TH E CONVERSATION Kathryn Plummer Kathryn Plummer is the only player ever to have won FIVB age-group


World Championship medals in beach (U17 gold in 2014 with Morgan Martin, U19 bronze in 2016 with Milica Mirkovic) and indoor (U18 silver in 2015). The native of Aliso Viejo, California, played a key role in Stanford’s 2016 NCAA championship run and was the AVCA’s National Freshman of the Year. Six days after she and her Cardinal teammates clinched the title with


a Dec. 17 victory over Texas in Columbus, Ohio, the 6-6 Plummer and Mirkovic won gold at the USAV U21 Beach Team Trials in Chula Vista, California, to qualify for the FIVB Beach U21 World Cham- pionships in China in July. During her holiday break, Plummer – or Plumdawg, as her friends call her – sat down with VolleyballUSA to talk about her dual-discipline career, her beach win over three- time Olympic gold medalist Misty May-Treanor and why she has trouble holding back tears even when watching TV.


VolleyballUSA: Nice week you had in December. Congratulations! Kathryn Plummer: Thanks. It hasn’t even sunk


in. It all happened in such a short amount of time. But it’s awesome to be able to represent USA and Stanford in one week and bring it home for everyone. [Laughs]


You switched midway through Stanford’s season from opposite to outside hitter, where you became a primary passer. If you weren’t a beach player, would such a quick transition have been pos- sible?


It’s hard to say, because I do have a beach background, and that really helped me with the passing aspect of it and just adapting to out-of-system sets and being able to see the court more. And because of my beach background, I was able to mix in shots and off-speed stuff. I think beach is good for younger kids because you have to learn every skill. I started when I was 11 or 12, and that helped me in college. I kind of knew how to do everything pretty well, and I wasn’t just set on, “Oh, I’m an opposite hitter, I can only do this.”


You’ve said before that you would like to do what Karch Kiraly did: win Olympic gold medals in beach and indoor. What’s your plan?


I talked to Karch about which (discipline) I should do first. I would finish college obviously and hopefully play profession- ally overseas. I’d work with indoor first because the beach game is a lot more forgiving on your body.


You had a really important block in the fourth set of the national semifinal against Minnesota where you dropped your right hand into the hitter’s angle and gave your team a 20-16 lead. Did you learn that move on the beach or indoors?


It’s actually something 16 | VOLLEYBALLUSA


Interview by Don Patterson • Photo by Don Liebig Top USA prospect is on the rise both indoors and on the beach


I learned at Stanford. All throughout preseason we were working on diving into blocks. With our block, we thought we could beat people with one-on-one and we’d have to do that by diving in – showing something and then taking something else away. Stopping right-side attacks was a struggle for us all season, so that was a major key in our scouting report for the Minnesota match and for the next match against Texas.


There’s a picture of you with (recently retired) Stanford Coach John Dunning and Kerri Walsh Jennings when you won the AVCA National Freshman of the Year award. You’re towering over Kerri. Would you like a chance to block her?


That would be an awesome experience to play against her. I played against Misty [May-Treanor] before. That was really fun.


How did you do? It was after she had a baby, so she was not really


in the volleyball world. But I played with (Stanford outside hitter) Hayley Hodson and we beat her, so that was pretty cool.


So you picked a time when she wasn’t in the best shape? [Laughs] That’s definitely it.


What’s one thing you learned playing in the USA program?


My [U.S. Girls’ Youth National


Team] coach, Jim Stone, taught me that if you don’t go, you don’t know. I think that’s true with defense, offense, blocking, anything. If you don’t go for a ball or you don’t have the mindset that you’re going to succeed in something, then you’re not going to do it. That really stood out to me.


So even if you think there’s no chance to get a ball, go for it anyway.


Go for it. Because you don’t know. There was a play against Wisconsin when


(Stanford libero) Morgan [Hentz] hustled her butt and got it from 30 feet off the net and we got the point. So going for it is the motto we should be living by. And another thing we talked about is that you don’t want to play not to lose, you want to play to win. If a ball is close, you want to think ‘I got this,’ not ‘I hope it’s out so we get this point.’


Any intriguing school assignments in the first half of your freshman year?


I took a class called “Sport Competition


in Society.” We read about athletes and also how athletics contributes to mass media and culture. It was really interesting. One thing we learned was about how women’s rowing was affected by Title IX and how it helped college football. If schools added women’s rowing, then the football team could still have as many scholarships as they had.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72