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Just go to indeed.com/bluewire right now and support our show by saying that you heard about Indeed on this podcast, that's indeed.com/bluewire, terms and conditions applied. And to hire, you need Indeed. I'm glad I'm doing great, thank you for having me. Absolutely. It's great to have you here. For those who maybe don't know Kate's story just yet since she is a freshman, and hasn't quite, she's been on campus this summer and we'll talk about that, but she's from Keyview Crane, came to United States in 2021, played high school basketball in New York at Long Island Lutheran in New York where she became a McDonald's All-American and a New York Gatorade State Player of the Year. Before we talk basketball, and we'll talk plenty of basketball, but I've got to know you. I mean, you've been in the States for a few years now. So what's like, do you have a favorite American food? What's at the top of your list right now? I don't know, I'm kind of fresh and I'm kind of eating anything pretty much, but I love Chipotle. Chipotle is one of my favorites. Chipotle, that wasn't what I was expecting, especially like you're on Long Island. I expected you to say like maybe New York pizza or something like that. I like it, but like if I had to choose one place, like anywhere in America would probably be Chipotle, but New York is definitely like deli breakfast sandwiches, like bacon, egg and cheese. Very true. Very true. And I guess at least, I mean, if it's Chipotle, once you're fully on campus and all that stuff, there's a Chipotle not far from where you'll be living. So that's an easy stop for you over there. Well, you have been on campus at Notre Dame this summer. You got here with the rest of the team and working out and stuff like that. What was that what was that summer experience like for you getting here to Notre Dame? It was awesome to be on the starting from summer school classes and then of course workouts with the team. It was just nice getting to know all of them, just meeting new people and just getting the feel of their college life and what it's going to be like in the fall. What were those first workouts like, you know, just in terms of with college players as opposed to, you know, you're coming right out of high school, as accomplished as you were, you were still in high school and stuff like that. Yeah, for sure. Well, definitely a big, a huge difference, especially in the weight room and strength conditioning part, just getting used to it and adjusting. And then we did a lot of individual work, so those lines just getting to know the coaches and their style of coaching and of course some team workouts, some pick up, just getting the feel of the girls and what everybody's like and what we're looking at just to know what we have to work on pretty much. What about, I imagine Hannah Hidalgo and Olivia Miles, like we're probably different than any point guards that maybe you've played with in the past. What was it like kind of being on the receiving end of passes from those two this summer? Oh, it was amazing, honestly, just them having the experience in college and especially Olivia, like, sometimes she'd be seeing passes that I don't even know I'm open and she just tells them in there and I'm like, oh, yeah, so awesome, they kind of, they have confidence in you and they pass you the ball and sometimes I don't even know when I'm open or they always correct me, tell me how it's easier for me to get open so they can see you better and it was just awesome, like, communication from both sides. So yeah, that was very helpful. Did you ever get hit in the head by an Olivia Miles pass? I've heard stories of players who... I don't think so, maybe she was close, but I mean, not that she was trying to hit you in the head, but just that you'd never know sometimes when the ball is coming from her. Oh, she has a great vision of the court, like, again, she'd be seeing passes that some of us don't even expect, but we're wide open. Right, exactly. Well, let's go back a few years. You're at home in Ukraine. How did you decide to come to the United States, you know, pack up, move to the United States as a teenager to, you know, for the purpose of playing basketball? It's always been a goal and I honestly can't just say it was strictly basketball because I've always had aspirations to go to a higher academic school and just developing as a player and as a person. So it was kind of a decision made by me and my family that I've gotten everything I could for my coaches back home and it was just time to take the next step just to develop as a player and, again, just to get ready for college and just get a higher education as well. Was Notre Dame, were you aware of Notre Dame living in Ukraine? For sure. Yeah, it's such an international, like, huge international brand, like, you hear Notre Dame and, yeah, I'm definitely hard about it before I went to America. How difficult was it though? Because again, you're, you know, you're a teenager. You're leaving your family behind it. It's not like you're even just moving from one city to the next. You're literally flying across the Atlantic Ocean to a completely different place, completely different culture. How difficult was that decision to pack up and move like that? I would say it wasn't easy, especially I come from a big family and you have life back home with my friends and school and, like, we all like feeling comfortable. So it's definitely a hard decision to be like, yeah, I'm going to switch schools, not going to see my parents every day, not going to have as much support, but at the end of the day, you know what the goal is and, like, the end result is going to be good if you sacrifice certain things in the beginning. And at first, it's the excitement kind of moving and going to a new place. So I didn't even feel it for, but then a couple of weeks, you start to, like, realize it starts to miss home a little bit more once the excitement stages pass. But it was definitely, I would say it was a smooth transition. It wasn't too bad. Prize picks is America's number one daily fantasy sports app with over five million active members. Prize picks is the easiest and most exciting way to play daily fantasy sports. 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Leveraging over 140 million qualifications and preferences every day, Indeed's matching engine is constantly learning from your preferences, so the more you use Indeed, the better it gets. Find more than 3.5 million businesses worldwide that use Indeed to hire great talent fast. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsor job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com/bluewire. Just go to indeed.com/bluewire right now and support our show by saying that you heard about Indeed on this podcast. That's indeed.com/bluewire, terms and conditions applied. And hire, you need Indeed. How much have you been able to actually see your family since you moved over here? I would try to see them for Christmas, both of my brothers go to school in the U.S., just in different states. So we get to see each other a few times a year for Christmas and again, my mom and my grandparents, they do their best to come see some of the games during the years, so that's pretty awesome. Your English is really good now. How good was your English when you first came over here? Oh, that was pretty good. I had basics now. I mean, New York definitely shaped it a little bit, but I had some basic knowledge. Did you take English in school when you were growing up then? Yeah, since kindergarten. Is that pretty common in Ukraine, to take English lessons in those classes and those kinds of things? It is. English is definitely one of the requirements and then you'll also take a second language if you want, but English is definitely a required class, yeah. That's interesting. And it's obviously come in very handy because here in the states, really, you don't start thinking about a second language until you get right around being a teenager, whether it's high school or whatever, and then into college. It's obviously served you very well to take up a second language at a young age like that. That's interesting. So the move has to be hard enough, but again, like whether or not you were taking classes in English when you were young, what was that like actually being immersed then in sort of the US educational system where you're taking classes in English and everything is in English now? Yeah, it was definitely hard, especially I would say for science and math, just the vocabulary part of it, just getting used to the terms because you might know what it means, but you just don't really know how to say it. So that was one of the challenges, and then of course just the speed of people talking and then reading classes was hard for me at first, just being able to read and analyze and talk about the text. But everything else in general, it wasn't bad. I got used to it pretty quick because you just surrounded with people speaking English all the time, so you get used to it and again, it just gets easier every day. That immersion, yeah, exactly. Well, I heard that your coaches at Long Island Lutheran were pretty helpful to you, both on and off the court coming over, how much did they help you in that transition and becoming the basketball player that you ultimately became when you moved here? I mean, they were huge part. Coach Christina, Radie, and Loha, she's been watching all the coaches on the staff and paying as the teachers, everybody, Loha was such a small school, so you had a really good support system, but I would say coaches, they were a big support for me, and they're just there, no matter what, lunch is basketball, and I feel like I was talking to them a few weeks ago about it, and I was just like, I pretty much spent some of the most important years as a teenager here, so there were the people that really helped me and shaped a lot of things in my life and the way I look and think about things, so I talk to them almost every day, even being here in college, and I feel like they're going to be the people that I'm always going to be in my life. Almost like a second family to you, it sounds like pretty cool. I know that you were a ballet dancer when you were young as well, and I'm curious as someone who now is 6'5" tall and is playing basketball, you know, post-player, and like, does that ballet background, you know, like, has that helped you as a basketball player do you think? Well, a lot coaches say it helped me with my footwork, so definitely that, and this is like being, I started basketball pretty late, I was around 11, 12 years old, so I had really good coordination from ballet, so I feel like that helped me pick things faster for sure. One you're a unique player as well, because again, with the size that you have, you can also step outside, you can hit those three pointers, and like, Nicola Jokic is the player that I always hear, you know, the comparison to you. I'm curious, are you a fan of his, and do you see that same comparison in your game? Yeah, for sure. I love watching his game, and my favorite thing about his game is not even like, he's been able to, it's just like his vision on the court, and like, the level of passes that he's able to make, and just like, the way he is as a leader. Yeah, it's just one of the biggest, like, things that I look at during the games when I watch him, but it's definitely one of my favorite players. Well, and it seems like him or a guy like Luca, you know, those players with the European background with, you know, with the size, you can even go back to a guy like Dirk Niwitski, obviously. Like, they seem like, even with the size, they seem to have that part of their game. They really, I think, kind of, revolute, like, is that growing up in Europe, is that sort of part of the European game that regardless of your size, you're still going to have that aspect to your game? Oh, well, growing up, my coach was always like, only at the certain age you got divided by positions of like, what you do, obviously, like, if you're taller, when you were more, doing more post-work and stuff, but like, in the beginning, we all were doing same things, like dribbling, shooting, kind of just working on everything, and then when you, once you get older and they see your tendencies, they're like, yeah, you're most likely going to be more of a post-player, but you can still shoot, so I wasn't really limited to, oh, just because you're 6'5", you're not even going to practice the shots, you know, so it was like, open-minded communication between you and the coaches, what do you want to work on, what do they think you want to work on, and of course, like, European South playing, especially playing for the national teams and having coaches from all over Europe, just them giving you that experience of, oh, you can shoot, but you can also have an amazing footwork. This episode is brought to you by Experian. Are you paying for subscriptions you don't use, but can't find the time or energy to cancel them? Experian could cancel unwanted subscriptions for you, saving you an average of $270 per year, and plenty of time. Download the Experian app. Results will vary, not all subscriptions are eligible, savings are not guaranteed, paid membership with connected payment account required. Okay, do you remember, like, your first experience the first time you heard from Notre Dame when you were being recruited, do you remember that? Oh, yeah, a little bit, yeah. What was, like, anything that stands out from that first experience? I was definitely excited because I feel like I clicked with the coaches, they have such a, like, dynamic coaching staff, and, like, they're very fun to talk to. They don't really put too much pressure on you or anything, so it was just, like, nice getting to know them. And of course, knowing the level of education Notre Dame has definitely attracted me, like, to see Notre Dame as one of my options. What was Neil Ivy's involvement, like, in recruiting, maybe in comparison to, like you talked about, they don't put the pressure on you? What was her involvement, like, maybe compared to some other schools that were talking to you in that process? Well, I would say the biggest difference is, like, they would, like, just call it to check up on you, and then they would communicate with my high school coach, and, like, obviously, my AU coach, like, they just, they don't, I would say they don't call you too much. They don't put you too much pressure on you. They kind of, like, watch you from a distance, just know you're doing well. And then, of course, like, during my visit, they were super helpful, just providing on the information I needed, and stuff like that. What was that first, the first time you visited Notre Dame? What was that like? Oh, it was awesome. The campus was beautiful, and we visited for a football weekend, and it was one of my first, like, experiences seeing a real college football game, so that was awesome. And just seeing the campus, I loved it. I loved how, kind of, it's big, but at the same time, it doesn't feel huge. You can walk everywhere, and, yeah, just seeing their dynamic as a team, I really loved it. Do you like American football? Are you, like, what do you, what do you think of American football? Well, it's definitely, it's a new game to me, I just, I don't understand it recently, like, I've been struggling for a little bit, but I understand it, and I really enjoy, like, I enjoy football games just for the atmosphere. I might not understand what's going on at all times, but I enjoy, like, the atmosphere, the, like, being in the student section without their students and my friends. So I'm definitely looking forward to that this fall. I was going to say, you'll get to go to all the, you know, the home games with the team, and I mean, basically just cheer when everybody else cheers, right? Right. That's what it's about. So classes starting pretty soon, you've got a, you've got a couple of weeks before classes actually get started. Do you know what you're going to major in at this point? I'm taking the science route. So I don't have, like, a specific, like, major, it's kind of pre-professional studies, a bunch of sciences, just exploring, to be honest. Did you, did you, I assume you took your first classes over the summer when Notre Dame, is that right? Where did you take this summer? That's a chemistry, just like introduction to chemistry. So it was a little of a review from high school, but I also got you a feel of, like, what the lectures are going to be like. And then I also took philosophy, which surprisingly, I really liked that class, even though I'm usually not like an English and writing person, but I enjoy just being able to, like, express your thoughts and, like, opinions. So that was really nice. It's probably nice when you have a little bit more time and you don't have a full course study to take a class like that, I would imagine, as well. Yeah, for sure. Probably helps. All right. Kate Koval. So we started off, Chipotle is your number one. Do you have a number two here in South Bend? Is there, is there like a, if it wasn't Chipotle, where else are you going to eat here in South Bend? I like kudoma. Okay. It's not too different, but it's different enough, right? Yeah. Um, I don't really, I don't really know. I haven't explored too many places, to be honest. I love cooking, so I've been making food for myself. Oh, really? What do you like to make for yourself, then? Anything. I can make anything. Like, rice is chicken is the most popular one, but I like to throw some steak in there, some shrimp. Switch it up. Posh. That sounds good. Yeah. Sounds like you might have to start giving some cooking classes or something here. I'll definitely, I'll definitely think of that. All right. Kate Koval, welcome to Notre Dame and look forward to seeing you this season. Thanks for doing this. I appreciate it. Thank you. Slavu Kready. Thank you. We're driven by the search for better, but when it comes to hiring, the best way to search for a candidate isn't to search at all. Don't search "match" with Indeed. Indeed is your matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors, according to Indeed data, and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast. Ditch the busywork. Use Indeed for scheduling, screening, and messaging so you can connect with candidates faster. Leveraging over 140 million qualifications and preferences every day, Indeed's matching engine is constantly learning from your preferences, so the more you use Indeed, the better it gets. Join more than 3.5 million businesses worldwide that use Indeed to hire great, talent fast. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsor job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com/bluewire. Just go to indeed.com/bluewire right now and support our show by saying that you heard about Indeed on this podcast. That's indeed.com/bluewire, terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. [MUSIC PLAYING]
