Louisville-Penn State about so much more: ‘I couldn’t be more proud to be a coaching mom.’

LOUISVILLE, Kentucky — The volleyball gods — and if you ever doubted, are obviously working moms — are having a moment.

How else do you explain Payton Peterson — Payton Peterson! — getting the kill that put Louisville into the national-title match?

Or Penn State pulling off a reverse sweep to oust Nebraska?

Yes, at 3 p.m. Eastern Sunday on ABC, one of two women will become the first to coach a team to an NCAA Division I volleyball national championship. 

But we were this close to having two men coaching for the title. Until the kid of a coaching mom delivered and then the team of a coaching mom fighting breast cancer rallied like no team ever had in a national semifinal.

There’s more to it than just Dani Busboom Kelly of Louisville (30-5) or Kaite Schumacher-Cawley of Penn State (34-2) breaking through for all the women before them.

It’s for Cathy George, who took Texas-Arlington to the 1989 national semifinals, the first woman coach to get that far after volleyball became an NCAA sport after years of being in the AIAW.

It’s for Florida’s Mary Wise, the first woman to coach in an NCAA final (2003, 2017) and whose Gators went to six other national semifinals, and for two BYU coaches, Elaine Michaelis, who in 1993 took the Cougars to the national semifinals, and Heather Olmstead, who got that far in 2018.

It’s for San Diego’s Jen Petrie, the same coach who took her Toreros to the 2022 national semifinals and who left her team to be at Boston College a few weeks ago to see her daughter, Jane, be a part of senior day.

It’s for Kirsten Bernthal Booth, the Creighton coach, who was there when Northern Iowa did all but upset Louisville in the NCAA Tournament round of 16. watching her own daughter, UNI freshman setter Reese Booth.

It’s for the coaching moms who won matches in this year’s NCAA Tournament, including Sam Erger of SMU, Dawn Sullivan of Missouri, Michelle Collier of Georgia Tech, Bre Henry of Ole Miss, and Bernthal Booth, whose Creighton team lost to Penn State in five in the regional final for the right to be here.

“A lot of us old-timer women have been waiting for this day,” Bernthal Booth said. “To know that it’s going to happen on Sunday is incredible. Two fantastic coaches, two fantastic programs. There are a lot of us taking a lot of pride in finally getting this monkey off our backs.”

And it’s…