Katie Schumacher-Cawley

The kind of coach who doesn't seek the spotlight, even when dealing with a cancer diagnosis. Her focus: her girls and her players.

- By Isabel McMahon

AT THE 2025 BIG TEN MEDIA DAYS in July, which unofficially marks the beginning of the season, the head coach of Penn State’s Nittany Lions women’s volleyball team, the reigning NCAA champions, sat calmly on the dais alongside players Gillian Grimes and Izzy Starck.

A proud alum of the program—and the first female head coach to win a Division I NCAA women’s volleyball title—Katie Schumacher-Cawley kept the attention firmly on her team. When asked how she’s changed as a coach, she responded with a smile. “I have a new hairdo this year,” she said, before shifting the focus back to her players.

But in 2024, Katie found herself thrust into a different kind of spotlight. As her team fought for a national title, she was fighting her own battle: undergoing treatment for stage II breast cancer. On the sidelines during the final match, she wore a black cap to cover where she'd lost hair as she calmly coached her team through one of the most high-pressure moments in college sports.

During the championship, she remembers receiving an outpouring of messages from women who were inspired by her courage and visibility. “I didn’t do the whole wig thing,” she says. “My hair fell out super fast and it was uncomfortable, and I felt like the wig didn’t look like me.” That decision, small as it may have seemed, had a big impact. “So many people reached out. You don’t realize how hard losing your hair is until it happens. I just rocked the caps and went with it—and I think that really helped others.”

Katie first shared her breast cancer diagnosis publicly in October 2024. But her journey quietly began a month earlier, when she discovered a “weird and different” lump under her arm.