Finishing a four-year college athletic career is a good accomplishment for any athlete, but it wasn’t enough for Katie Holloway last year.
A few months after ending her senior basketball season at California State University-Northridge, Holloway turned her attention to another sport. And it took her all the way to an Olympic medal.
Holloway was a key member of the United States sitting volleyball team at the 2008 Paralympic Games in Beijing last September. She helped the U.S. team to the championship game, where they lost to host China and received silver medals.
“When you get to step out on a stage in front of the world and wear the USA (on your uniform), it’s just an overall feeling of pride,” said the 22-year-old Holloway, who is from Lake Stevens. “It’s amazing to feel that.”
That Holloway has achieved so much in sports is a testament to her courage, confidence and will. She was born with fibular hemimelia, which is the absence of a fibula, one of two bones in her lower right leg. The condition was diagnosed when Holloway was 18 months old, and two months later her parents opted to have her right foot amputated and have her fitted for a prosthesis, which allowed her to enjoy a full and active life — including sports — that she never would have had otherwise.
For her accomplishments in basketball and volleyball, and for her determination to excel despite her disability, Holloway is The Herald’s Woman of the Year in Sports for 2008.
She began the year in the final few months of her senior season at Cal State-Northridge, where she was a team captain. In 26 games, all starts, she led the Matadors in scoring (14.5 points a game) and rebounding (7.2), and was an All-Big West Conference second-team selection.
One of the highlights came in her next-to-last game, which was at rival UC-Santa Barbara. Holloway had 29 points and 14 rebounds before fouling out, and as she went to the bench the opposing fans, knowing of her disability, stood to give her an ovation.
“I think that was the moment I really realized that (playing college basketball) was such an accomplishment,” she said. “I played one of the best games of my career, the fans gave me a standing ovation, and I realized that all my hard work and dedication had paid off.”
Six months later Holloway was in China for the Paralympics. Sitting volleyball was a sport she had taken up in her basketball offseason a few years earlier, and her athleticism made her one of the top players for the U.S. team.
Though it was frustrating to lose the final match, particularly because the U.S. did not play well, Holloway and her teammates in time came to appreciate their silver medals.
“I don’t think the disappointment wore off until about a week afterward,” she said. “For me as an athlete, losing was really hard to take. We were expecting a tough match with China, but it was still hard to accept because it was not our best (effort).
“But when that finally wore off and you bring (the medal) home, you realize how special it is because of the reactions you get. People love the medal.”
Now, she said, the silver medal “is one of my most prized possessions.”
Holloway lives now in Edmond, Okla., where the U.S. sitting volleyball team trains, and she is preparing for upcoming international events in Canada and Netherlands. Eventually she expects to return to the Puget Sound area for her life after sports.
Someday she would like to work with people striving to overcome their own disabilities.
“The way I was raised,” she said, “there was never really even a feeling of using the word disabled. I’m sure I learned most of that philosophy from my family, but I’m slowly learning it as an adult from my training coach, too. Because he treats us no differently than any other athlete.
“Any type of disability can be thrown at you, but you have ability to do everything and anything you want. You can accomplish anything if you set your mind to it, and people need to know that.”
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