2021 PSU WVB Thread
- Thread starter Tom McAndrew
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This is the equivalent of CJF's "We Are Better" tweets. As yet, I haven't seen anything about who the player is.
Edit: Some speculation that it's an OH in the portal from Utah, but no confirmation.
Edit: Some speculation that it's an OH in the portal from Utah, but no confirmation.
Nothing publicly posted by PSU, by Coach KSC, or by the player that many were speculating was the reason for the tweet.
In Coach KSC's defense, she's made that tweet three times since she was hired. The first two turned out to be Kashauna Williams and Taylor Trammell. As such, I'm pretty confident that it's legit and will turn out to be a nice addition to the team.
I've been checking multiple times a day since Tuesday to see if there is anything public about what Coach KSC tweeted, and will continue to check.
and here it is .. the OH from Utah that had been suspected.
she's got two years of eligibility remaining, which is nice. Her mom is the head coach for VB at UNC-Charlotte, so she's had a good teacher while growing up.
This past season, she was named to the All-Pac-12 Honorable Mention team, as selected by the conference coaches. (To give some context, there is the All-Pac-12 Team, and then the Honorable Mentions. Two OHs from Utah were selected to the All-Pac-12 Team, with one of them being a 4X member of the team.
I think she's an excellent addition to the team.
PSU lost a lot after last season, and with Russ Rose stepping down in December, there wasn't a lot of time to put together pieces for next year's team.
At OH, PSU lost AC Fitzpatrick (Florida, I believe) to the portal, and replaced her with Kashauna Williams. That's an improvement for PSU.
At MB, PSU lost Kaitlyn Hord (Nebraska) to the portal, and replaced her with Taylor Trammell. That may be a slight downgrade, but not by much.
At OH, it appears that Jonni Parker is not going to use the added year. PSU replaced her with Zoe Weatherington. I always enjoyed Parker, but she had some limitations. I know Parker's game far better than I know Weatherington's game, so it's kind of hard to compare them. I think Zoe is going to be an improvement over Jonni, but that remains to be seen.
PSU certainly has addressed numbers and issues on their frontline with the three portal players they have landed. They still may be looking for a DS and a setter in the portal (just speculating; no inside info).
Between Rose's retirement, the number of players that were graduating, and the number of players that hit the transfer protocol, there were a lot of concerns about PSU WVB for the 2022 season. I'm not sure how they'll do in 2022 in the B1G, but I'm certainly more upbeat about the season. In addition, there were a number of questions about Coach KSC and her assistants with regards to recruiting. While it will take several years to evaluate how they are as recruiters, their steps to address the roster during their first month in their roles is certainly very encouraging.
Penn State flips Katie Hurta from Indiana, Gatorade Illinois Player of the Year
A nice addition to the class of 2022. She's primarily a setter, but can also play OH.
She signed with Indiana in Nov. 2021. Daniel Gwitt was the assistant coach at Indy that was her main recruiter. In Jan. of this year, he was named as an assistant at PSU by Coach KSC. So we had a bit of an in with her.
This new staff continues to impress me as recruiters.
These two videos are from a few years ago, but show her abilities at that time as a setter and as a hitter.
So are we actually screwed, as a stunningly optimistic fan suggested earlier, or are we not? 
Penn State's Katie Schumacher-Cawley on replacing Russ Rose
Former Penn State women's volleyball player Katie Schumacher-Cawley was named head coach earlier this year, replacing legendary former coach Russ Rose after 43 seasons and seven national titles. Schumacher-Cawley spoke to NCAA Digital's Michella Chester about the Nittany Lions' upcoming season.
www.ncaa.com
Coach Rose had some pretty unflattering things to say about the athletic department in a recent interview. I skipped the link ahead to some of the meatier comments but the whole interview is worthy of a listen.
Wow. Coach Rose laid it out why he walked away. Growing unhappiness with the lack of support from the "administration" over an 8-10 year period where he was denied funding for things and told that he had the money so he could fund it himself (not sure what that means exactly). Says he did not come into the year thinking it was his last but issues with the collection of players and the lack of support from the "administration" on issues with abusive parents of some players were behind his decision. Re: players, he noted as example a top player on team coming to him to say they didn't feel like playing today, a change in player attitude that didn't exist during the glory years, and where the "administration" was supporting the players and not him. Made comments about how Nebraska AD has the right approach. Said if he coaches again it will be at an orphanage. Worth listening to. [I scrolled across the video to when Coach spoke as it is long.]
I have heard things like this thru the grapevine and figured it was just rumor. I have heard from some old timers that coaches were not getting the support and resources they needed. (as evidenced by Franklins recent hiring of several staff positions on the PSU Jobs board as part of his renegotiated contract). Hopefully new leadership of the new president and a new AD will change this. However, you still have all the bloat from the underlings around the leadership that will most likely impede changes for the better. Trying to be optimistic here but most likely won't happen unless they get rid of some of the bloat.
The rumors I had read were that football was the squeaky wheel requesting lots of new funding to get the program inline with some of the other top programs out there, and that was coming at the expense of some less visible sports. I have no inside connections to know if that was true, but it could be the reason behind Rose being denied funding as the mix shifted to prioritize football.
Russ Rose being his normal, grouchy Russ Rose. Brilliant coach, but there is always an expiration date and I think Russ's tenure reached his.
Penn State has always fed the cash cow (football) first, and that's a logical strategy. Given James Franklin's seemingly bottomless demands for additional resources and the financial effects of the COVID year(s), it's no surprise that budgets are tight for most of PSU's non-revenue sports, including WVB. I assume this scenario is in place at most P5 schools today. Many P5 schools suffered financially from COVID more than Penn State.
I think the new AD will be unable to escape the hard question about whether ICA can fund 31 sports at national and conference competitive levels over the long haul. I'd hate to see any varsity sports cut, but it's probably inevitable. It will be very noisy when it eventually happens. (I'm not implying that WVB would be a candidate for elimination.)
Then again, it seems that most schools that try to eliminate one or more varsity sports confront so much legal and/or donor/parent/alumni pressure that they're forced to reinstate that sport.
Penn State has always fed the cash cow (football) first, and that's a logical strategy. Given James Franklin's seemingly bottomless demands for additional resources and the financial effects of the COVID year(s), it's no surprise that budgets are tight for most of PSU's non-revenue sports, including WVB. I assume this scenario is in place at most P5 schools today. Many P5 schools suffered financially from COVID more than Penn State.
I think the new AD will be unable to escape the hard question about whether ICA can fund 31 sports at national and conference competitive levels over the long haul. I'd hate to see any varsity sports cut, but it's probably inevitable. It will be very noisy when it eventually happens. (I'm not implying that WVB would be a candidate for elimination.)
Then again, it seems that most schools that try to eliminate one or more varsity sports confront so much legal and/or donor/parent/alumni pressure that they're forced to reinstate that sport.
Well coach did mention in this interview that the UNL AD is an example of handling things well, and that Cook is getting what he needs there. Rose mentioned many times in this interview that AD support is vital for success and said it was one reason the team was so successful during the 4-peat run and that is hasn't been the same in recent years. Reading between the lines it's likely that he had a better relationship with Curley. Of course Paterno was still here then too, and he didn't demand the same level of football funding that Franklin is trying to get so that likely impacted things as well, it may not have simply been the AD. But football has changed a lot since then and the old school mentality of doing more with less that Paterno managed to achieve doesn't really fly today if you want to attract the best recruits and compete for titles. Whether or not increasing budgets for football is the right move is debatable, but on the surface it seems to be the way to go if the goal is national titles. Unfortunately something has to give unless overall budgets increase. Sandy didn't seem to be a great fundraiser from what I've seen, meaning budgets had to shift instead of just increasing across the board for all sports.
I totally agree with your assessment. The mentality of "making do with what you have" seems to be lost on the newer generations. And on the topic that Sandy doesn't seem to be a great fundraiser was probably made even harder when PSU started alienating a lot the alumni when the shiite hit the fan in 2011 and all their subsequent decisions.
I'm not a fan of money-losing sports, but if the resources aren't provided to win then don't play.
I’ve heard Russ complain that Nebraska got to use a private university plane for their team travel and Penn State usually had to fly on commercial flights. That was one of his gripes about the administration and he felt it put them at a disadvantage recruiting wise. He was also a pretty stubborn guy and he wasn’t going to take any crap from anyone whether it be players, parents of players, or anyone in the AD’s office. I suspect he wasn’t an easy guy to work with and that compromise was not something he would consider.
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