Rutgers Volleyball At Big Ten Media Day

THE MODERATOR: We’re joined by Rutgers and head coach Caitlin Schweihofer, along with student-athletes Rachel Tam and Madyson Chitty.

COACH SCHWEIHOFER: Thank you for having us and being here. Let me start off by saying how wonderful an opportunity this is for our programs and for the conference and for the sport of volleyball. It really is a remarkable event.

Last night’s reception was just a wonderful opportunity and experience to mingle with all the other teams and coaches and players that we see and we play and I see out recruiting, but to see them out in this environment was very special.

I’m very happy to be here. It’s important, I think, for me to recognize the student-athletes that I brought with me.

Madyson Chitty has been our libero for the last two seasons. She was one of the youngest liberos in the league if not the youngest when she started as a freshman. She grew up in Big Ten country but chose Rutgers because she’s committed to doing something special as we kind of continuously build this program into much greater heights. And she can talk more about that a little bit later.

And I also brought Rachel Tam with us. She’s our lone New Jerseyian on the team. That was very important to me when I got to Rutgers to make sure that our state was represented and that the Tri State area recognizes that volleyball is a growing sport in not only our area but across the country it is much more highly played, if that makes any sense.

For her to come and show she can play on a Big Ten roster and be from New Jersey, it will really inspire a lot of other younger players to also take up the volleyball rather than maybe another sport that they weren’t exposed to earlier. Excited to have Rachel here with us.

Q. Caitlin, when you took over, with a new roster, you said you were going to try to get some foreign players on the roster. But with the announcement yesterday that Big Ten matches and Volleyball World was going to bridge the international scope, does that mean anything to you?

COACH SCHWEIHOFER: If you know anything about Rutgers, we’re a very internationally based school. Obviously we have access to major airports. We’re close enough to New York City. That’s a big draw for international players. I see why the interest was there.

But it was very…