UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – The Penn State Lady Lions hosted the Northwestern Wildcats in the Bryce Jordan Center on Sunday afternoon, but there was a spotlight on more than just the 2019-2020 team throughout the day. Penn State welcomed back a special group of Lady Lion alumni, including members of the 2000 Final Four squad who were honored on the team's 20th anniversary.
The 2000 group, which earned the program's only Final Four appearance, was the most successful team in Penn State Lady Lion history. The alumni spent some time with the team both before and after the game.
"What an amazing group that came back today. I know it absolutely inspired me to work harder," said head coach Carolyn Kieger. "We were able to celebrate the 2000 Final Four team and they came in and they fired our team up before the game and it was one of the most special moments that I've been a part of," she continued. "Any time a team has that legacy you want to celebrate and honor them."
Some of the former Lady Lions that Kieger met with the current team included Marissa Graby, Katrena Carr and Maren Walseth, all of whom also value the experience of coming back to Penn State.
"It's just fantastic. All the memories come back, and the team just feels like home," Graby said. "The way they've been reliving the stories and comparing us to other teams, it does feel special, I'm starting to realize the significance of what we did."
"It was very nostalgic. I don't get to come back here much, but it was really cool to see my teammates," Carr said. "One of the things that [Coach Rene Portland] would always tell us is 'Once a Lady Lion, always a Lady Lion' and even though it's been 20 years, it didn't feel like, it feels like it all just happened yesterday."
"We get together and we tell the funny stories, but also being able to get together in an environment when we're all adults," Walseth said. "Seeing and hearing the impact that [my teammates] have, to see everybody in these very professional and impactful ways. That's cool to think that I really have cool teammates and they're all doing awesome things."
A common theme among the alumni was a passion to giving back. No matter what line of work the former Penn Staters entered, not one person wanted anything more than to help others.
When Graby graduated from Penn State she became a teacher before getting her masters in Sports Administration. She then started working at Penn State Harrisburg in fundraising and overseeing the alumni office, which she has been doing for 15 years.
"For me, coming here as a first-generation college student, the scholarship meant a lot," Graby said. "It was a ticket to a better life. It was access to opportunities that I wouldn't have had otherwise. Now, I feel really blessed to have helped build building and create scholarships," she added. "You see students graduate who might've had to quit college, but because they got a scholarship that I've worked on they get to walk across the stage. That's really what is most powerful to me."
Carr previously ran youth programs in New York City, and was the Chief Program Officer of a non-profit organization where she oversaw the programming of over 50 schools in New York City and 10 schools in Los Angeles. However, as of last year, Carr has since ventured into a new non-profit.
"I'm the Executive Director of an organization called Inspiring Minds NYC," Carr said. "We have mentoring programs, paid internships, college tours, youth conferences. It's just a way for us to give back to our communities in the same way people invested in us when we were young."
To Carr, having a connection to your community has a deeper meaning than for most people, which is a big reason why she is so passionate about giving back.
"When I was in high school there was a lot of issues going on in my family, and I feel like it was community, my teachers, my coaches, my neighbors who invested in me and cheered me on," Carr said. "When I was in New York, I was speaking to a group of 45 kids and I asked how many of them felt they had a connection to their community and only three hands went up. To me, that was like 'wow,' these kids don't have that connection that I had and I know how important that was for me to make it."
Walseth took a little bit of a different route out of college. Her love for basketball drove her to be a part of the sport in multiple ways. She played professionally, both in the WNBA and overseas, for a total of five years. Once her playing career ended, she got into coaching.
She was an assistant coach for 10 years, seven of which were for the Lady Lions, before receiving the head coaching job at North Dakota State where she coached from 2014-2019. Walseth has since become a color commentator on ESPN+ where she calls games.
While she loves being around the sport, she wants to be able to help future generations.
"I enjoy the part of still being able to watch film, scout, interact with coaches, go to shootarounds and going to practices, but I do miss the components of interacting with student-athletes and mentoring young people," she said. "There's a lot of pride in working really hard to make somebody else's experience as awesome as it could be, because people did that for me. People worked really hard to give me an awesome college experience, so I feel like it's my responsibility to make that experience awesome for someone else."
It's easy to see Penn Staters in the spotlight for what they do as a student-athlete while enrolled in the University, but sometimes the most spectacular things these people do happens after graduation. Will any of these actions be in the headlines as much as a trip to the Final Four? Probably not. But the opportunities these alumni have created, and continue to create, could give someone else the chance to exceed their own accomplishments, which if you ask these women, is what it's all about.
