Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/523134
I
t's surprisingly easy to imagine an al-
ternate history in which Russ Rose never
becomes one of Penn State's all-time
great coaches.
In 1979, having just received his master's
degree from Nebraska, Rose was set to
attend BYU to get his doctorate in educa-
tion. He had met with the resident bishop,
received his teaching assistantship and
had all but packed his bags
for Provo.
"I had it all worked out,"
Rose said. "And then the
Penn State job came along."
Penn State was o:ering
the 25-year-old grad stu-
dent a chance to run its
9edgling women's volley-
ball program. The pay was
$14,000 a year. He wouldn't have an o;ce
or an assistant coach or even a telephone,
and in addition to coaching the team, he
would have to teach a bunch of classes. But
he would be working for a school that had
been a pioneer in the 8eld of physical edu-
cation, a school that also happened to em-
ploy one of his coaching heroes, Joe Paterno.
"I'm a big sports guy, and I'm a huge
fan of Coach Paterno," he said. "And being
a physical educator, we had some of the
top physical educators teaching at Penn
State. I thought it was really cool to go to
a place where I had read their books.
"And I've been there for 36 years."
Rose is preparing for his 37th season as
head coach, but no matter how long he
keeps going, that 36th year will be tough
to top. During the 2014 regular season,
Rose passed Hawaii's Dave Shoji to become
the winningest coach in the history of
major-college women's volleyball (Shoji,
who recently signed a three-year contract
extension, has 1,150 career victories, while
Rose has 1,161.) Then, in December, his
program won its seventh national cham-
pionship, thumping BYU for the title.
At every step along the way, Rose has
attributed his success to his players. He's
coached 36 All-Americans over the years
and four AVCA National Players of the
Year, including the 2014 recipient, Micha
Hancock. When he's not heaping credit
on his players, he's giving it to adminis-
trators who have provided him with the
latitude to run the program the way he
thinks it should be run.
"I've been fortunate that the university
has allowed me to be who I am," Rose
said. "I haven't had to play games to make
other people happy that I could do my
job the way I want to do it."
A