Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1052705
PLAYERS' COACH Even in the midst of a milestone season, Russ Rose would prefer to shine a spotlight on the athletes who have helped shape PSU into a women's volleyball powerhouse uss Rose is the winningest coach in major college women's vol- leyball. His seven NCAA cham- pionships, including four in a row from 2007-10, and his 1,266-204 record are the best in the sport. Now in his 40th year at Penn State, Rose is the second- longest-tenured head coach in Nittany Lion history, just behind Joe Paterno's 45 seasons. What is there to know about Russ Rose that we don't already know? BWI asked contributing writer Lou Prato to find out. In reading past stories about you, you rarely talk about your back- ground. We know you were born and raised in Chicago and went to college there, but we don't know much about your parents, grandparents, etc. First off, it's because I never want to be the story and I'm really not the story. I work at Penn State and I coach a volley- ball team. I want the volleyball team to be the story. I want Penn State athletics and all the programs we have here to be the story and I want the university to be the story. Yes, I am from Chicago. I was born in the Edgewater Hospital, right across the street from the Edgewater Beach Hotel where Eddie Waitkus was shot. Some readers may not know Eddie Waitkus was a star player for the Philadelphia Phillies who was shot by a woman stalker in a notorious inci- dent in 1949. It was fictionalized in Bernard Malamud's novel "The Natu- ral," which later became a movie. I saw the movie. Earlier in life, I was at the Ted Williams baseball camp and be- friended Eddie Waitkus, and we were player-coach until his passing [in 1972]. I also spent quite a bit of time talking with Ted Williams while there. However, I was young and interacting with both men at baseball camp. They were coaches and former players to me, and I've never been much of a hero worship- per. After Ted Williams passed [in 2002], I reached out to Eddie's son, who is a lawyer in Colorado, and shared some thoughts on how his father was a good guy and was my coach at camp and I wanted him to know of my positive interactions with him. He followed up, and while conversing, he told me to get the unedited version of the movie and watch some clips that actually had his dad in them. BY THE BOOK Rose has won seven national championships in his four-decade tenure at Penn State. Photo courtesy of Penn State Athletics R I N T E R V I E W B Y L O U P R A T O