Catholic school star joins the U.S. Olympic team

By Ron Brocato, Sports
Clarion Herald

As an elementary school student at St. Dominic, Kristen Nuss was invited to a classmate’s home for a birthday party and to see her collection of dolls.

Kristen was more interested in joining the girl’s brother outside to shoot baskets.

That wasn’t unusual for this young lady of special talent. She was born into a family of athletes, which began with her maternal grandfather, Ralph “Putsy” Caballero, who played third base for the Philadelphia Phillies in the 1950 World Series following a high school career as a two-sport letterman at Jesuit.

“Kristen was a tomboy,” acknowledged her father, George Nuss. “She played basketball with her (three) older brothers in the yard. Most of her friends were boys. When teams were chosen at school for games, Kristen was always the first player picked ... mostly by kids older than her.”

By the time she graduated from Mount Carmel Academy, Kristen Nuss had become the school’s most decorated player, earning 10 letters in three sports at a school whose athletic programs excelled. Her former volleyball coach, April Hagadone, calls Nuss the greatest athlete to wear the brown-and-gold uniform.

“Absolutely; no question. She played in seven state championship games and lettered in four sports,” Hagadone said.

She has been recognized as the Most Outstanding Player in the state title match in volleyball and the state championship game in basketball as she wrapped up her career in 2016 with five state titles (three volleyball, two basketball). She was named the Gatorade State Player of the Year in volleyball after leading the Cubs to a 40-5 record and the Division I state championship. The 5-6 outside hitter tallied 571 kills, 625 digs, 55 service aces and 49 blocks while posting a kill percentage of .561 and a hitting percentage of .509. In basketball, Nuss scored 27 points to go with 21 assists in the state semifinals and the championship game.

She was honored by the Allstate Sugar Bowl as the  2016 Amateur Athlete of the Year, and again in 2021 with the prestigious Corbett Award, given to the year’s Outstanding Female Athlete.

Today, as a 26-year-old, Kristen Nuss and her partner and former LSU teammate Taryn Kloth are in Baton Rouge preparing to represent the U.S. in the Olympic Games in July as its No. 1 beach volleyball team. Her parents, George and Audrey, and three brothers have their tickets in hand for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Kristen will be the third Olympian who graduated from a high school in the archdiocese. The other two are Jesuit alums: Emmett Toppino, who won a gold medal as part of the 400-meter relay team in the 1932 games, and Will Clark, who played for the U.S. in 1984 when baseball was a demonstration sport with no medals awarded.

Alia Armstrong of St. Katharine Drexel Prep and LSU could also qualify as an Olympic hurdler. That’s yet to be determined.

Nuss and Kloth form an unusual pair. The height difference between Kloth, a 6-4 South Dakota native, and the 5-6 Nuss is the largest EVER for a U.S. Olympic beach volleyball team. It hardly matters, though, because this dynamic duo clinched a spot in the Paris Games before anyone else.

They have been a team since 2021, the year they turned professional, and today rank second in the world behind a team representing Brazil.

“They played the Brazilians nine times and lost nine times,” noted George Nuss. “But that was before they played recently in Portugal. Kristen and Taryn finally beat them in a quarterfinal round match and will take that to the Olympics.”

Kloth wasn’t Nuss’ original partner at LSU. Nuss teamed with Claire Coppola of Phoenix, with whom she won 100 matches through her senior year and earned All-American status. Then COVID struck, and like many of LSU’s other import students, Coppola went home.

Kloth, whose main attribute was her height rather than talent when she transferred to LSU from Creighton in 2019, worked hard with Coach Drew Hamilton and Kristen to improve her skills. The results were amazing.

While Nuss finished her college career with 136 victories – the most ever for an individual – she and Kloth recorded a 36-0 record as Court 1 players and earned National Pair of the Year honors. They won 32 matches in straight sets, with Kloth at the net and Nuss doing most of the grunt work in the backcourt by using her speed and agility to keep balls out of the sand.

The two turned pro in 2021, and Hamilton left LSU to work exclusively as the pair’s coach. They won their first Association of Volleyball Professionals Tournament in Atlanta. And by the end of the season, Nuss was named Co-Rookie of the Year and Best Defender on the AVP tour.

The two continued to have success and make money at it. According to Beach Volleyball Data base, they have made $332,550 in 35 events through 2023. They have their own brand of beach apparel labeled as TKN (a variation of their first and last names) and a handful of sponsors, including Louisiana Tourism.

And success continued in 2023, with seven international medals, the most for an American team, said George Nuss.

But gaining a spot on the U.S. Olympic team wasn’t easy, as George explained.

“Olympic qualifying is based on points gained in international tournaments. American tournaments don’t count. And Kristen and Taryn didn’t have any points, so they couldn’t get into the qualifiers.

“They were told to split up and play with someone who has points then, when you have enough points, get back together. But they wanted to stay together, so they entered a semi-pro tournament in Australia that awarded points. But they had 10 teams ahead of them also waiting to get in.”

But when players were required to have been vaccinated, most began to drop out of the tournament.

“They got in with zero points and won the tournament,” George Nuss said. “So they go from zero points to be ranked No. 2 in the world.”

And they are now the U.S. standard bearers in that sport with hopes of becoming “Golden Girls.”

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