PITTSBURGH, Pa. — Kate Yeazel grew up on a farm in southwestern Ohio. She went to the University of Pittsburgh on a full volleyball scholarship. There were more students in her first lecture than in her entire high school; it was quite an adjustment.

“We have a moderately-sized dairy farm in southwest Ohio,” she said. “It was around middle school when my dad said, ‘You can either start working on the farm, get a job or play sports.’ So, I chose sports. I was in a very small school, so if you had an ounce of athletic ability you played three sports,” she explained. “I kept myself busy. In high school, I started working more for my dad.”

Yeazel did chores around the farm – everything and anything, she said. She baled straw and hay and bush-hogged. She was also active in FFA. She showed dairy cows, was an FFA officer her junior and senior years and went to the state competition for urban soil judging, where she placed 11th.

“I had a great time in FFA,” she said. “Then I came to Pittsburgh and realized that nobody knows about it.

“I really like the campus. It is totally different from a small town. It was kind of shell-shock at first, but I was ready to take on a new challenge. It was hard adjusting, but I really love Pittsburgh now.”

One of Yeazel’s farm chores was naming the dairy calves, which she continued to do after she went off to college. At one point she was running out of names and discussed this with a volleyball teammate.

“You should name it after me,” her teammate quipped. “Do you really want me to?” Yeazel said she asked. “It kind of caught fire from there. Everybody got a cow named after them after that.

“Now it is a tradition that everybody on the team gets a cow named after them, even the coaches.”

Coach Dan Fisher, who came to the university at the end of Yeazel’s sophomore year, his wife and his daughter all have cows named after them. Under his tutelage, Yeazel’s volleyball team finished fifth in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) in her senior year. “She’s always known how to put in an honest day’s work,” Fisher said, speaking of Yeazel to the Gannett Pal-Item.”Her idea of working hard is a little different than a kid who grew up in suburbia with a minivan and a mom taking her to practices. She came in with an idea how to work. I think that part was there, and that’s from her family and how they raised her.”

Growing up on a farm absolutely influenced her attitude in college, Yeazel said. It instilled in her a certain drive and a good work ethic.

“Growing up where I did, I had to work for everything that I got,” she said. “In high school my dad would tell me if I wanted something, I had to earn it. That is something that has carried over.”

Yeazel will graduate this spring with a major in communications, a minor in sociology and a certificate in leadership. She was nominated for a yearlong ACC internship and will soon learn if she received it. After that she would like to play professional volleyball in Europe.