Why extending Penn State women’s volleyball coach was an easy decision for AD Pat Kraft
Tears welled in Pat Kraft’s eyes as he spoke. The Penn State athletic director was asked about plenty of his programs Monday morning when he spoke to the media, but none drew the emotional response like the one he had when discussing the women’s volleyball team — and specifically coach Katie Schumacher-Cawley.
Kraft furrowed his brow in an attempt to keep the tears from falling.
“I just remember her coming in and telling me early, far earlier than anyone knew, what she was about to begin,” he said. “Like any of our staff and anyone that goes through life’s trials, we’re gonna be there for them any way we can. ... I have never seen anything like that.”
Schumacher-Cawley led her team to a national title, her first as a head coach, all while enduring chemotherapy for the breast cancer she was diagnosed with late in 2024.
The head coach went on to finish her chemotherapy in February, and then signed a contract extension on Feb. 14 that will keep her with Penn State through 2030 — an easy decision for Kraft.
“Yeah that was a hard extension, right?” Kraft said, smiling. “I don’t think anyone’s ever earned an extension more than her.”
Her team’s path to that title was not without its own ups and downs. The team suffered an early-season loss at Pittsburgh in straight sets that could have derailed everything. Then dropped another in straight sets in Wisconsin in early November.
But things began to turn later that month when the Nittany Lions took down then-No. 2 Nebraska in Rec Hall. And that’s when Kraft’s eyes were opened.
“Go re-watch that game,” he said. “Never did that team waver. When you have someone like Katie, who’s not flinching about what was put in front of her and her family. There should be a Netflix movie about it. ... There was never an excuse. We were gonna go, we were gonna set the tone and we were gonna feed off each other. What she did, I’ll never forget it.”
He spoke glowingly about Schumacher-Cawley’s staff and her players, crediting them for fighting through adversity throughout a difficult season.
And his mind went back to the locker room after the loss to Pittsburgh to when he saw the resilience.
“This was before all of this,” Kraft said. “And it was like, ‘all right, let’s get back up and keep competing, competing and competing.’ They never flinched.”
The team’s mentality comes from its head coach, who Kraft said took a recruiting call right after a chemotherapy session despite his attempts to dissuade her.
But Schumacher-Cawley’s fight is not over, and the athletic director said the department will be alongside her as she continues through that journey.
He put it succinctly when describing the head coach.
“She is Penn State,” Kraft said.
