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Kathryn Plummer Looks Back on a Historic College Career

PITTSBURGH, PA – DECEMBER 21: Kathryn Plummer #2 of the Stanford Cardinal cuts down the net after defeating the Wisconsin Badgers during the Division I Women’s Volleyball Championship held at PPG Paints Arena on December 21, 2019 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Jamie Schwaberow/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)

A member of the U.S. Volleyball and Beach Volleyball National team, Kathryn Plummer is the only player in history to have won FIVB World Championship medals in both beach and indoor. In 2019, Plummer was part of the US national team that won the Pan American Cup in Peru. An alum of Stanford University’s volleyball and beach volleyball teams, Plummer is a three-time NCAA champion and a recipient of the James E. Sullivan Award, which is annually given to the best American amateur athlete. Most recently, she played for the Italian professional volleyball team Saugella Team Monza. 

After graduating from Stanford shortly after winning your third NCAA championship title, you chose to join a professional volleyball team in Italy. What made you decide to play overseas?

For women’s volleyball, there’s not much opportunity to play professionally in the United States as of now. The Italian professional volleyball league is very competitive – I knew I would be surrounded by the best players in the world. I wanted that challenge.

Playing Italy was definitely a challenge. First of all, it’s a challenge in and of itself to be away from home: You’re in a whole different culture, people are speaking a different language. You’re being coached in a different language. Additionally, the process of transitioning from a collegiate athlete to a professional player is quite a process. From finding an agent to finally negotiating a contract there were various steps involved before I finally got to visit the team. Between the NCAA semifinal and the championship during my final season at Stanford, I squeezed meetings with four or five agents in my hotel room all while preparing for the national championship.

With all this said,  I’m glad I got to go to play overseas. I’m young, and I want to learn new things.

How was your season affected by the pandemic? What are your plans moving forward?

By the end of February, our games started to get postponed, and competing seemed no longer to be an option. At that point, pretty much all we could do was just practice, and I ultimately made the decision to return home in the United States. The league was officially canceled when I arrived back in the U.S.

Hopefully, I will be able to play next season, but with various international tournaments that were originally planned for this summer have been canceled much is up in the air.

Ok. So let’s backtrack a little bit to when you first started playing volleyball. Did you grow up playing both beach and indoor volleyball in high school?

Growing up, I was the “sporty” girl. I played basketball, soccer, softball – everything that you could imagine.

I grew up in Southern California, where men’s volleyball is a big part of the culture. My older brother played volleyball. I was the little sister that wanted to go to everything, all the practices, all the games. In a way, I was kind of forced into watching it. I decided to try it myself and first started playing volleyball when I was 10. I really loved it, and soon began to exclusively dedicate my time to the sport … Although I guess in high school, I was on the track and field team, but it was more of a hobby than anything else.

Were you really tall as a kid or did you hit a growth spurt later on?

Yeah, I was really tall. My parents are 6’8″ and 6’3″, and my brother is 6’7″. We’re a very tall family.

You were recruited by various universities. What made you ultimately decide to go to Stanford?

My recruiting process started pretty early – I got my first offer in the seventh grade. Academics and athletics are most important to me, and Stanford excelled in both.

But the thing that drew me in the most was that when I visited Stanford, I felt that I could be myself. Everyone at Stanford is kind of quirky, and weird – they all have their own little thing that makes them unique. At other schools, I felt like I was trying to put on this facade to fit in with their program, but at Stanford, everyone was different in their own ways – I felt like I could really thrive there.

Well you definitely did thrive over there! You started your Stanford athlete career by winning a national championship your freshman year. What was that experience like?

I’ve talked about this with my teammates from class many times –  it was kind of a blur. I think we were just immensely joyful.

The other championships that we won together throughout our Stanford experience felt different than our first. Our freshman year was one of just pure happiness because we were giddy freshmen that didn’t really know the gravity of what we had accomplished. We were following a lot of senior leadership.

What type of expectations did you set for yourselves following such a great first season?

As a team, we talked about trying to not listen to the expectations that other people were putting on us. The next three years, I think we pushed ourselves for a strong season because we knew that we could hold ourselves to high standards, as opposed to pushing ourselves to meet any sort of external pressure cast upon us.

In your second season at Stanford your team’s campaign to the finals was cut short after losing to Florida 3-2 in the NCAA semi-finals. What was that experience like?

Pretty much throughout my entire sophomore season, our team breezed through. We had a tough preseason – we did really well. We had a tough conference – we did really well.

I think by the NCAA championships, we let the expectations that were set upon us starting from our successful 2016 season creep in a little bit. We didn’t feel like we were just playing a volleyball game – we felt the pressure to follow up a championship win from the previous year.

We just weren’t a cohesive group. Both Florida and Stanford played good volleyball, but our competitor was more of a cohesive team than we were.

Following the season, we sat down and really tried to bring together our whole team. We sought to find ways to support every member of our team  – I thought this was really important and allowed us to have a lot of success the next two years.

You won three national championships during your time at Stanford. Is there one that is most memorable?

I definitely think my senior season was the most special. All of the seasons were really awesome, but senior year was most memorable because it was the last time I was in a Stanford uniform, the last where my parents watched me play in college and the last I was going to get to play together with my teammates. It was a very bittersweet, happy yet sad moment. My teammates and I were crying because we were happy that we won the championship, but also sad because we knew it was over. Our whole four years – and everything we built in those times was over.

Why do you think your class on the team has been so successful as a unit? 

We were best friends off the court too, which is nice, but that is by no means necessary to have a successful team. I think we embraced different leadership roles on our team. As for myself, I tried to lead by example – I tried to figure out how to score. Other people had different types of leadership styles: For example, Morgan Hentz was a leader that kept everyone accountable; She made sure that everyone was doing their job. Jenna Gray was the goofy one that lightened the mood when it was too tense. Audriana Fitzmorris was the very intellectual, analytical one. Everyone came together to form a very cohesive group. We worked really hard to figure out ways to support and communicate if people were struggling. There were many tough conversations in the process, but I think it came together at the end.

What was your academic experience like at Stanford? Stanford is a very academically competitive institution as it is athletically – was anything particularly challenging? 

I studied Human Biology. My sophomore year was tough, because I was taking the core classes for my major which was hard.

But after that, I really liked my courses,  because I could take the classes that were very applicable to my interests. I’m very interested in how the body works in exercise and sports. I took a bunch of anatomy and human performance classes, which was really cool. As an athlete, I started to understand my own body better at the biological and molecular level.

You also played on the Beach Volleyball team as a freshman and sophomore at Stanford. How did you balance playing two sports?

It was tough to play competitively for two seasons in one academic year, but it was also nice to be able to get a little breath of something fresh. It was really tough in the winter quarters, because I was practicing for both indoor and beach.

I eventually made the decision that I wanted to start my professional career in indoor and maybe transition to beach later on in my career, because beach is a lot more forgiving to your body when you’re older. So, following my sophomore year I solely focused on playing for the indoor team.

What are your future goals for the sport? 

Since I was little, it has been my dream to go to the Olympics. I’m going to be playing professionally at least until 2024. There’s a lot of things that will unfold up until that point, but I want to try to make the Olympic team. Then we’ll see what I want to do, but that’s way far away. There’s always a professional career in beach volleyball –  you can get paid for that, which is nice. I also just might have a normal job and work in an office. Who knows?

US Tennis Stars Advance as Wimbledon Field Narrows

Italy's Jasmine Paolini celebrates her first-round win over Latvia's Anastasija Sevastova at the 2025 Wimbledon Championships
World No. 4 Jasmine Paolini fell in the second round of the 2025 Wimbledon Championships on Wednesday. (Daniel Kopatsch/Getty Images)

The 2025 Wimbledon Championships wrapped its second round on Thursday, with the grass court Grand Slam seeing just 15 of the tournament's 32 seeded players advance to the Friday and Saturday's third round.

A full half of the WTA's Top 10 players did not survive the week, with 2024 Wimbledon finalist and world No. 5 Jasmine Paolini joining four first-round star exits by falling to unseeded Kamilla Rakhimova in a three-set, second-round battle on Wednesday.

At the same time, unseeded fan favorites like Japan's No. 53 Naomi Osaka and England's own No. 40 Emma Raducanu secured third-round spots at the London Slam, joining top surviving contenders like No. 4 Iga Świątek and defending Wimbledon champion No. 16 Barbora Krejčíková.

Notably, a full five US players managed to move ahead, tied for the largest national contingent still standing at the tournament.

Led by 2025 Australian Open champion No. 8 Madison Keys, the US group also includes No. 10 Emma Navarro and No. 12 Amanda Anisimova, as well as unseeded players No. 54 Danielle Collins and No. 55 Hailey Baptiste.

With matches against Świątek and No. 7 Mirra Andreeva, respectively, Collins and Baptiste have a tough third round ahead — though Navarro's battle against the 2024 champ Krejčíková arguably headlines Saturday's slate.

US tennis star Emma Navarro eyes a return during a 2025 Wimbledon match.
US star Emma Navarro will face 2024 champ Barbora Krejčíková in Wimbledon's Round of 32. (Rob Newell/CameraSport via Getty Images)

How to watch Wimbledon this weekend

While world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka is still holding strong in the dwindling field, this year's Wimbledon play is proving that the London Slam is anyone's to take, as the grass court humbles even the sport's top stars.

Expect the twists and turns to continue as tennis's best battle for spots in Sunday's Round of 16.

Round-of-32 Wimbledon play kicks off at 6 AM ET on Friday, with live continuous coverage of the tournament airing on ESPN.

Finland Opens Women’s Euro 2025 with Upset Upset Win Over Iceland

Finland's Katariina Kosola and Emma Koivisto celebrate a goal during their opening 2025 Euro match.
Finland earned a surprise 1-0 win over Iceland in their 2025 Euro opener on Wednesday. (Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)

The 2025 European Championship is officially underway, as Euro action kicked off with a group-stage upset on Wednesday.

Though the 2025 UEFA tournament's opener was a sweltering affair amid a European heat wave, world No. 26 Finland prevailed, earning a 1-0 upset win over No. 14 Iceland in Group A.

Finnish winger Katariina Kosola played hero, curling in the winning goal in the match's 70th minute — just 12 minutes after Iceland midfielder Hildur Antonsdóttir picked up the competition's first red card.

"The result is important for our confidence," Kosola said after Finland's first major tournament win since the 2009 Euro. "It was the kind of goal I have been practicing a lot."

"It's terrible to lose and we feel frustrated," said Iceland head coach Thorsteinn Halldórsson. "It is an even group and we knew Finland were good, but our first half wasn't good enough."

Elsewhere, No. 16 Norway closed out Wednesday's slate on top of Group A, taking three points by defeating host No. 23 Switzerland in day's second match.

Led by captain and 2018 Ballon d'Or winner Ada Hegerberg — who pulled the match even with a second-half strike — Norway battled to a 2-1 comeback win, despite the Swiss side outshooting and out-possessing the Norwegians.

Spain jersey hang in lockers ahead of the team's 2025 Euro opening match against Portugal.
Reigning World Cup champions Spain will open their 2025 Euro account against Portugal. (Aitor Alcalde - UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)

How to watch this week's 2025 Euro action

Group B steals the 2025 Euro spotlight on Thursday.

While No. 13 Italy snagged a 1-0 opening win over No. 20 Belgium to kick off the day, 2023 World Cup champions and tournament favorite No. 2 Spain will face No. 22 Portugal at 3 PM ET.

Friday's Group C slate will pit No. 12 Denmark against No. 6 Sweden at 12 PM ET, before No. 3 Germany contends with No. 27 Poland at 3 PM ET.

Closing out the first group-stage matches will be arguably the toughest draw of the 2025 Euro pool.

Saturday's Group D slate features major tournament debutants No. 30 Wales against the No. 11 Netherlands at 12 PM ET, with No. 10 France taking on defending champions No. 5 England to cap the day at 3 PM ET.

Live coverage of 2025 Euro matches will air across Fox Sports platforms.

USWNT Caps Summer Friendlies with 3-0 Canada Shutout

Yazmeen Ryan, Michelle Cooper, Claire Hutton, Mandy McGlynn, and Izzy Rodriguez and the rest of the USWNT huddle after their July 2025 friendly win over Canada.
The USWNT finished the summer international window with 11 goals, conceding none, across three matches. (Brad Smith/ISI Photos/USSF/Getty Images)

The world No. 1 USWNT ruled the pitch on Wednesday night, shutting out North American rivals No. 8 Canada 3-0 to finish the international window on a high note.

Catching the Canada backline sleeping, US midfielder Sam Coffey opened the scoring at the 17-minute mark before 19-year-old Claire Hutton claimed her first-ever USWNT goal by heading in a Rose Lavelle corner kick in the game's 36th minute.

Houston Dash forward Yazmeen Ryan then padded the US tally in the waning minutes of the match, finding the back of the net just eight minutes after subbing onto the field.

Despite fielding a young roster, the US overpowered a veteran-heavy Canada side in almost every category, topping their Northern neighbors in shots, shots on target, possession, and — most notably — set pieces.

Canada ultimately couldn't match the game's mental pace or physical battle, as the USWNT scored all three goals off dead ball situations — a free kick, a corner kick, and a throw-in.

"It's not about the opponent," US head coach Emma Hayes said after the match. "It's about what we do, and I felt that was extremely dominant."

With Wednesday's contributions, the USWNT finishes the summer window with 11 goals scored across the three friendlies — and zero goals conceded.

The US now enters an extended break before reconvening for another as-yet-unannounced friendly series in October — but players will be expected to perform in the meantime.

"I said to the players in the end in the huddle, if you want to compete to win the biggest things, it's not what you do here that matters," said Hayes. "It's what you do when you go back to your club."

Seattle Storm Looks to Climb the WNBA Standings in Weekend Gauntlet

Seattle Storm star Nneka Ogwumike high-fives teammates as she's introduced before a 2025 WNBA game.
The No. 5 Seattle Storm will face No. 4 Atlanta and No. 3 New York this weekend. (Soobum Im/NBAE via Getty Images)

The 2025 WNBA regular season returns on Thursday night, with teams at the top of the league standings looking to prove their mettle against close competition across the long holiday weekend.

The No. 5 Seattle Storm have arguably the toughest weekend assignments, taking on the No. 4 Atlanta Dream on Friday before tackling the No. 3 New York Liberty on Sunday.

Four middle-of-the-pack teams will look to close in on a double-digit season win tally while the league's frontrunners strive to maintain their advantage in this weekend's slate:

  • No. 7 Las Vegas Aces vs. No. 8 Indiana Fever, Thursday at 7 PM ET (Prime): Though still without star Caitlin Clark, the Fever hope to harness their 2025 WNBA Commissioner's Cup victory momentum against an Aces side tied with Indiana with an 8-8 season record.
  • No. 5 Seattle Storm vs. No. 4 Atlanta Dream, Thursday at 7:30 PM ET (WNBA League Pass): Seattle will look to make strides against a strong Atlanta side while putting last Sunday's stinging 84-57 loss to up-and-comer Golden State in their rearview.
  • No. 6 Golden State Valkyries vs. No. 1 Minnesota Lynx, Saturday at 8 PM ET (WNBA League Pass): The rising Valkyries must face a Lynx side hunting redemption, as the league-leaders look to bounce back from their stifling Tuesday Commissioner's Cup upset loss.
  • No. 5 Seattle Storm vs. No. 3 New York Liberty, Sunday at 1 PM ET (CBS): With injured Liberty center Jonquel Jones still sidelined, the Seattle Storm will have a chance to steal a weekend game against the reigning champs, as New York struggles to re-find their footing.

With the 2025 WNBA All-Star break looming, early top performers must keep standards high if they want to hold the line when the season crosses the midway point.

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