Small town of Steamboat Springs also the hometown of hall of fame volleyball star Katie Carter-Gutierrez
By: Adam Kradle
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. (BVM) — Volleyball isn’t the sport most people would connect with Steamboat Springs, Colo., a town with a population of only 13,000, long known as Ski Country, USA. But it is in fact the hometown of a hall of fame volleyball player.
Katie Carter-Gutierrez was a four-year Steamboat Springs High School volleyball star who went on to become an All-American at UCLA before playing professionally for years overseas, most recently in France in 2018. This year, she’s officially been inducted into the Colorado High School Activities Association Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2019.
“It was really cool for me to have that check mark by Steamboat Springs saying we’ve got an athlete in the hall of fame,” Carter-Gutierrez said. “I’m big about, no matter how far you go, never forgetting where you came from. That was a big honor.”
While in high school, Carter-Gutierrez was a two-time Western Slope League 4A MVP. She led the Sailors to the state championship as a senior in 2002 when she was named the Denver Post Player of the Year and also earned recognition as a Volleyball Magazine/PrepVolleyball.com Fab 50 selection.
The 6-foot-3 outside hitter then took her talents to UCLA, the college she had dreamed of attending since she was 10 years old. Carter-Gutierrez grew up with a friend whose aunt was an assistant coach for the Bruins’ volleyball team, and she attended camps at the university as a youth.
“To get offered a full-ride there I said yes right away,” Carter-Gutierrez said. “I didn’t even look at other schools.”
She went on to become a standout at UCLA, earning All-American honors and helping lead the Bruins to a spot in the Final Four as a junior in 2006. After graduating in 2007, she began her professional career in Puerto Rico and later made multiple stops overseas. She said she knew France would be her last stop prior to becoming a mother.
“I had traveled all around the world and played in all sorts of different cultures,” Carter-Gutierrez said, “and I wanted that (last) season to be not so much for the paycheck, but more for the experience and just kind of enjoying it and that’s exactly what it was. France is awesome; the people were great. The lifestyle and everything is very comparable to the U.S. In that aspect, it was just kind of refreshing and easy. That made it a little bit more enjoyable for my last season.”
Whether it will truly be her last season is still not certain. Carter-Gutierrez now lives in Fort Worth, Texas with her 6-month-old daughter and her husband, Hector, who’s the head coach of the Texas Christian University women’s beach volleyball team. But she is training again to see if she can play another season professionally and is leaving open the possibility of making a return. The new U.S. women’s volleyball indoor league that’s set to launch in Feb. 2021 could be among her options.
“That’s also exciting,” Carter-Gutierrez said. “It’s a short six-week season but it’s in the U.S. which is pretty much my dream after traveling for 10 years all over the world to play, getting to play at home.”
Regardless of whether she plays again professionally, Carter-Gutierrez will remain involved in the sport. She works with a sports agency based out of Istanbul, Turkey, helping players make the transition from college to the pro world. She also helps run beach volleyball camps with her husband at TCU and also hosts her own clinics and camps, including one held every year back in Steamboat Springs where she’s now known as a trailblazer.
“Just to get back to my old high school is pretty cool,” Carter-Gutierrez said. “After (I left) young women of Steamboat started to say ‘oh my gosh, maybe I can play in college, maybe I can get a scholarship to play volleyball.’ It just grew and grew and then club volleyball started in Steamboat. … It just kind of made these girls have a new idea that it is possible. That’s also really cool for me.”
