The Student News Site of Sacramento City College

The Express

The Student News Site of Sacramento City College

The Express

The Student News Site of Sacramento City College

The Express

Forging her own path: Volleyball player makes the grade on and off the court

City College freshman setter Kassidy Rauh smiles at one of her teammates after the team scores a point during the match against Modesto Junior College in the North Gym Nov. 3, 2015. (Photo: Kristopher Hooks | Editor in Chief | khooksexpress@gmail.com)
City College freshman setter Kassidy Rauh smiles at one of her teammates after the team scores a point during the match against Modesto Junior College in the North Gym Nov. 3, 2015. (Photo: Kristopher Hooks | Editor in Chief | [email protected])

It’s not every day that a high school student gets a 4.75 GPA her senior year and decides to go to a local community college to play volleyball instead of attending one of the many universities to which she was accepted.

However, that’s the kind of player City College volleyball head coach Laurie Nash got when freshman setter Kassidy Rauh chose to pursue collegiate athletics.

“I can still remember the day I called [Nash] and asked, ‘Hey, am I still eligible to come over [and play]?’” Rauh said. “She immediately said yes and then freaked out a little bit. Just hearing the happiness that I could give her assured me that I made the right decision.”

Nash, too, remembers that call because throughout the recruiting process, Rauh’s father gave Nash no indication that Rauh would choose to play volleyball.

“It was just very out of the blue,” Nash said. “[Her father] never really gave me the impression that she was going to contact me. In fact, I guess she had contacted me before she had even let her dad know she was going to come play for City.”

The decision to play volleyball wasn’t as cut and dry, Rauh said. At Kennedy High School in Sacramento, Rauh was a three-sport athlete in volleyball, soccer and basketball (the latter she stopped playing sophomore year) and maintained above a 4.0 GPA leading up to her senior year. It was because of her academic record that she wanted to go to one of three schools: University of Chicago, Brown University or Cornell University.

City College setter Kassidy Rauh sets the ball up for middle hitter Madyson Taylor during the third set of the match against Modesto Junior College in the North Gym Nov. 3, 2015. (Photo: Kristopher Hooks | Editor in Chief | khooksexpress@gmail.com)
City College setter Kassidy Rauh sets the ball up for middle hitter Madyson Taylor during the third set of the match against Modesto Junior College in the North Gym Nov. 3, 2015. (Photo: Kristopher Hooks | Editor in Chief | [email protected])

Rauh, who turned 17 in May, later found out that she was not accepted by any of the three universities. In addition to her top three choices, she also applied to UC Irvine, University of Portland and Johns Hopkins University, among others. But those schools weren’t part of the plan.

“I didn’t want to go to a four-year school that I didn’t want to be at,” Rauh said. “So I thought if I go to a two-year school and play volleyball for two more years, that would be great. Then I can transfer in after.”

Two community colleges recruited Rauh to play volleyball out of high school: City College and Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon. Both schools have more in common than whom they recruit, though, having recently been in the news for campus shootings.
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City College’s Sept. 3 on-campus shooting left one student dead and one injured in an isolated incident. Less than a month later, on Oct. 1, Umpqua Community College had a mass shooting that left eight students and one assistant professor dead.

“It was really kind of ironic because we had just had the shooting here [28 days] before, and I thought, ‘I should’ve gone to Umpqua,’” Rauh said. “Then [28 days] later, I thought, ‘Good thing I stayed [in Sacramento].’”

Nash began to recruit Rauh to play for City College during a California Interscholastic Federation Sac-Joaquin Section Division 1 playoff match between Kennedy and Oak Ridge high schools. Though Rauh’s team lost the match, Nash said she was impressed with Rauh’s overall skillset and attitude toward the sport.

“The way that she carried herself on the court — going for balls, not afraid to hit the floor,” Nash said, remembering the first time she saw Rauh play. “She had this air about her where it was as though she couldn’t care less about who the team was on the other side of the net.”

Rauh has played all 24 of the Panthers matches this season — her freshman year — as the starting setter, helping lead the team to a 16-8 record. She currently sits at 10th in the state with 698 assists and 19th in assist per set with 8.95.

Even with her success on the court, Rauh still maintains her goal of getting accepted into each of her top three schools. After she gets her associate degree in biology from City College, Rauh said she wants to transfer to the University of Chicago to continue her undergrad studies in biology, then go to Brown University for graduate school.

In addition to the goal of going to the colleges that once rejected her, Rauh hopes to get four Ph.Ds. in biology, chemistry, entomology and a fourth she’s unsure of yet.

“I just love learning,” Rauh said. “I feel like it’s universal that people want to have power over someone, and I just like having knowledge over people. I like knowing things, and I like to be in control of the knowledge. And I just like having random facts in my back pocket.”

Being rejected by her preferred universities gave Rauh the proverbial chip on her shoulder that keeps her motivated on and off the court, she said.

“I kind of took it personally,” she said. “Now it’s like, ‘No, you’re going to take me. All of you. You’re going to… I want to deny you.”

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