S3E2: Volleyball Rehab, Death to #GrowTheGame, & Mid-Major Tournaments

We recap a whirlwind women’s volleyball weekend, break down Stanford vs Louisville with real tactical detail, and lay out a case for mandatory mid-major conference tournaments. We also explain how Bay to Bay chartered flights to save families money and why “grow the game” needs to retire.

• Stanford vs Louisville as a gritty benchmark for the 4–10 tier
• Louisville setter as the match’s key differentiator
• Stanford stronger in the middle, Louisville deeper at the pins
• Santa Clara–Pepperdine detour and a St. Mary’s “volleyball rehab” vibe
• Packed gym energy and what real community looks like
• Why mid-major conferences should host a top-six tournament
• Keeping teams alive longer, creating late-season stakes
• A rebuttal to “best representative” fears with best-of-five logic
• Retiring “grow the game” in favor of confident, concrete action
• AVCA convention curation vs salesy sessions, and open debate
• How Matt chartered planes and broke the internet with AI
• AI mockups, virality, and clear messaging around real logistics
• Building The Grape Man event from 10 to 100 teams

Transcript

Cold Open: Smelling Salts and Chaos

Chad Gordon 0:00

They are the only smelling salt. Literally, you actually don't have to take the lid off.

Arielle Houlihan 0:02

I feel it. Oh my God. Chad?

Chad Gordon 0:14

Not good. My goodness.

Arielle Houlihan 0:16

Okay, this is an ad for ah, world's strongest smelling salt.

Chad Gordon 0:20

I can see Jesus. Rajumaji Jumanji.

Arielle Houlihan 0:26

Contains ammonia.

Chad Gordon 0:27

Yeah, it does.

Weekend Plan: Women’s Volleyball Focus

Arielle Houlihan 0:35

Okay, everybody, we've got a great docket for you today. We're in the women's game now.

Chad Gordon 0:40

Yeah.

Matt Houlihan 0:41

Go women.

Chad Gordon 0:41

We're dabbling.

Arielle Houlihan 0:42

Go girls. Let's start with what we did this weekend.

Matt Houlihan 0:46

Big volleyball weekend.

Arielle Houlihan 0:47

We went to I that was the most concentrated amount of volleyball games I've been to in three days in a while. All over. Yeah, all over the Bay Area for no reason.

Matt Houlihan 0:58

Yeah. The only day we didn't go physically watch a volleyball game was Friday, and we stayed in the house and watched like nine games.

Arielle Houlihan 1:04

Yeah, we watched more games that day than

Stanford vs Louisville Breakdown

Arielle Houlihan 1:06

we did on the other days.

Matt Houlihan 1:07

That's true. Work is backwards. Sunday, Stanford versus Louisville. It was a good matchup.

Arielle Houlihan 1:12

It was the best game of the weekend.

Matt Houlihan 1:14

Yeah. I thought it was a little bit ugly on the volleyball side. I thought both teams probably had had more in the tank, not the sharpest, but it was gritty. I'll give them that.

Arielle Houlihan 1:23

The most exciting thing that happened during that game was that a girl came up to Matt, said, Are you Matt Hoolahan?

Chad Gordon 1:30

Heck yeah.

Arielle Houlihan 1:31

I actually didn't even hear what she said, but then she was like, Can we take a picture? And then looked at me and handed me the phone, which was Matt, made Matt's Day.

Matt Houlihan 1:39

For all the times that I've had to take a photo of a fan with Arian's Day, you have arrived. The fact that she finally turned around and take a photo of it.

Arielle Houlihan 1:47

It was like my market of people. Like 15-year-old girls are my market of people.

Matt Houlihan 1:50

Yeah, no, but that was like two years ago, maybe. Yeah, right.

Arielle Houlihan 1:53

I think it's changing.

Matt Houlihan 1:54

Shout out to Ethan Foss's little sister. She's the one that came up. You go, girl.

Chad Gordon 2:02

This means so much to you. Yeah. Um get you a shout out.

Arielle Houlihan 2:06

I thought that let's talk about Louisville Stanford really quick. Just for like a second. Uh I thought that Louisville Sutter was the reason.

Matt Houlihan 2:15

Yeah, she was good.

Arielle Houlihan 2:16

She was good. And I thought that that was like the biggest differentiator. Um, the pins, I thought that Louisville had better pins, like overall. Overall. And then but it was good. They were both like a very evenly, to me, very evenly matched teams.

Matt Houlihan 2:33

Yeah, you looked at me during the game, you're like, these are two very two similar teams. Stanford middles, I think, were a little bit better. The pins, the pins for Louisville seemed like they were a little bit better, but I like Stanford's opposite more. Um yeah, they're just like they're all they were so close in in kind of every facet. The biggest differentiators I thought Louisville setter was had a really good game, and Stanford struggled a little bit more.

Arielle Houlihan 2:54

It was a really good representation of like the uh fourth ranked through the tenth ranked of the NCAA women's volleyball right now.

Matt Houlihan 3:01

They're all kind of four or six, right?

Arielle Houlihan 3:03

Yeah, they're like that's all kind of the same in Texas and Nebraska are better than

Santa Clara–Pepperdine Detour

Arielle Houlihan 3:08

everybody else.

Chad Gordon 3:08

Yeah.

Matt Houlihan 3:08

Well, right before that, and the day before we went to Santa Clara versus Pepperdine. We've got a follow-up question. Why? Why?

Chad Gordon 3:16

That game? How'd you end up with that one?

Arielle Houlihan 3:18

Because Kevin Wong texted me and I was walking into practice and he said I'm in town, and then he was like, Do you wanna you guys want to do dinner? And then I was like, uh, I'd rather just go, since I'm at Bellerman, I'm just gonna go right over to Santa Clara.1 miles away from the room. I looked at Smith and Mason and was like, I'd love to stay for sixteens, but I think I'm gonna go over to that game instead. And so then I walked out or walked. I drove. I drove, I drove over a mile and a half. Yeah, yeah. I drove over there, met Kevin there, uh, sat with him, and then Lindsay Berg was there. Who I don't I know that somebody's told me this before, but the Aaron Lindsay sister is Lindsay Berg. Yeah, which is very confusing with the amount of Lindsay's going on there. Also, yes. Yes, and so I was like, oh yeah, and then she was there, and then who else saw Alexandra? Urbina was there, and like saw a bunch of people, and then Matt brought the kids over, and then Leslie was right across the field because they were getting honored at the soccer game, and then we went to the hut with all with all of them afterwards. It was like a whole Santa Clara day, it was great, yeah. And Kevin's brother is Scott Wong.

Chad Gordon 4:26

Uh that one I know check, check with those two.

Arielle Houlihan 4:30

Just explaining volleyball things to volleyball people, which is so boring. Yeah, yeah.

Matt Houlihan 4:34

Yeah, so we got to see uh we got to see the full squad there. That was fun. Um, and then before that, we had Dustin in town. So Dustin was on the ride with us for this whole thing, and he came up because he was going up to see uh the St. Mary's crew. So he wanted to check out Tyler Hildebrand and his his new job up at St. Mary's.

Arielle Houlihan 4:51

So let's start from the beginning with that day because that was the funniest day for me.

Matt Houlihan 4:55

Yeah, that was a funny day.

Arielle Houlihan 4:56

Um, we went up, Chad was supposed to come.

Matt Houlihan 4:58

Chad was supposed to come. Yeah. Apparently things were, quote, on fire. And we put them out.

Chad Gordon 5:03

Yes. See.

Arielle Houlihan 5:04

Yeah, I get that.

Chad Gordon 5:05

Is it still flaming or we're we're flying to Poland, it's fine. Sorry.

St. Mary’s Visit: “Volleyball Rehab”

Arielle Houlihan 5:10

When things are on fire, you just fly to Poland. Yeah. Um, so we uh skipped traffic, left at like 12-ish, like and went up there and had lunch, and then we went to Servant Pass, and then we went to film, and then we went to we went to all the things because they were like, come on over.

Matt Houlihan 5:25

Cookie, cookie, running some film or what? Cookie. Yeah, it was great. Brian Cook, uh, who played with me and Chad at Beta Bay, a former former teammate of ours, uh, the uh the new assistant coach there at St. Mary's with Tyler.

Arielle Houlihan 5:37

He got conned into into uh coaching with Tyler, and then Taylor Crab is also there coaching Beach. And so, but he wasn't in the gym for Servant Pass. But when we went to the bar like right on campus, then Taylor walked in, and so we were like, so then it was like, okay, yes, these are all the people that we know are at St. Mary's. But then, like, once we got to the game, we were sitting up in the box, which they have like their version of the sky sandbar.

Matt Houlihan 6:03

It's like right above, yeah, it's a bar, sure.

Arielle Houlihan 6:05

It's like a bar right above, and like all of the like older St. Mary's people are hanging out. That sounds like very sandbar. The big, the big money, yes, and so uh we're there in the middle of like the second. Well, first I made the joke because Dustin kept saying that like breathing in the air up there and being like, can you just smell the air? Like it's just like the trees, it's just so peaceful. It's just so because you're like kind of in the woods. And then I was like, wait, this is volleyball rehab, like this is just like where everybody goes to like get away.

Chad Gordon 6:35

We'll see you in eight weeks.

Arielle Houlihan 6:37

I'm just gonna go, I'm just gonna go take like a random season and go coach at St. Mary's and go in volleyball rehab. The amount of high-level volleyball people that are in this gym, it's me and Matt and Dustin, Tyler, and Brian and Taylor Crab and uh Kristen Richards.

Chad Gordon 6:55

Chad was supposed to be there. Chad is supposed to be there. Kelsey Robinson's there.

Arielle Houlihan 7:00

Mike Dodd is there, his daughter's there, uh James Shaw's mom is there. Like I was like, what is happening and why is everybody here? And nobody. I think that Mike Dodd's daughter playing there was the only high-level tie that anybody actually had to being there.

Chad Gordon 7:15

That's a lot of rehab.

Arielle Houlihan 7:16

I was like, what is happening here?

Chad Gordon 7:19

We still have an explanation, like at all?

Arielle Houlihan 7:21

Not at all.

Matt Houlihan 7:22

It was pretty funny though. I mean, watching it. Watching the whole the whole game play out. They broke the attendance record for Saint Mary's women's volleyball.

Arielle Houlihan 7:30

1500 people. It was cute.

Matt Houlihan 7:32

1500. They did a good job. I think that yeah, they're obviously starting that program anew, basically. So it's fun getting in, watching serving pass, watching serving pass, watching film, just kind of

Mid-Majors Need Conference Tournaments

Matt Houlihan 7:42

see obviously the vibe of kind of how they're how they're running things. And so always nice to see behind the curtain. Uh, then we had some good combos with the coaching staff afterwards. And we had some one of the most interesting things that got brought up was from Tyler himself, and he brought up the the idea that he wants to basically require any mid-major conference to have to host a conference tournament. I love it.

Arielle Houlihan 8:05

Me too.

Matt Houlihan 8:05

Yeah, it's the best idea. He made a great he just made a great argument for it. It was like, look, I'm going up to coaches being like, aren't you mad your season's gonna be over in two weeks? Like we just we just started, right? If you lose four conference matches, you're done. You're out. You literally can't do anything uh to to extend your season. So what are we doing? We playing I think he used the uh we're playing checkers. Like it's fun.

Arielle Houlihan 8:27

He was just talking about how like the WCC doesn't have one and like the coaches vote on it, and I guess that that is what the rule is for all the conferences. The coach, the coaches committee votes on it of what they have. Of what their postseason is. And then I was like, shouldn't all mid-majors have to do this? Because or at least have there be a top six tournament at the end.

Matt Houlihan 8:49

Sure. Like that's the Patriot League style, which I I mean I think that's a great example of all right. You take the top six of a mid-major conference. You don't, yes, you want your you you want your top team to get in, of course, but at the same time, you need to have some kind of season extender that allows these teams to stay in it. Because when you look at like teams four, five, six, seven, and eight, when it comes to the final season, if you're playing for that sixth spot, you're still in it till the very end, unless you're having a really bad season. So keeping teams in it, keeping those programs in it longer is better. And then if you do the six, you still get rewarded for being one or two seeds.

Arielle Houlihan 9:26

You're just vying for something. Like, oh, I don't want that sixth seed, I want that fifth seed so that I don't have to play the number one first. Like, we're really trying that last game is like important for that to set us up for success for the like it just makes more sense to have there be something that people are working to more things that people are working towards. I would rather have all of the conferences have tournaments than have the dumb NIT tournament or whatever it is. Yeah, like that to me is like nothing.

Chad Gordon 9:52

They're maybe not even running that this year, right? Yeah, like waiting to see interest or something like this.

Arielle Houlihan 9:56

It's that thing is dumb to me. Let's actually have something that like a Cinderella team can like get get hot at the end and like work the whole year so that we were talking about injuries too, and how like you're trying to make like push kids at the wrong time of the year. Like, don't middle of the season be pushing kids, let them rest and get healthy so that they can do something by the end. It just makes more sense.

Matt Houlihan 10:20

Yeah. To steal uh just to steal man the other side, which I don't agree with. I think people would probably say, Hey, we want the best representation of our conference to be in the tournament.

Arielle Houlihan 10:30

You can have a plaque for your conference championship that you won for winning as many games that don't matter.

Matt Houlihan 10:35

Yeah, but if I'm if I'm at the top of a mid-major and I have the option of like, ooh, I just need to win conference, which I do have done nine out of the last 10 years, like I don't want to risk the tournament. Right. Sure. I mean, I would understand why programs at the top like that would probably say, no, I don't want to change that.

Chad Gordon 10:53

Yeah. I was I was gonna say, like, if you're you know in the top 25 or something, right? If you're a western Kentucky or somebody who's just like, hey, like I'm always kind of in here, but man, I I got some injured kids, I'd rather rest them. I don't want to play a conference tournament, right? You know, maybe you should still be able to get in, you know, with without that. Um, but you know, we we look at it like the men's side of it, like Penn State. It's like, okay, just kind of be bad all year long, and then just like all right, I gotta win three in a row. That's it. Yep. It's like that's what I guess that works.

Arielle Houlihan 11:22

I mean, I also think that that's like what a real season should look like. You shouldn't have to be good at the beginning. You should be able to use a body of work to be able to get better and better and better so that you are good by the end. I think that that's what makes sense in sport.

Chad Gordon 11:38

And I guess I mean you're playing best out of five anyway. It's not like you're playing on the beach one to twenty-one or something where like, oh man, a couple raw pieces and the wind, you know. You just it's lucky. I mean, in theory, if Texas plays whatever Texas Community College West, like Texas should win that one most of the time. 95% of the time. Yeah, yeah.

Matt Houlihan 11:57

We had some very interesting conversations throughout the weekend. Like having having Dustin here who's I I I love, but he just has a very thoughtful way

AVCA Convention: Debates and Gripes

Matt Houlihan 12:05

of kind of bringing stuff up. And he he asked the question to both of us when we were sitting at lunch. He's like, What would you want to debate at the ABCA convention? Because he had he'd put in to try and present at the ABCA. He also submitted it way too late, so obviously he didn't get it. But he's like, Hey, if I was at the ABCA, like I would love to debate someone about the split step. Yeah, and I answered the question back of saying, I would love to debate anyone about hashtag grow the game. The idea of using grow the game as the the way to be the rallying cry around the sport of volleyball. And Ariel's been a big proponent of this one, so I gotta give you credit as well of like that that idea needs to die. It has to go away. Hashtag grow the game is not good for volleyball anymore. It's such a shrink the game.

Arielle Houlihan 12:53

People saying grow the game is pitying the sport. It's picking it's going up. It's pick me energy. It's so pick me. It's it's just very like, oh, please, somebody help, help this this poor little sport that doesn't have anything. Like we really are trying so hard. Like, stop talking about it. Like it's not a legitimate thing.

Matt Houlihan 13:11

Yeah, it's steal the moon. It's already here. It's already here. Yeah, don't don't downplay it anymore. Don't play the the victim card. We are here, and it needs to be owned. Like, yeah, grow the game is not what we say anymore. It I put a personal ban on it. From here on out, anyone that says it, you're being you will receive a fine in the mail. One strongly worded letter.

Arielle Houlihan 13:33

Okay, let's go back to what we would debate the what would we debate at the ABCA convention because when Dustin and we were talking about this, I said what I think that the whole like apply for speaking at the ABCA thing is like, I don't know why I take personal offense to it. I just am like, no, I would never apply for anything, maybe I just have a problem with applications, but and authority.

Matt Houlihan 13:57

I also still need to get my real forms.

Arielle Houlihan 13:59

I also still need to get my real California ID. So I need a guy. Um I think that if we were to just set up like we do here in the lobby and just Twitch live stream, I think that it would be really funny. And we could just have people come and hang out and sit down and debate us on whatever. We could Charlie Kirk style the ABCA convention and just have like people just coming up and be like, hey, let's talk about whatever.

Matt Houlihan 14:31

Have you seen the guy that does the subway takes?

Arielle Houlihan 14:33

Yes, the subway take guy.

Matt Houlihan 14:34

Yeah, you just has a random person sit down with a microphone. What's your take? And you have to give your random. Damn it, yeah.

Arielle Houlihan 14:43

It's like, I disagree with that. And then they like give you the basis of reasoning, and then he's like, wait, maybe people are overhydrated.

Chad Gordon 14:49

I see, I thought you were gonna go on the like anybody can apply. So it's just like sometimes you get people presenting where it's like well, yes, I'm gonna be able to do that. Are we sure that like these views should be projected?

Arielle Houlihan 14:58

100%. It's like, what are we just letting anybody it's not that that's a bad model? I like what the AVCA is doing. I actually think the convention is amazing for people.

Chad Gordon 15:07

I'm gonna bash it.

Arielle Houlihan 15:09

I do think that somebody hit somebody. It's not for me like to go and we've also been doing it for I've yeah.

Matt Houlihan 15:18

I'm gonna bash the AVCA convention for a second. And AVCA convention person, whoever's listening, if you listen, you probably don't. That's fine. Here's my here's the reason why. I think I agree. The majority of what we're looking for is great. The thing that happens, and this is like most conferences, it becomes this like advertisement sell. It's every I love that. No, listen, here's what I'm talking about. If you like the game, I want to be an advertisement cell. When I go to sit down for a session, like the one last year with the SMU coach was awesome. I love that one. She was great. Those that's what you're looking for, but half of the nonsense that is put out is like what app is giving a how to run your club better. Yeah, it's a sales pitch for their software. It's a sales pitch for A, B, C, and D thing, and those are the presentations.

Arielle Houlihan 16:04

It's like Matt,

Charter Flights for Clubs: Cheaper at Scale

Arielle Houlihan 16:05

there are so many dumb people in this sport that are doing that stuff. Like, of course, get rid of it.

Matt Houlihan 16:09

Get rid of it, keep the marketplace, shrink the game.

Arielle Houlihan 16:12

I don't mind that part.

Matt Houlihan 16:15

Shrink game, feel the mood.

Arielle Houlihan 16:18

I think that the bigger that it is, the better. I think that the more activation that can come in, the more brands that can come in, the more that there can be like uh collaborations between an app and a coach that they believe in or whatever it is, and like present to whoever wants to listen. Yes, obviously, if there are bad presentations, there are a ton of bad presentations, and there's a ton of bad presentations by really, really high up people in our sport. But like that's just what they believe in, and that's the reason why you get so many people going to this thing. This thing is actually packed. Yeah, it's like there's a lot of people that go to this, and so I think that there's you it's up to you as a director or coach or whatever to go into the lane that you think is right. And the personal lane that I think is right is hanging out with my friends and partying the entire time. That's my lane.

Matt Houlihan 17:09

But like your lane is you never go to anything and you're not out of the bar.

Chad Gordon 17:13

Not true. Brought the bar to one of the sessions.

Arielle Houlihan 17:15

Yeah, I did I did do that one.

Matt Houlihan 17:17

Sorry, bro. I I love the ABC convention. I love going to it. I'm saying I think they could absolutely knock it out of the park even further by truly going out to find the right people to bring in to give these these talks and speeches rather than selling placement of like, all right, go to sport.com, come give me your presentation.

Arielle Houlihan 17:37

I agree with that that it shouldn't be application based only in the fact that I have never been approached to go and speak at stuff like that is absolutely insanity. Of course, I believe that, but like I don't care.

Matt Houlihan 17:49

I'm sure they go out and they look for a couple like marquee people, right? They brought in the Polish coach last year. I'm sure they approached him on that one.

Chad Gordon 17:55

I'm sure Nikola Gorbich did not was like, hey man, let me fly out of here. Where is the Google five, Dustin? Yeah, no, and there were I was one of seven people in that room listening to him. Yeah, and I was like, This is crazy. Are you kidding me? Yeah, this guy runs one of the best teams in the world.

Arielle Houlihan 18:14

But of course, it's on it's like it was but it was at the same time as the game changer app doing I can't believe I missed it.

Chad Gordon 18:20

No, it was like Saturday at like 3:30 in the afternoon, and it's like oh no, like the prime placement on Wednesday or Thursday midday or whatever was taken by somebody who's got an app for something or some high school coach or whatever. And what I thought was funny was like I heard Sproad, you know, talk about um USA volleyball, like the vision, right? Like obviously he presented to the boys, but then you know, talked uh a little bit more in depth recently. And it's like, man, like still trying to fix outdated concepts, like oh, this midline passing, we're finally away from that. It's like, yeah, but like some of the people that are speaking at these events didn't get that memo.

Arielle Houlihan 18:58

Yeah, yeah.

Chad Gordon 18:59

So I just I think if if you're gonna treat it as this educational event, like can we get some people that are at least on the same page? Or hey, if you have an idea, like can we hear like a new idea, not just like here's how to hold your hands.

Arielle Houlihan 19:09

That's why we will be in the Marriott Lounge live streaming.

Matt Houlihan 19:14

I will be giving my own presentation on how to charter airplanes for your volleyball club and break the internet with one pivot.

Arielle Houlihan 19:23

So computer generated image. So wait, what? That's not so we will talk about doing a lot something at the at Kansas City this year. Correct? Team agreed? Power Rangers? Okay, great, awesome. Uh next, AI and airplanes, what can they do for you? Matt, take it away.

Matt Houlihan 19:42

All right, so we as a club have put together two charter flights. So essentially, what we went to go do, we went to go book flights for our coaches like we normally do. And the flights to our two events, one's in Chicago, one's in Phoenix, the prices for flights were astronomical, like in insanely high. Higher than I've ever seen. Sure. Okay, like more than we had budgeted for, for sure. And we're like, my goodness. Luckily, we had a team

AI Plane, Virality, and Misconceptions

Matt Houlihan 20:10

parent as well who noticed this and was like, hey, I reached out to Southwest Airlines. Whose team parent was it? Uh he used to be mine, now he's yours. Uh shout out Milton. Uh he reached out to Southwest just to see what the price might be, just putting a little feeler out there, and the price came back and was very reasonable if you could get to a certain number, right? Like if a flight was costing, it was gonna cost six hundred dollars round trip or not round trip, one way to get a coach from the Bay Area to Chicago, and their thing came back to four hundred dollars per person. You're like, oh my goodness, like that's a great deal at scale. So sure enough, we're like, all right, let's put the let's test it.

Arielle Houlihan 20:47

We're and if we had time, we could have gotten two planes. Like, come on, Matt. That's how many people, but that's how many people we are having go to these events that we have. This is exactly the type of group that should be doing that.

Chad Gordon 21:02

We're gonna get like one of those like A380s, there's a second story, exactly.

Matt Houlihan 21:05

There's a lounge in the back. That's perfect, right? Like it makes sense of having a like a club volleyball airlines in the sense where you're looking for everyone's looking for a flight after 6 p.m. Because you gotta you don't want to stay another hotel night, but you can't miss because of the last uh like match of the day if you're playing in the finals. So we got an 8 8 p.m. flight, it's non-stop, no bag fees, like everything you want for a club volleyball team is bundled into this thing already, and the price is literally 1.5x, if not two times cheaper than what's retail available. Right. So we put this thing out there, and of course, people book it. We do it again for Phoenix, same thing. People book it. Like we're already well beyond the amount of people we need registered to be able to do it. So we've booked both charters. I sent the wires, we sent the wires into Southwest, and I'm like, you know what? The other part that we talked about when I talked to the guy is hey, you can decorate the plane. He's like, Yeah, you guys want you want to put a banner, you want to do like whatever you want us to do as the like the roll call, like we'll call it whatever you like. You want to call it beta bay air? You call it beta bay air. Great. I'm like, this is amazing. We can decorate it. So in that, in that vein, I go on uh I go on Gemini, nano banana, and I just take a plane and I'm like, turn this into a beta bay volleyball airplane.

Chad Gordon 22:16

Here's our website, please figure this out.

Matt Houlihan 22:18

Here's our logos, here's the color scheme, please make it boom, pops it up right away.

Arielle Houlihan 22:23

There is an Indonesian flag on it. I'm not sure why, but but when I tell you, I have never had so many people say, Is that real? Yes, like it is we are doing that. Like, that's what we're doing.

Chad Gordon 22:36

It's not that specifically, but like the sticker we're gonna put on isn't that here.

Arielle Houlihan 22:42

That's like the most, that's like the best use

The Great Man Event and Closing Bits

Arielle Houlihan 22:45

of AI that you've seen today.

Chad Gordon 22:46

Yeah.

Arielle Houlihan 22:47

Let alone like you've watched you've watched Stephen Hawking go up on a skate ramp a hundred times today.

Matt Houlihan 22:53

We post this we post this photo of the of the AI plane. I put the AI label on it. I followed the rules. I put the AI label on there, and the amount of direct messages I got being like, is this real? Immediately I was like, the fact that people think that this could be real means we're doing something right. That's why Clovis went up that shit.

Arielle Houlihan 23:11

And also, we are doing that. Like, that's what we did book two charter flights.

Chad Gordon 23:16

Like, you just don't get to keep the plane at the end. Yeah, that's all we're saying.

Arielle Houlihan 23:19

Yeah, people are like, Did you buy a plane? And I'm like, We rented one. What's the dear like what?

Matt Houlihan 23:24

Yes, we have a plane for yeah, like yeah, there's a bunch of like story reshares. It's it's at 500,000 views or something crazy. And the amount of story I went and looked at the story. I was looking at the story reshares, and there's people sharing on the stories and being like, Oh my goodness, they like this club, volleyball club has an airplane. Like, how expensive our club does, blah blah blah blah blah.

Arielle Houlihan 23:46

It's like, what are you talking about? We made it cheaper for everybody.

Matt Houlihan 23:49

Go to this new website, yeah. That's true. And if you live in the Bay Area and you want to join us, if you're a good time, you can join us. If you're a bad time, get out. Take shrink the game. Take spirit arrow.

Chad Gordon 23:59

That's what we mean by shrink the game. Get out of our game if you're a bad thing. Shrink out of our game.

Matt Houlihan 24:02

Shrink out of our plane. Anything else? Anything else you guys have before we uh before we close out? Another delightful episode. Oh I almost forgot.

Arielle Houlihan 24:12

There's an aftershock.

Matt Houlihan 24:14

No, got it.

Arielle Houlihan 24:15

They're rapid or time release. Time release.

Matt Houlihan 24:17

Yeah, it's number one. Number one. Chad's going for going to Poland soon, so we he can talk about that. But number two, we got the great man this weekend.

Arielle Houlihan 24:23

Oh yeah.

Matt Houlihan 24:24

I'm five days. We're five days out from the great man, four days when this airs. Someone else can win it. Stupid. Uh, it's the biggest. I gotta tell Chad. Chad was at the original Grassman that we ran in Morgan Hill. I was a show at the original Grassman. Yeah, but he played in it.

Arielle Houlihan 24:36

Okay.

Matt Houlihan 24:37

Uh twice.

Arielle Houlihan 24:38

He's I had a baby right before that.

Matt Houlihan 24:40

True.

Chad Gordon 24:40

What's your excuse, Matt? You didn't play in it.

Matt Houlihan 24:43

I actually did play in that one. I was a I was a sub. I subbed and played it.

Arielle Houlihan 24:47

I was like, you're running an event and playing that.

Matt Houlihan 24:49

That's when there were 15 teams that were registered for it. We got a hundred teams for this thing. That's too many. We've got three food vendors. We've got it's gonna be a show. I'm so excited for this thing. It is, it's really we got wine.

Arielle Houlihan 25:03

Coming together.

Chad Gordon 25:04

I'm pretty upset that I'm out of town. Like every weekend. Is Lacey coming?

Arielle Houlihan 25:07

No, she's gone too.

Chad Gordon 25:09

Oh, yeah, she's in San Diego. Please don't break into our home.

Arielle Houlihan 25:12

But hey, we're all going to San Diego together in a couple weeks.

Matt Houlihan 25:15

That's true.

Arielle Houlihan 25:16

Power Rangers.

Matt Houlihan 25:17

Shout out Bo and Hillary. Uh, you want to talk about Poland? No. Great.

Arielle Houlihan 25:22

Is everything on fire still?

Chad Gordon 25:24

No, it'll it'll it'll be fine. It'll be fine. We're we're we're getting there.

Matt Houlihan 25:27

Coming soon.

Arielle Houlihan 25:28

Okay.

Matt Houlihan 25:29

This episode was brought to you by Volley Station AI, Drop Dimes Co., and the Game Changer app.

Arielle Houlihan 25:35

No, it wasn't. It was sponsored by Ah Smelling Sauce.

Matt Houlihan 25:38

Yeah, you're right. Ah smelling sauce.