Karen Augspurger is part of the 2018 Pizza Hut Shocker Sports Hall of Fame induction class. The class will be inducted at a banquet on Sat., Jan. 27. Click here for tickets.

Karen Augspurger played volleyball at Wichita State before the sport commanded the spotlight and played libero before the sport knew how to judge that position.
 
For those reasons, Wichita State coach Chris Lamb is thrilled to see her inducted into the Pizza Hut Shocker Sports Hall of Fame. Unfortunate timing obscures her status, even as the sport grows at Wichita State.
 
"Karen is as close to the top at her position as anybody we've had here," Lamb said. "No one knew what to do with the libero, statistically, back then. The kid dug everything and passed everything."
 
Augspurger played for Wichita State from 2001-04, starting as a setter before moving to libero when the NCAA added that position for the 2002 season. She earned Missouri Valley Conference Libero of the Year honors in 2003 and 2004 and helped the Shockers to their first MVC title and NCAA Tournament berth in 2004.
 
Lamb considers her professional career equally important to her legacy. She played in The Netherlands in 2005-06 and Lamb said her experience included tournaments surpassed only by the Olympics.
 
"She played at the highest level," Lamb said. "I don't know that any Shocker has ever played in a higher-level match."
 
Playing volleyball at Wichita State did not appeal to Augspurger when she moved to Wichita from St. Louis as a sophomore in high school at Maize. Lamb's arrival in 2000 interested her enough to attend one of his summer camps for setters.
 
"I remember the first day I literally went home and told my mom I was never going back," she said. "We caught the ball, rearranged our hands, and threw it back. I was like 'Come on, I can set a ball. I don't have to catch it.' I was a senior in high school and I thought I needed to be doing more than catching a ball and throwing it back."
 
Augspurger returned, at her mom's insistence, the next day and Lamb's enthusiasm and detail work won her over. She visited a practice that fall and bought into his plans and the prospect of immediate playing time on a rebuilding team.
 
"He's so passionate and his passion rubs off," she said. "Hearing him talk about where the program was and where he wanted it to be and the impact I could have on the program, I liked his vision."
 
The Shockers went 11-16 in Augspurger's first season, finishing seventh in the MVC at 5-13. The program's first winning season since 1992 – 18-13 – followed in 2002. In 2004, Shocker volleyball became the program fans now know with a 25-6 record, an MVC title and a spot in the NCAA Tournament after winning the MVC Tournament at home.
 
"Every new achievement is a milestone – it's like if you give them a cookie and you give them a little and they want more," she said. "Our group of girls, we would achieve little things, a little win here and there, and we would keep striving to carry that on."
 
She remembers winning at Illinois State in 2002, snapping a 16-match losing streak to the Redbirds, as one of those modest successes that kept them going. In 2002, crowds grew a bit at the Heskett Center. In 2003, Charles Koch Arena opened and the renovated arena helped draw fans. In 2004, Wichita State snapped Northern Iowa's 74-match home win streak, the second-longest in NCAA Division I history, with a sweep.
 
"The thing I remember most was the journey," she said. "We always did it together. It was the same core group of girls from when I was a freshman to when I was a senior."