. Her 22 service aces ranked fourth best on the team.
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.