LOUISVILLE, Ky. — What’s remarkable isn’t that two women are coaching for the national championship and one of them will win a title for the first time in 44 years of NCAA women’s volleyball. It’s remarkable that these women, Katie Schumacher-Cawley and Dani Busboom Kelly, are the two to do it.
Because they are the ideal representatives.
In this historic moment, as Penn State’s Schumacher-Cawley and Louisville’s Busboom Kelly face off in front of a sold-out KFC Yum! Center and a national audience on ABC Sundays at 3 p.m., they embody what it takes to make it to the top in a male-dominated industry.
Eighteen of the 20 winningest coaches in Division I women’s volleyball history are men.
“It’s going to be great for the sport to get rid of that monkey and move on, where it’s not historic for a woman to win,” said Busboom Kelly, 39, who is in her eighth season and who is making a second trip to the national championships. championship game with the Cardinals. “It’s just a regular thing.”
Penn State (34-2) and Louisville (30-5) reflect the drive and resilience of their coaches. They won the national semifinals Thursday against Nebraska and Pittsburgh, respectively, in spectacular fashion.
Both Schumacher-Cawley and Busboom Kelly coached with a steady hand. They fostered confidence from the bench as their teams mounted comebacks against opponents considered to be ranked first and second nationally in talent, depth and championship-level experience.
GO DEEPER
Penn State and Louisville set to meet for women’s volleyball national title
The Nittany Lions completed a five-set reverse sweep, fighting off two match points for Nebraska in the fourth set.
At the start of the deciding fifth set, junior libero Gillian Grimes heard a reassuring voice from the Penn State huddle: “We’re built for this.” » The expression does not come from Schumacher-Cawley. But it was her that this was said to.
Louisville players have faced pressure all season to earn a spot in the Final Four at home. As stress mounted as Pitt won the first set and took the lead in the second, Busboom Kelly implored the Cardinals to keep their composure.
“It’s going to start working,” she said.
Without star forward Anna DeBeer, the senior injured two points into the fourth set, they swarmed Pitt after holding off three set points for the Panthers in the third.
In short, Penn State and Louisville refused to go away. They continued to gain huge momentum. They played to win.
“We never talk about losing,” Penn State outside hitter Jess Mruzik said. “We never exclude ourselves, regardless of the size of the deficit we face. »
In matches played in front of a NCAA– A record playoff crowd of 21,726, Penn State and Louisville were the toughest teams.
Is this a surprise, given the coaches?
“Women are tough,” said Nebraska coach John Cook, who won four national championships. “And these two are really tough.” Think of them as players. They both won national championships, so it’s no coincidence. These guys are winners. They are great competitors. And their teams play like that.
Schumacher-Cawley, 44, is a brand of Chicago tough guy. She grew up in town and played several sports at Mother McAuley High. She played at Penn State, earned two All-America honors and won a national championship, the school’s first in women’s volleyball, in 1999 for coach Russ Rose.
Rose won six more titles. He is the all-time leader in championships and wins among Division I coaches. In 2008, Schumacher-Cawley was inducted into the Chicagoland Hall of Fame in a class alongside Dick Butkus, Gale Sayers and Andre Dawson.
She led the program at Illinois-Chicago for eight seasons and returned to Penn State to work for Rose in 2018 — four years after the Nittany Lions’ last Final Four appearance until last week.
Schumacher Cawley took over when Rose retired in 2022.
“After Russ Rose getting the team back to the Final Four in just three years,” Busboom Kelly said, “taking away being male or female, that’s an incredible accomplishment.”
At the start of her third season this fall, Schumacher-Cawley revealed a stage 2 breast cancer diagnosis and she began chemotherapy. She lost her hair but didn’t miss a practice with her team.
“We obviously want to do this for her because she’s been so incredible throughout this season,” said Mruzik, who had a season-high 26 kills against Nebraska. “So this five-set win helped add another brick to the piece that we’re trying to build this season.”
Schumacher-Cawley deflects questions about her health and gender in coaching.
“I’m really excited to represent Penn State,” she said.
Maybe it will bring awareness, she said, to the magnitude of two women on the bench, both in charge of a trophy on the field, when they step out under the lights on Sunday.
“I’m proud of this team,” Schumacher-Cauley said. “I think I said it every day. I am proud of their fight.
Combat transcends volleyball.
Louisville coach Dani Busboom Kelly has been named the 2021 AVCA National Coach of the Year. (Sam Upshaw Jr./Courier Journal/USA Today via Imagn Images)
When Busboom Kelly took over at Louisville in 2017, she doubled the Cardinals’ win total, from 12 to 24, in one season.
In 2019, Louisville advanced to the round of 16 for the first time. In 2021, Busboom Kelly was named national coach of the year as the Cardinals went undefeated until the Final Four, losing in five sets to Wisconsin. A year later, Texas defeated Louisville for the national championship.
“She led one of the great turnarounds in any college volleyball program,” Cook said.
Busboom Kelly played for Cook at Nebraska from 2003 to 2006. He recruited her from a farm near Cortland Neb. She was a multi-sport star at small Adams Freeman High School.
In college, she transitioned from setter to libero and helped propel the Huskers, alongside future Olympians Jordan Larson and Sarah Pavan, to a national championship in 2006. She won another title with Cook and the Huskers in as an assistant coach in 2015.
A year later, she took over at Louisville.
“I hope people appreciate what she’s done here,” Cook said.
Louisville fans like Busboom Kelly, based on the reception she and the Cardinals received Thursday.
“I think the last time I was on the mic talking about Dani, I called her a badass,” Louisville middle blocker Phekran Kong said Friday during the preview press conference of the championship. “So I’m going to double down on this one. Because it is legitimate.
In the fourth set Thursday, after DeBeer left with an injury that could keep the senior All-American out of the championship match, middle blocker Cara Cresse promised Busboom Kelly she would deliver two blocks.
Cress produced. The momentum has reversed. The Panthers collapsed late in the game. Even sophomore opposing forward Olivia Babcock, crowned national player of the year on Friday, felt the pressure. The Cardinals adopted it.
“This is for everyone who doubted us,” Louisville outside hitter Charitie Luper said.
His coach looked on and smiled.
More than breaking a glass ceiling Sunday, Busbom Kelly said she was excited to have a woman coach her team to the national championship so athletic directors and future players who might become a coach understand it can be done.
“It’s more about just being really proud that we can be role models,” she said, “and hopefully breaking new ground.” »
(Top photo of Schumacher-Cawley: Dan Rainville / USA Today via Imagn Images