2024 Hall of Fame: Middle Blocker at Center of Memorable Season

NOTE: Second in a series of profiles on members of the 2024 Class of the Marcy Weston CMU Athletics Hall of Fame.

Kaitlyn (Schultz) Miller was the first four-time All-Mid-American Conference volleyball honoree in Central Michigan history.

She is also very likely the first Chippewa student-athlete to exchange her wedding vows in a zoo.

Miller, who in 2011 led CMU to its one and only MAC Tournament title and NCAA Tournament appearance, will be inducted into the CMU Marcy Weston Athletics Hall of Fame as part of the 2024 class in a ceremony in McGuirk Arena on Friday, Sept. 20 (6 p.m.) and then introduced at the CMU-Ball State football game at Kelly/Shorts Stadium on Saturday, Sept. 21.

The class comprises Miller along with wrestling coach Tom Borrelli, football player Eric Fisher, gymnast Sarah Dame, basketball/baseball player Chad Pleiness, and track & field/cross country runner Ryan Watson.

2024 MARCY WESTON CMU ATHLETICS HALL OF FAME CEREMONY
Date: Friday, Sept. 20, 2024
Time: 6 p.m. ET
Location: McGuirk Arena Main Floor
Admission: Free and open to the public

A 6-foot-4 middle blocker, Miller remains the program's all-time leader in career hitting percentage and season hitting percentage (.407 in 2011) and ranks among the top 10 in program history in six statistical categories, including career kills.

In 2011, she was named the MAC Tournament most valuable player after leading the sixth-seeded Chippewas to the league tournament title and the resulting NCAA Tourney berth.

As one might expect, winning that title ranks among Miller's favorite CMU memories. The aftermath also sticks with her.

"It was the bus ride home and we were talking about how we were going to go to somebody's apartment and re-watch what happened," she said. "It was so late at night, early morning, and we watched it and we were still in shock and awe that it happened.

"It was just a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and we just worked so well together. We just got together and re-watched it, and it was like, 'Hey guys, we did this. That was us. We literally did that!'"

Miller earned a bachelor of science degree with a major in special education/emotional impairment with a minor in child development. She plans to enroll next year in graduate school.

She has taught preschool at Dove Academy, a charter school in Detroit for children from low-income families in at-risk neighborhoods, for 10 years and lives in suburban Madison Heights.

She and her husband, Ryan, have two sons, 2 1/2 -year-old Jackson and 3-month-old Tucker.

She and Ryan were married at, of all places, the Detroit Zoo on May 2 2013. May 2 also happens to be Tucker's birthday. They were wed in adjacent to the zoo's famed fountain in front of some 50 guests.

"My husband and I, we love animals," she said. "We've been members of the Detroit Zoo for like 10 years now. We believe in (the zoo's) mission to rehabilitate animals and potentially save species.

"It's so close to us where we live now that it's like, hey, we've had a rough week, let's just go to the zoo. It's our favorite place in Michigan, it's our fun little getaway and now we have kids so it's even more fun that way.

"One day we were just like, 'Hey, let's get married at the zoo.' All we had to do was pay for (guest) admission to get in and we were able to decorate wherever we wanted to."

Yet another remarkable memory for Miller. Many of those lifelong recollections for one of CMU's all-time greats.

"Playing volleyball in college, at Central, gave me something outside of going to school – you're a student before you're an athlete – but it gave me something fun to look forward to," she said. "It gave me, not a sense of purpose, but something to grasp onto. It gave me so much; it gave me a chance to play something that I loved to do. It gave me a chance to keep going in something that I loved and it gave me a chance to get a degree in a field that I also loved.

"It gave me everything, honestly."

2024 Hall of Fame: Middle Blocker at Center of Memorable Season

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