The Coaches Group Chat

University of the Pacific Men’s Volleyball Returns

• Matthew Houlihan, Arielle Houlihan, Chad Gordon • Season 3 • Episode 3

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The headline is big, but the backstory is bigger: Pacific is bringing back men’s volleyball, and we walk through how it actually happened—step by step, meeting by meeting, and milestone by milestone. From the first conversations with President Callahan to the detailed planning with Athletic Director Adam, we saw how patient leadership, alumni persistence, and the right partners turned a long shot into a green light.

We dig into the mechanics behind the moment: why First Point Volleyball Foundation’s involvement mattered, what conference alignment with the MPSF looks like, and how budgets, scholarships, and staffing were mapped before the announcement. Beyond logistics, we explore a core belief that shaped this comeback: men’s and women’s volleyball are stronger together. Cut one and you weaken the culture; invest in both and you raise the floor and the ceiling—better recruiting, bigger crowds, and a campus identity people want to be part of.

There’s also a candid look at the enrollment strategy driving decisions at private universities. Men’s volleyball can bring in domestic and international students, boost retention, and anchor community engagement. With that context, we talk about the head coach archetype that fits this moment—a builder who can recruit at speed, fundraise with credibility, and set a standard from day one. Expect some names, some laughs, and a bold attendance line for the home opener that dares Stockton to show up loud.

We’re proud, we’re relieved, and we’re ready to help this program thrive. If you want more schools to follow Pacific’s lead, share this with an AD or president who needs a playbook. Subscribe, rate, and pass it along to a volleyball friend—then tell us your pick to lead the Tigers and your over/under for opening night.

Matt Houlihan:

Bobby, can you look up Spano Center's attendance?

Arielle Houlihan:

Hey chat.

Chad Gordon:

Capacity. Hey Bobby.

Arielle Houlihan:

Hey Bobby, can you do one thing?

Chad Gordon:

Not when the fire marshals.

Arielle Houlihan:

Spano Center. Yeah. Bobby's Bobby's Bobby's kicking.

Matt Houlihan:

Bob Bobby is is loading.

Chad Gordon:

Buffering.

Arielle Houlihan:

Bobby's buffering.

Chad Gordon:

I think chat Bobby T is hallucinating.

Arielle Houlihan:

So welcome to the Coach's Group Chat. We're back. We are back. And I'm wearing a shirt I got when I was a freshman in college.

Matt Houlihan:

We're in our Grout Fits and we got we got some tiger representation today because it's a special edition.

Arielle Houlihan:

Have you ever been a tiger?

Chad Gordon:

Not in the last 20 years, no.

Arielle Houlihan:

Ever? You've never been a part of anything that was tiger related.

Chad Gordon:

No.

Arielle Houlihan:

Tiger King, have you watched Tiger King?

Chad Gordon:

I have watched Tiger King.

Arielle Houlihan:

No, see, you're part of the family.

Matt Houlihan:

We're mostly the Eagles. One of us. We're more than the birds. No. It is uh it's a special pod today. Emergency pod. Emergency pod. A very, very joyous pod. Pacific, the University of the Pacific, has announced that they are reinstating the men's volleyball program. Round of applause. Come on now. Shout out to President Callahan and everybody that was. Athletic Director Adam, who absolutely just are taking the world by storm right now, at least the volleyball world, and bringing back the program that I played for that was cut by one other president that we won't discuss in 2015.

Arielle Houlihan:

There's a lot of people involved with that institution that we're not going to talk about today because we are only going to talk about the people that made this happen and that are supporting the greater cause. Matt, tell us how we got here.

Matt Houlihan:

All right, let's let's get into it. Okay, real quick, real quick. Good segue. So, like we said, Pacific was cut in 2014. Everyone's pretty upset about it. Years go by, no one's supporting Pacific in any way because there's no connection to it anymore.

Arielle Houlihan:

We're giving you this short version right now, but please go watch Matt's video that he has already posted.

Matt Houlihan:

There's up theme music. It'll hopefully bring a small tear to your eye. Yeah. The short version is I got introduced by a Beta Bay parent who works at the University of Pacific in the law school to the new president when the new president, President Callahan, took over, and we had a conversation about men's volleyball. And the president was very open and receptive to the idea of adding sports, specifically adding men's sports back. And he loved the idea of bringing back men's volleyball. We had a good conversation about how Pacific is thriving coming out of COVID. They're doing a really good job. They've been driving enrollment. All the numbers are up, lots of good progress on campus. Uh, fast forward a few months later, we get connected with the athletic director. This is when I was coaching at Stanford, and so they asked to get connected with the uh staff that's in charge of the budget for Stanford for men's volleyball. So they get a good glimpse inside of a division one program of what it would actually take to compete. Fast forward more months, things get a little bit slower, you know, other things start happening. They add um, they add two more men's sports, they add men's track and field and men's diving to sports that already that basically was like a connection of men's cross country and then men's swimming already. So they were adding those sports already. They actually reached out to us ahead of the announcement to tell us, which was a great sign. Uh, we were working with Wade Gerard at First Point and USA V Foundation. He was like, There's actually some real serious momentum here. Um, and it's a great sign that they're reaching out to tell us that that means they're very much considering it, and that's what they said they were gonna do. A couple more months go by, Grand Canyon cuts men's volleyball, and everyone at the First Point Foundation obviously is pushing. They they want to try and solve that problem, but a lot of people said, hey, we need a win right now as well. And so First Point got some extra money uh donated to them, and I believe they brought that to the table for Pacific as well to help drive that decision-making factor for Pacific to to get them up and running and started uh to get this thing going. And so we got a we got a call uh a week ago. We got a large number of Pacific alumni on a video call with uh Adam, the athletic director, and he kind of explained all of his thought process. A lot of alumni were very skeptical uh at first. Obviously, we were all burned by the situation and just wanted to make sure that they were fully gonna support men's volleyball and it wasn't just like some.

Arielle Houlihan:

This is also the first time of them all like really hearing about this. This is something that you've been working on for quite a while. And so for us, this has been like, oh my goodness, I think this is gonna happen. And we've gone through the stages of like, I don't know, this might not be for real, and then wait, this is actually for real. All the alumni have kind of come into this and they were like, there's no way, right? Like, there let's all make sure that this is for real. And like going into that call, it was kind of like, oh no, like he's got every answer for you here. They have actually put in the effort to like make this a sustainable thing.

Matt Houlihan:

Yeah, that's I mean, that's the coolest part about it. Was yes, like myself and Kevin Pratt were there was a number of conversations that we had over months and months and months, uh, working with Adam and President Callahan. But Adam, the athletic director, did so much legwork on his own to make this thing happen. From like, I was still coaching at Stanford, and there we we got word that the MPSF office had been contacted. They were speaking about all right, give us the rundown. What's the process first to add get added into the into the conference? All of the things that were so many things that were happening behind the scenes that you know they laid a they laid a ton of groundwork to be able to make this announcement that a lot of people saw as whoa, that was a hasty decision. It took them, you know, it took them two years to get to that point. But it was a I mean, just so cool to be on that phone call and see all the alumni, and then afterwards, like the messages that were going through that text group being like, holy shit, like like they're they're they're dead serious about this. This is this this feels like it's gonna happen. Uh and finally I got a an email uh between Adam, myself, and Kevin after the Board of Regents meeting saying we can quietly celebrate, but we'll be making an announcement soon. And I got in my car and I drove to go fill up the gas tank because I had I had a tournament to leave for the next early the next morning, and I just cried. It was like, oh my goodness, what a what a full circle moment of literally when I when we first took over Beta Bay, they cut it.

Arielle Houlihan:

It was one of the first things that happened when we took over Beta Bay.

Matt Houlihan:

I had no idea what to do.

Arielle Houlihan:

It happened. We took over Beta Bay on August 10th, and I think that it was two weeks later that Pacific was cut. It was one of the first things that happened when we took over.

Matt Houlihan:

It was wild. And yeah, to to be in that moment and to come all the way back around and actually be in a place where I mean I I just was a uh uh a voice in an ear and and they really ran with it and did all of the all the work that was needed to do it. Uh but to be able to play just even a small part of that healed a little bit of my uh my my 21-year-old self in in the things that I didn't know how to do uh back then. So cheers to UOP. I'm stoked for the tiger community. We literally we put a we put a UOP tiger on the back of our betabay jersey three years ago. Yeah, for like a long time. That is manifestation at its finest, right there. So yeah, all the the tiger, the tiger coaching community runs deep. Like the amount of people that we see in club and and all you know, all across the country coaching volleyball. Uh it's it's a fun little community, which leads to the next question. The next item on the docket. Who's in charge of this thing? Yeah, who's running the ship?

Arielle Houlihan:

I mean that's what Chad got paid the big buttons with today.

Matt Houlihan:

They're going, they're starting it, yeah.

Arielle Houlihan:

Chad, who is your number one draft pick for coaches for a men's volleyball division one men's volleyball program?

Matt Houlihan:

Let me rewind him. I want you to give a number one pick, but I also want to hear a number five pick, too? No, no. I want to hear what you think the archetype of what the Pacific men's volleyball head coach should be. Like, what's the archetype that we're looking at here? And then and then get to the top.

Arielle Houlihan:

Okay.

Chad Gordon:

You guys want to talk about it for a second amongst yourselves? We're fighting. Interrupt me. Somebody hit somebody.

Arielle Houlihan:

What the fuck was that?

Chad Gordon:

I'll come over also between you guys. Um, yeah, other than my initial thought being like, man, like I haven't been to Stockton in a long time. Like, do you get like a personality hire? And I was like, Marty, let's go. Or like, what's Hobby? What's Hobby doing? He speaks bueno English now. Like, he could run it, he could, you know, network with some people, it'd be fine. But no, I mean, you you need someone young, you need someone who's got the energy to revamp this thing uh and bring it back from the dead, and that's gonna be a lot of legwork. I mean, that's gonna be a lot of raising money, going out and you know, recruiting a brand new team, getting kids out of the portal or you know, out of the transfer market or whatever you want to call it.

Arielle Houlihan:

You think young's mandatory?

Chad Gordon:

I don't think Marv Dumpy's ready to come back into I think Marv would be an excellent coach emeritus to chaperone, baby call it babysitting. The young uh the young coaches, but yeah, I don't I don't need another middle-aged guy just you know who's got like kind of medium energy or whatever. Like I think you like we'd gotta be plenty of those going around. Like you get somebody young and like who's hungry to go and like make a name. So I vote for Javi, but I mean there are a lot of other good people.

Arielle Houlihan:

I think it needs to be an alumni.

Chad Gordon:

I would love for it to be Javi, and he just happens to be an alumni for the city. Oh man, I I think it's too prestigious for Fisher. Yeah, it's too. I I think he I think he would respectfully bow out. He knows he's not qualified.

Arielle Houlihan:

Okay.

Chad Gordon:

But we could we can ask him uh on Friday, he'll be at this match.

Arielle Houlihan:

Okay, Matt, you got a top five of uh top five's a tough question. That is a tough question.

Matt Houlihan:

I so the that's the reason why I asked the archetype because I had an interesting conversation, and I'm I I think Niff would be fine with me saying his name here, and if I'll I'll ask him if he wants me to bleep it out, I'll bleep it out. I had a conversation with a college coach and I asked him thoughts on like what he was thinking about, who would be a good person to look at. And he said, Hey, look, young and hungry, uh of course, that's something you want to look at. He's like, I think there's actually a fair amount of well-established people that would look at that job too because of the opportunity to just start anew, like to fully like be able to sink your teeth into it and just say, This is this is what we're doing top to bottom.

Arielle Houlihan:

And you automatically know that your administration is has support of your program. Like there's a ton of programs out there right now who are very question marker do AMR are we really supported here? And it's been an established program for a while, but like we don't really know where the school's going right now. This is just a statement piece of a program saying, like, we are going to support this. This is what the plan looks like, build it as you see fit. And I think it's a very, very valuable job in a major conference to yeah.

Chad Gordon:

Do you get a Dan friend, Nikki Sandlin to come west?

Arielle Houlihan:

I think that I think that it's a big job. I don't I don't know who is in a position family-wise that they would want to relocate and like go and do this, and that it would have to be the right thing for people's families and the right time in their lives for an established coach at a university to make the move to do it. But I do think that they're I think that I think it really should be Pacific going after the best options here, rather than I think everybody's going to apply. A lot of people are gonna apply. Yeah, you're gonna get all the young and hungry. All the young and hungry are gonna apply for this. For sure. But I do think that it should be on the university to go after the best possible candidates for this job. And I think that the best possible candidates are to be clear, not just from the men's side, potentially in the women's game. Oh, for sure. Uh and yeah, I think that there are some out-of-the-box uh candidates here that could be really interesting.

Chad Gordon:

Dunning one a little bit up there in a past life.

Arielle Houlihan:

Hopefully.

Chad Gordon:

Bring him back. He's got some free time.

Matt Houlihan:

Yeah. At bare minimum, what do they call that? Coach emeritus? Yeah, yeah. Get that get that Marv coach emeritus.

Arielle Houlihan:

A lot of the established coaches, it's like where are they at with their families and would they re would they consider moving back closer to home? Yeah.

Matt Houlihan:

Or like that kind of or their wife has family. Sure. Whatever. You know, you never know those connections. Chris Thomas and Jen. Come on back.

Arielle Houlihan:

There's like plenty of people that like could be an interesting.

Matt Houlihan:

I mean, momentum-wise, just thinking, just thinking, obviously, the addition of men's or the the rebirth of men's volleyball back at University Pacific is huge. But those programs, of course, just like any men's and women's program, are so intertwined. Yes. The amount of spouses, the amount of marriages between the women's and men's team. Yes. Uh we are the last ones. Well, not anymore. Hopefully, not anymore. Hopefully, they're hopefully the lineage continues.

Arielle Houlihan:

Yeah, we were the last ones. Yeah.

Matt Houlihan:

That is crazy. That is one of the strongest things I could possibly think of in terms of a connection between programs is a really good tie between the body.

Arielle Houlihan:

To be honest, and I will say it again, shame on Grand Canyon, administration at Grand Canyon for that, because they do not understand. And every single program that has been cut, if you are supporting women's volleyball, cutting men's volleyball is not supporting women's volleyball. I will say it over and over and over again that like the being intertwined with those programs. When I was looking at schools, I was looking at a school with that had men's volleyball there. The culture is just better when you have a school that that has men, has both for the volleyball program for the for the women there, it is just a better culture to have men's volleyball on that campus as well. Not saying that because I married one, I'm saying that because it's just a better, it's the parties are better.

Chad Gordon:

It's just factually true. It's factually true. You're saying Grand Canyon broke up numerous marriages by doing this.

Arielle Houlihan:

Grand Canyon supports uh what separated families. Yeah. Like it's so much stuff.

Matt Houlihan:

Well, I mean, it is it does bring up a good point, right? Because Grand Canyon being cut was a it wasn't the deciding factor. Pacific was talking about doing this long before Grand Canyon was cut, but it was one of those kind of final pushes where I think that extra funding came into first point and they pushed that towards Pacific because they wanted to showcase that win. But it even before that was taking place, you know, Adam and University Pacific were showing their model and the reason why they're looking to add men's sports is not from a perspective of purely just you know, we're trying to go and compete in all these things, it's also a it's a straight-up business decision as well for them, right? They're they're driving enrollment through these sports, they're paying their four and a half scholarships, they pay it, they're paying the salaries, they're doing all that. But these programs are paying the school, they're actually bringing money in from these schools in terms of the athletes that they're bringing in. And of course, just like any university, they have their drivers that they can kind of dial in. Like if I want a heavier international student body, which is something University of the Pacific wants, right? They have a you know, their international studies program, they want more international students, they want to pull from specific areas of the country, that's a huge driver that you can look at. And you know, in terms of a uh being able to kind of showcase that schools that get behind that idea, and then when you look at enrollment and where things are going for specifically private schools in the future, it is uh such a difficult path for a lot of like the St. Mary's of the world, the small public, small private universities that are expensive. How do you drive enrollment specifically on the male population? Because most schools are 60, 40 women. So you look at the Santa Clara's and the USFs and the LMUs and those places, all of a sudden sports becomes an asset for you in terms of getting students on campus, paying students on campus uh to be able to drive revenue for your school, but also to build culture there, to build connection with your community. So it's it's a really interesting playbook that I hope we can we can get Adam and President Callahan to be able to speak about and show to other schools of hey, Santa Clara, look at this. Like look what you could do for your women's program, for your enrollment by adding this sport, by adding this uh this into your university and and being able to push that.

Arielle Houlihan:

Yep. I uh I think it's taken it's taken me a long time to say that I'm proud of being from the University of the Pacific. Like it it was a really Why would we? Why would we? Uh when when yeah, when I mean I I had a very, very, very difficult road in that program. A horrible road. Um, that I have not talked about publicly at all. That honestly, I cannot wait to talk about it. Like I'm trying to do it in the right way. Um, and I'm excited to tell like the story of like what I went through there. I am so excited that this school has taken uh a different route than the route that I went through when I was there and the route that you ended up going through with cutting the program. Um and I just am I couldn't be prouder to watch a school that we really did love so dearly do right by a sport that we both have a voice in and that we uh support and we are able to now support both things completely and fully. Um so big public thank you to everybody who was involved in making that happen.

Matt Houlihan:

Huge.

Chad Gordon:

Now we get to take Chad to Stockton.

Arielle Houlihan:

Yeah.

Chad Gordon:

I almost never tell anybody about ULP.

Arielle Houlihan:

Like it just doesn't feel bad.

Chad Gordon:

Well, I've been I've been so mad for 10 years. I go out of my way to ignore UOP.

Arielle Houlihan:

I know, and now we get to go now. We get to go and take you to college game day at University of Pacific for a bit of a volleyball game that we're being.

Chad Gordon:

Are you guys gonna play in the uh next alumni game or like you guys still in shape to do this? Like nothing's gonna like break or fall off.

Arielle Houlihan:

I think you understand what the legacy of Pacific alumni volleyball games look like. It was very low on the volleyball scale, very high on the party scale.

Chad Gordon:

Okay, I was like, Malibu Stew played at like big bank tartubers. No, no, no. I know, I know. We are ready.

Arielle Houlihan:

We have been training for this.

Chad Gordon:

Javi's working on the Spanish.

Matt Houlihan:

We uh we did. Did we ever tell the story of us playing in the Pacific Men's Volleyball Alumni game in San Diego? No, yeah, so they cut the program in 2014. In 2016, Kevin Pratt was the head of San Diego City College, and he hosted a Pacific Men's Volleyball alumni game against San Diego City College.

Arielle Houlihan:

So everybody went.

Matt Houlihan:

It was awesome.

Arielle Houlihan:

Yeah, it was really fun.

Matt Houlihan:

It was so much fun.

Arielle Houlihan:

But now we're like, should we buy a house and stuff then?

Chad Gordon:

I'm on Zillow looking at looking at Brookside Country Club. Like, this looks pretty nice to me. Is this the hard launch that you guys are coaching these teams? No, it's not.

Arielle Houlihan:

We have already we have already declined. So that is not that is not something we are doing.

Matt Houlihan:

We are, but we are 1000% big boosters the uh the support squad for also bring back boosters.

Arielle Houlihan:

Nobody ever talks about the word boosters anymore.

Matt Houlihan:

I think that's just called the NIL collective.

Arielle Houlihan:

Yes, it is, but like I love the name boosters. We need Pacific booster shirts.

Matt Houlihan:

Yeah. Booster seats.

Chad Gordon:

I'm not that sure.

Matt Houlihan:

What do you mean?

Chad Gordon:

I want a booster seat for the stands. Give me a foam finger and we'll be fine. Yeah, you know. Can I bring a whiteboard and heckle from the stands? Obviously. If the new coach doesn't already have whiteboards.

Arielle Houlihan:

Okay, so this past year, Pacific women's volleyball uh total attendance was 995 people, and that was the highest attended game since before 2018, which is abysmal. Abysmal.

Chad Gordon:

It's not a lot of people.

Arielle Houlihan:

Do you think there will be more people at the home opener for Pacific Months volleyball?

Matt Houlihan:

1000%. Take the over. Okay. All right. So we've already talked about this. That's a lot of people. High likelihood that we go. I mean, but like there's three, four. We've already talked about the have we talked about the Stanford, the Stan uh volleyball day in the bay on the pod yet?

Arielle Houlihan:

We all talk about it later. Not like we've on this one.

Matt Houlihan:

It's not a real thing.

Arielle Houlihan:

Another emergency press conference or whatever it's called.

Matt Houlihan:

I'm calling volleyball day in Stockton, and we're going for I'm maybe it's not a sellout, but it's a lower, I want a lower bowl fill. We're gonna do Nebraska gimmers. Give me a three, give me 3,000. That's set my line. 3,000. That's 3,000 is a lot of people. Yeah, 3,000. That's my home opener.

Chad Gordon:

Home opener for men's volleyball attendance. 3,000. 3,000. Think about how many people are gonna fly in from out of the country, though. 13,000 minimum. I haven't been stocked in a long time. Yeah.

Arielle Houlihan:

For being a math guy, your math's a little off.

Chad Gordon:

What is uh what is this place seat?

Matt Houlihan:

12,000? Yeah. Bobby, can you look up Spano Center's attendance?

Arielle Houlihan:

Hey chat.

Matt Houlihan:

Capacity.

Arielle Houlihan:

Hey Bobby, hey Bobby, can you do one thing?

Chad Gordon:

Not with a fire marshal service.

Arielle Houlihan:

Spano Center. Spano Center? Yeah. Bobby's Bobby's Bobby's kicking.

Matt Houlihan:

Bob Bobby is is loading.

Chad Gordon:

Buffering.

Arielle Houlihan:

Bobby's buffering.

Chad Gordon:

I think chat Bobby T is hallucinating.

Arielle Houlihan:

Oh wow.

Matt Houlihan:

6,150 seats. Oh wait.

Arielle Houlihan:

That's a lot. Well, standing room of the lower bowl. Yeah.

Matt Houlihan:

That's like for graduation. So if you add those two together.

Arielle Houlihan:

So if you put chairs on the court and 13,000. 13,000.

Matt Houlihan:

We'll call it 13,000 even. 3,000 is the line.

Arielle Houlihan:

3,000?

Matt Houlihan:

3,000 is my line. More than 3,000. For the home opener. For home opener. 13,000 is more than 3,000.

Chad Gordon:

Smashly over.

Arielle Houlihan:

I did get recognized at Tigers Yogurt last time I went in there. The only time I've been in there in the last decade. It was the best moment of my life.

Matt Houlihan:

Yeah, we got free tigers.

Arielle Houlihan:

And we got free tigers yogurt. And we're going to be going back a lot. So to the girl at Tigers Yogurt that recognized me.

Matt Houlihan:

You better be coming to the home opener. I'm going to be back. 3001. Oh.

Arielle Houlihan:

Okay, we need to make some friends in the in the let it be known.

Matt Houlihan:

Stockton area. The Tiger Zoo. If anyone wants to try and add their men's volleyball program at another school, give us a ring. Let's get to let's get to let's get to work here, people, because men's volleyball, it's it's on the rise.

Arielle Houlihan:

Matt's you're promising the world to people.

Matt Houlihan:

No.

Arielle Houlihan:

If you'd like Matt to come save your program, give him a call at the Beta Bay Business Line where he won't pick up.

Matt Houlihan:

We need more athletic directors like Adam and we need more presidents like uh like President Callahan. That's that's the one that's the major one. So shout out to them. I think this is the close down of uh of this emergency pod because it's time to go uh it's time to go celebrate. Yeah, might need to place an order for a new uh Pacific Wallet. Orange can look good on us, guys. Guys, orange is we'll get Chad one too. Orange is the new black.

Arielle Houlihan:

Yeah. They should make a show. Okay, bye everybody. Thanks for coming to our pod.