Karen Ann Yelich Szabo, Millennium Hall of Fame

A life-size photograph of Karen Ann Yelich Szabo hangs on a wall

inside the athletic complex at New Mexico State University, but the

former scholar/athlete is busy these days keeping life afloat for others

in the big picture.

The 1980 Costa Mesa High Female Athlete of the Year, who chose the

high desert country of Las Cruces, N.M., to play collegiate volleyball

instead of remaining in California where the sport gained its reputation,

is still New Mexico State’s record holder for solo blocks in a season

(165) ... 16 years after the fact.

The university’s Senior Scholar/Athlete of the Year for 1983-84 and a

four-time honoree on the Dean’s List, Szabo balanced her books and blocks

as well as anyone in the High Country Athletic Conference.

A first-team all-conference selection in 1982 and ‘84, the 6-foot-1

biology major established single-season school records in hitting

percentage, blocks and block assists her senior year for NMSU.

She graduated from New Mexico State with honors in 1984, attended

Alabama-Birmingham and graduated cum laude with a bachelor’s in community

and allied health in ‘86, then went to work as a physicians assistant.

Certified by numerous national boards in cardiovascular and thoracic

surgery, Szabo was a first assistant in heart surgery for six years. But,

when her children came along, those long work weeks didn’t fit the family

plan.

So, in midstream, Szabo switched to specializing in the ear, nose and

throat, learning another trade like it was just another classroom

assignment.

“I wanted to be a mom, and now I have 32-hour work weeks, no weekends

and no phone calls (24 hours a day),” Szabo said by telephone from

Abilene, Texas, where she’s part of the Texas Association of Physicians

Assistants.

Szabo and her husband, John, have two daughters; Carly, 8, and

Allison, 5. And, one of these days, she’ll head back to Las Cruces and

show her girls the life-size picture in the Pan American Center.

As a 1993 inductee in the New Mexico State Athletic Hall of Fame,

Szabo is on display for all to see.

“I’m glad I went out of state (to accept one of many full volleyball

scholarship offers),” she said. “The fact that I did, it allowed me to

play at all these different colleges in so many different states,

traveling to Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, Texas, Mississippi ... I saw a lot

more states than if I would’ve stayed in California and played volleyball

there. (Traveling) made it fun. I got to see places I normally wouldn’t

have seen.”

Born in Newport Beach and raised in Costa Mesa, Szabo surprised her

parents (her mother, Donna, still lives in Costa Mesa). Karen Ann told

them in junior high that she liked sports. She was tall and volleyball

and basketball were naturals.

“I was a little uncoordinated at first,” said Szabo, the Sea View

League Player of the Year in basketball at Costa Mesa her senior year

during the 1979-80 campaign, and a first-team All-CIF Southern Section

3-A pick.

An all-league volleyball player in the fall of ‘79, Szabo was

decorated with more basketball accolades in high school, including

playing in the Orange County All-Star girls game. But she felt she was

“better trained in volleyball” and was more prepared to play that sport

at the next level.

Although most of her scholarship offers were in basketball, she became

one of the best middle blockers in HCAC history, while earning first-team

Academic All-American in 1983-84 and third-team Academic All-American in

1982-83.

Also a track and field standout in high school, the latest honoree in

the Daily Pilot Sports Hall of Fame (celebrating the millennium) kept

active after college, competing in U.S. Volleyball Association

tournaments and winning five titles from 1987 to ’91. She has also been

honored by the Women’s Bowling Association.

Szabo, the first volleyball player ever inducted into the New Mexico

State Hall of Fame, still plays some coed and city league volleyball in

Texas, but her focus is mainly on her family.

“My youngest (daughter) is going to be extremely tall,” she said. “You

double their height at that age (5) to see where they might end up, and

if we do that with Allison, she’s going to be 6-4. We need a volleyball

in her hand.”

Szabo is still among NMSU’s career leaders in hitting percentage,

blocks-per-game average (1.28 in 1982-83), aces and kills. Her 733

lifetime kills rank 10th in the record books, while her career

kills-per-game average of 3.02 is fifth.

Her 165 solo blocks in 1982-83, however, are far ahead of the next

player in line -- Jonna Steffens (1989-92), who had 112.