During tutorial last Friday, senior Kathleen Bishop had her signing ceremony and officially committed to play D1 volleyball at Princeton. She is one of two players from the class of 2020 to have signed to play volleyball in college. Bishop, a two time volleyball captain and four time All Conference champion, never thought she would play volleyball outside of high school until junior year, when she started playing club volleyball.

“For a while [playing volleyball in college] wasn’t necessarily a dream; I didn’t see it happening because I played three sports and I couldn’t decide which one was my favorite or what I wanted to play. Junior year I decided that volleyball was my favorite and I wanted to pursue it,” Bishop said. As well as being a varsity volleyball athlete for all four years, she played softball (captain for three years), and hockey for the entirety of her high school career too.

Deciding to play sports in college is no easy task: Bishop started contacting schools well before her college process went into full swing: “I reached out to schools when I started playing club volleyball to gauge if they had spots available on their team and to see what it might look like if I were to go there. I got in contact with Princeton last winter and from there I got into a relationship with the coaches, went to visit, and I loved it.”

Through sports, Bishop has made infinite connections: her volleyball coaches and hockey teammates were able to come to the signing to support her, even former Varsity Volleyball coach Jim Abbott who now lives in North Dakota. When talking about Bishop, current Varsity Volleyball coach Jill Bachmann said, “If you do there what you’ve done in the short time that I’ve seen and known you, you’re going to be a very successful young lady.”