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When Katie George accepted a scholarship to play volleyball for the University of Louisville in the beautiful KFC Yum! Center, it wasn’t something everybody in the family was celebrating.  
“My grandfather played football for Bear Bryant at the University of Kentucky, and so when he found out I was going to U of L, he wasn’t extremely happy,” a slightly giggly George remarked.  
Her grandfather, Bob Haydon, 86, played for the legendary Bryant during the Wildcats’ most competitive time on the gridiron in the modern era.  
George, who grew up in the city of the late great Muhammad Ali, in the St. Matthews section of Louisville, where she was a star on the volleyball court at Assumption High School and almost didn’t play for her hometown college.  
“My plan was always to go away,” she said. “I wasn’t actually recruited to U of L by the old coach Leonid Yelin. He’s Russian and I wasn’t the type player that he usually recruits. He recruits very stoic, non-emotional players.”
Anything but stoic, the teenager had a ton of unbridled passion and feeling for the sport she loved the most.
When Yelin left Louisville to coach at Syracuse, Louisville native Ann Kordes took over.  
George, who had already committed to play for Kordes at St. Louis University, accepted Kordes’ offer to play for the Cardinals.  
Not many athletes who played for one school all four years won conference championships in three different conferences.  
“I played in the Big East my freshman year, and we won the conference and the conference tournament. And then my sophomore year we played in the American and we won that conference as well. And then my junior year we were in the ACC and we struggled a little bit. And then my senior year was the second year in the ACC and that’s the year we won,” George said.  
George was honored by being selected First Team in all three conferences. She was on the USA National Collegiate Team that won a silver medal playing in Italy, Croatia and Slovenia.
With her mind on sports and academics, George didn’t have much time to loaf with her friends at nearby Mall St. Matthews.  
With two older brothers who love sports, the baby of the family also grew up swimming and playing softball, baseball, basketball, flag football, tennis and field hockey.
“I felt like the third boy in the family,” George said. “I was quite the tomboy and I just wanted to be able to hang out with them. That entailed me becoming a good athlete because if I wanted to keep up and hang out I had to be good at the sport they were playing. So they definitely pushed me.”
George also has an athletic cousin, Joe Haydon, who was on the golf team at Morehead State University.
At Assumption, George concentrated on volleyball.  
“Unfortunately my club and high school coach, Ron Kordes, he didn’t really allow anybody to play different sports,” George said.  
Kordes is the father of Ann Kordes.
All of the tomboy stuff disappeared when the Cardinals center was selected Miss Kentucky USA 2015.  
Last year, George was competing in Miss USA in only her second pageant ever.   
“The Miss Kentucky pageant was my first pageant,” George said.
George proved you don’t always have to break the budget to be in a big pageant.
“The gown I wore was an old prom dress I wore in high school,” George said.  She said she wanted to get in a pageant because past winners have had success with careers in broadcasting.  
 Excelling on the volleyball court and the pageant stage is just part of George’s well-rounded package.  
George graduated a year early with the Class of 2015.  
The communications major took four more classes to be eligible to play volleyball. That fourth year turned out to be a charm.  
George was known as a feared jack setter and was very good at putting her teammates in the best possible scoring position. Along with the Cards being ACC Conference Champion, George was named ACC Player of the Year and lead the ACC with 12.13 assists per set.  
“Technically I’ve been working full-time six months. I started my job in January at WDRB but for three years I interned in college at WLKY. And I actually interned at CBS Sports Network in New York City my junior year for the summer,” George said.
 Since leaving Louisville’s WLKY-TV and joining Louisville’s WDRB-TV, George has been working as a news reporter three days a week and as a sports reporter two days a week.  
“That was my choice. When I got to college I became very interested in political science, current events, politics, and I thought I don‘t want to rule anything out,” George said.  
“My dream is to work on the sideline for ESPN or CBS Sports,” George added.
That dream appears to be near.
Said George: “I think I’m going to broadcast some (volleyball) games for ESPN 3 for U of L this coming season which will be exciting and that will be a way for me to get my feet wet for volleyball, definitely what I know first and foremost, compared to other sports.”
http://www.dailyindependent.com/sports/george-reflects-on-louisville-volleyball-miss-kentucky-usa/article_e39c8f54-457d-11e6-b3cd-e34371c7181b.html