LOUISVILLE, Ky. — What’s exceptional just isn’t 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 exceptional 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! Middle 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 received nationwide semifinal matches on Thursday towards Nebraska and Pittsburgh, respectively, in dramatic trend.
Schumacher-Cawley and Busboom Kelly each coached with a gentle hand. They fostered confidence from the sideline as their squads’ manufactured comebacks towards 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 girls’s volleyball nationwide title
The Nittany Lions pulled a five-set reverse sweep, combating off two match factors for Nebraska within the fourth set.
Firstly 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 strain all season to earn a spot within the Last 4 at residence. As stress rose when Pitt received 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.
Briefly, Penn State and Louisville refused to go away. They stored taking large swings. They performed to win.
“We’re not speaking about dropping ever,” Penn State exterior hitter Jess Mruzik. “We’re by no means counting ourselves out, irrespective of how massive of a deficit we’re going through.”
In matches performed in entrance of an NCAA-postseason report crowd of 21,726, Penn State and Louisville had been the more durable groups.
Is it any shock, contemplating the coaches?
“Girls are powerful,” mentioned Nebraska coach John Prepare dinner, who’s received 4 nationwide championships. “And people two are actually powerful. Take a look at them as gamers. They each received nationwide championships, so this isn’t a fluke. These guys are winners. They’re nice opponents. And their groups play prefer it.”
Schumacher-Cawley, 44, is a Chicago model of powerful. 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 received a nationwide championship, the college’s first in ladies’s volleyball, in 1999 for coach Russ Rose.
Rose received 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 Last 4 look till final week.
Schumacher Cawley took over when Rose retired in 2022.
“Following Russ Rose, to take the crew again to the Last 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 along with her crew.
“We’re clearly wanting to do that for her as a result of she’s been so superb all through this season,” mentioned Mruzik, who hammered a match-best 26 kills towards 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 problem 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 courtroom, once they step out beneath the lights Sunday.
“I’m happy with this crew,” Schumacher-Cauley mentioned. “I believe I’ve mentioned that daily. I’m happy with their combat.”
The combat transcends volleyball.
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 Last 4, dropping in 5 units towards Wisconsin. A 12 months later, Texas beat Louisville for the nationwide championship.
“She’s led one of many nice turnarounds in any faculty 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 faculty, 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 received 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 individuals admire what she’s accomplished right here,” Prepare dinner mentioned.
Louisville followers admire Busboom Kelly, based mostly on the reception Thursday that she and the Cardinals acquired.
“I believe 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 might 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 strain. The Cardinals embraced it.
“That is for all of the individuals who doubted us,” Louisville exterior 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 crew to the nationwide championship in order that athletic administrators and future gamers who would possibly go into teaching perceive that it may be accomplished.
“It’s extra simply being actually proud that we could be function fashions,” she mentioned, “and hopefully blazing new trails.”
(High photograph of Schumacher-Cawley: Dan Rainville / USA Right now by way of Imagn Photographs