S4E5: All-Puerto Rico Team, Volleyball Fumbled the Gays, Middles Obsolete?

Super Bowl week turned San Francisco into a branded maze and sparked a bigger talk about how events shape cities and attention. We celebrate Puerto Rican volleyball legends, question why volleyball hasn’t captured LGBTQ fandom like hockey has, and debate whether modern lineups make traditional middles expendable.

• citywide Super Bowl activations and event fatigue
• Benito Bowl reactions and why representation hits
• all‑time Puerto Rican NCAA picks across eras
• why programs should teach their own history
• hockey’s queer mainstream moment vs volleyball’s silence
• ideas for LGBTQ visibility and better commentary
• are middles obsolete or being reimagined
• pins converting to middle and no‑libero experiments
• serving value, development gaps, and recruiting bias
• versatility as the new recruiting edge

Transcript

Super Bowl Takes Over The City

Arielle Houlihan 0:09

Hey everybody, welcome to the coaches group chat. I'm updating my phone while we are recording today.

Matt Houlihan 0:18

We had a very busy week. Or when I say we, Ariel had a very busy week with all of her appearances. She was bringing home the bacon for the Hulahan family with Super Bowl appearances. Can you give us can you give us a little lay of your your week for us?

Arielle Houlihan 0:33

Yes. Uh lay of the land of the week. Um the Super Bowl is the craziest event I've ever been around and attended and whatever my entire life. It's it's actually uh the entire city changed. And I've been in San Francisco a million times and I've never seen San Francisco the way that it was this past week. Multiple cities, because they sh they were doing stuff in San Jose as well. That's true. Um Yes, I barely even have words to describe what the uh I don't have words apparently. I have zero words. Zero words, one word zero words, pick a word. Um it was crazy. It it felt like everything turned into Super Bowl. Storefronts were different, uh restaurants were rented out and turned into activations for brands. It was everywhere you went. A street was shut down, and there were people gathering around and sh and cameras and things and red carpets and pop-ups and the whole thing, it was actually insanity. And it felt like um, I think I'm so exhausted, not even because I did so many things, but it's because I felt like I needed to be doing things the entire time. And I was like, oh, I'm missing something, or I'm going, I need to be at this, or I need to be whatever. And so there was times where we would just like we went back to the hotel and we were just like, I just need to sit for a little while and not it is crazy how much this event takes over cities.

Brand Activations And Event Overload

Matt Houlihan 2:08

It's absolutely a little background story. Months ago, I went and toured a space in San Jose by San Pedro Square, so an active area that they were gonna have some super stuff, Super Bowl stuff going on. And I toured this space for a volleyball gym for putting a cord into it, and they said you can't have it until March because we have subleased it for four months for this brand that is literally just using this space. It was about 2,000 square feet for the Super Bowl. Yeah. So they were setting it up a pop-up shop four months just as an activation, and they only used it for essentially the week before the Super Bowl, the week of the Super Bowl, and I think they're they're closing up shop now. For two weeks, they rented this thing, but for four months and built this entire thing out. And then that takes us to the Benito Bowl.

Arielle Houlihan 2:56

Then Benito Bowl.

Matt Houlihan 2:58

Yeah, the Benito Bowl.

Arielle Houlihan 2:59

Which I in my Pilates class this morning, the instructor was like, How did everybody like it? And people, there were like five people that were like, We loved it, so that you could tell that the people in the back that didn't like it like couldn't say anything, and it made them feel very uncomfortable. And I was like, I loved it.

Matt Houlihan 3:16

The silent majority.

Arielle Houlihan 3:17

Yes, exactly.

Matt Houlihan 3:18

Yeah, polarizing, yeah, polarizing across the board.

Arielle Houlihan 3:21

But I I thought it was incredible.

Matt Houlihan 3:23

Yeah, I mean, great. I I was just sad because we didn't get to see our Puerto Rican best friend watch that layout in real time.

Arielle Houlihan 3:33

I was also at Pilates with his wife this morning, and she gave me the uh play-by-play on his emotions.

Matt Houlihan 3:38

I'm sure he was crying. He was probably crying.

Arielle Houlihan 3:40

I mean, I watched 25 TikToks today of uh people crying watching it, and like it was the it's very like representation matters, and that was an automatic of representation matters.

Matt Houlihan 3:55

Speaking of representation, because we were so inspired by Bad Bunny, we decided that here on the Coaches Group chat that we were gonna put together our all Puerto Rican team from NCAA men's of volleyball. And I think we we tapped into some some areas of Daniel's brain that he didn't know he had. He started he started dropping some real Puerto Rican ball knowledge right before we started recording today. So uh I think what what we'll do is we're gonna go one, we'll go, each of us has two. We'll go down the list one by one, but I think Daniel Daniel brings a different era of Puerto Rican, so I'd love for the other thing.

Speaker 3 4:29

Are you saying that because he's older than us?

Matt Houlihan 4:31

Yes, yes, but he looks like the youngest of us.

Arielle Houlihan 4:34

So you don't know what you're gonna get here.

Matt Houlihan 4:37

So hit us. Give us give us your your guy and your why.

Benito Bowl Reactions And Representation

Daniel Rasay 4:42

Uh this was tough for me because Puerto Ricans were hot when I was playing in college, and even before, like when I was falling in love with volleyball, there's a lot of Puerto Ricans that were really good. So my first pick is Jose Canonis, who was the setter at Penn State. I think he's probably number one all-time assists career leader there. Uh hopefully Peter Chris knows who that is. Um but I got to battle against him in a final four of a national championship, but he was a lefty setter, and he uh made me want to be left-handed so I could turn and crush, but it was never that good. There you go.

Matt Houlihan 5:25

There you go. Who were his pins in that in that final four?

Daniel Rasay 5:29

Uh Carlos Guerra, who is uh from Mexico. Um there was an opposite Kolhasar, I think he was Canadian.

Matt Houlihan 5:38

So Pav's been on this Latin grind for a while though. He's he's got the the influence.

Daniel Rasay 5:43

Yeah, I mean their uh their Libera was Puerto Rican, Ricky Mate, he was Puerto Rican, I believe, too. So yeah. Love it.

Arielle Houlihan 5:52

The mention of Peter Chris made me think like, I wonder why men's volleyball program, not men's volleyball, I guess all volleyball programs don't have like a history lesson that they make their freshmen learn, like hazing, like not hazing, but like what we would do in Sigma Kai or Delta Gamma or whatever. Here's your founders. Your founders, and you have to like go through pledging. I feel like all of the redshirts and all of the freshmen should have like they should have to know everything about the program.

Matt Houlihan 6:23

And there should be secret handshakes. Should we lead that for Pacific Men's Volleyball? Ooh, I love that. I would say there's a degree where I'm sure most schools are like this, right? Pacific had all American way, and so you walk down the hallway to all the coaches' offices. Yeah, but like so the best players are there, right? The picture of you got, you know, you got Chris Thomas.

Arielle Houlihan 6:42

Nobody knows.

Matt Houlihan 6:43

There was no repercussion if I didn't know. I wasn't getting it.

Arielle Houlihan 6:46

I think there needs to be some like hazing.

Chad Gordon 6:49

Yeah. I think is the word you use here. Um I'm not sure. Oh, yeah, you're not allowed to say that. You're not allowed to say anything like that. You're right. No hazing. Some polite shenanigans.

Arielle Houlihan 7:00

But I do think that like everybody uh in that's involved in a program should know the history of your program.

Matt Houlihan 7:05

I would agree with that. Having a having a little bit of like a history book at uh on your your team manual or whatever you hand out at the beginning of the year, that'd be great.

Arielle Houlihan 7:13

Because there's no way Peter Chris knows the name of the best Puerto Ricans in Penn State Man's volleyball history. Okay, continue.

Matt Houlihan 7:19

Continue to do. What's who is your Puerto Rican number? Yeah, we're going we're going on the list.

Arielle Houlihan 7:24

Oh, okay. My first one is uh I'll go Penn State 2 with Dennis DeVaye. Libero, baller.

Matt Houlihan 7:33

Was baller.

Arielle Houlihan 7:34

Uh like one of the first liberos that I ever saw play that I like was making like jaw-dropping plays consistently that you were just like, oh, damn.

Matt Houlihan 7:44

Was he the one that went against Shoji in the championship game?

Arielle Houlihan 7:48

Yes. And I felt like that he like he was just like a libero that you watched.

Matt Houlihan 7:53

He's flashy for sure.

Arielle Houlihan 7:54

Yeah. I remember him being very flashy.

Chad Gordon 7:56

Yeah.

Matt Houlihan 7:56

Yeah.

Speaker 3 7:57

So yeah, Dennis DeVay.

Chad Gordon 8:00

Chad. In my mind, I I don't know which Uno card to play, because I could play the Libero card or I could play the Penn State card here. And we'll just we'll keep it with Penn State, it's fine. Uh, but yeah, in that 2010 championship, the Penn State setter Edgardo Edgardo. Goaz. Uh yeah, I mean a 6'5 setter, like kind of in that generation of like bigger dudes, and this guy was just so athletic. And I mean, Penn State had such a crazy run only to be, you know, stifled and sh you know, swept by Brad Lawson. You know, when you have Dan Rosai. Yeah, I mean, I mean, that's like what one of the last years of playing all the way to 30. Yeah, like I think I looked at the scores earlier and I was like, oh man, like Sanford like in total control of that match. Like, that was pretty cool. But yeah, anyway, the second best Puerto Rican to come out of Penn State.

Arielle Houlihan 8:45

Okay, now we've covered Penn State.

Matt Houlihan 8:47

Well, I'm going, I'm going hometown hero of University of the Pacific, friend of the pod. Friend of the pod. Javier Cacaracas Caceres. Javier Caceres.

Arielle Houlihan 8:58

Babani himself.

Matt Houlihan 9:02

The man with the dance moves, the man, the career dig leader at University of the Pacific, Javier Caceres. Just a fantastic representative representative of Puerto Rican volleyball. He's the the youngest of what, like 17 brothers, who all were amazing liberos.

Arielle Houlihan 9:20

And led the MPSF in digs because we could because we could inside out, and so he had to dig a lot of balls.

Matt Houlihan 9:27

So yeah. Now Javier uh another kind of in that same vein of our our Penn State Libero, just very flashy, yeah, defensively, made some probably one play per set where you were just like oh draw jaw to the floor. Like, oh my, how did he do that? Yeah.

Puerto Rican NCAA All‑Time Picks

Arielle Houlihan 9:44

So he doesn't know now.

Matt Houlihan 9:46

Exactly. Yeah. Now now he gets trying on the volley court now, and he like screams anytime the ball comes near him and then fakes an injury. Uh let me bring it around the horn and we'll go. I think we leave Daniel for the end here on uh on our final Puerto Rican. My second, same same era in my era of playing, Josue Rivera, outside hitter from BYU. We haven't had a pin hitter from the Puerto Ricans uh yet on the on the top six list here. All of ours were the best. Jose a an entertainer is what I would say. You know, at BYU, at Hawaii, you've got to be able to entertain the crowd. And he, man, oh man, he was with him and Jalen Reyes both just they ran amok on the floor. They just loved the crowd. And he was undersized, but had a cannon, great out of the back row. And obviously, like most Puerto Ricans, like when we face a 12-year-old Puerto Rican team, you're gonna say they're gonna have but good ball control and they're gonna bring a ton of energy, and their parents are gonna be real loud. So he checked all three boxes.

Arielle Houlihan 10:52

Okay. Deep cut. My mine is also an attacker. Uh he goes by Rourke. And the story of Rourke, uh, he I don't know where Rourke is now. Do you?

Matt Houlihan 11:11

He's probably playing 12s again.

Arielle Houlihan 11:12

We it's probably true. We show up to day one of uh Dallas, Texas, or Phoenix, Arizona. Phoenix, Arizona. I remember it well. Um, and during 12s at Nationals, you just like everybody gets there, and then all the coaches are just like bouncing from court to court looking for a big kid in hitting lines, like who's got what? And that year there were three Puerto Rican teams that were all pretty decent, but Vaqueros, it was Vaqueros, right?

Matt Houlihan 11:43

Yeah, I think it was Vaqueros. I'm not sure. Yeah.

Arielle Houlihan 11:45

Uh it might have been Turmar. We had this kid, and he had Rourke, uh R-O-A-R-K, on the back of his jersey, and that kid single-handedly clobbered us, clobbered us single-handedly.

Matt Houlihan 12:00

It was it was John Costi, your your younger brother who doesn't play volleyball and I were coaching that team together, and we thought we had it. We thought we were winning it all.

Arielle Houlihan 12:10

Yeah, it was like we've got it. And then Rourke just took it from us. Just stole it.

Matt Houlihan 12:18

Rourke was like 18. He was 18 years old. All over our poor 12.

Arielle Houlihan 12:23

We did see Rourke again a couple years later, and we and he looked exactly the same. And we were like, oh man, Rourke.

Matt Houlihan 12:29

No, we knocked we not we knocked him out at 16. Yeah. You knocked him out at 16s. Yeah, yeah, I remember that. Yeah. Yeah. He was the same exact player. Yeah, he was the same player. But man, he gave us nightmares.

Arielle Houlihan 12:38

Yeah, so that kid's for sure on my all Puerto Rican team. That kid was put the state on his back. State? Is it a territory? Territory? The territory on his back.

unknown 12:50

Yeah.

Chad Gordon 12:50

You guys ever think uh the 12s had a different way, like maybe some cross-training at dive bars and smoking cigs? It's the worst. Yeah, 100%. Puerto Ricans are onto something at the 12s, that's for sure. Yeah, he is sneaky good. He's like, I've been playing since I was eight.

Arielle Houlihan 13:11

He's like, I've been in bars since I was eight years old.

Chad Gordon 13:14

Um I think honorable mention got put in Gabby just for five seconds. That's the easy answer. No one wanted to take it's it's the layup, but I mean he's the only Puerto Rican who's like in the USA gym and like that kind of stuff, and you know, I think is a natural successor right now in the pipeline to Matt Anderson. But he's honorable mention, so we'll just pass right over him. Um I went back with a Libero, current Libero. I think he's a senior right now, uh, but McKendry's Diaz has just been playing lights out for Nikki. Yachty. Yeah, for the last few years. He's one of those kind of unsung guys. Kids good. He was at Pepperdine and then he transferred to Minnesota.

Speaker 3 13:50

And where did he play Club? Do you remember?

Chad Gordon 13:52

He's from Orlando. Yeah, I want to say 352.

Arielle Houlihan 13:55

Is it 352? It may be. I don't know. Yeah, I think it was 352.

Chad Gordon 14:01

Um, but no, he's he's just one of those guys who just goes about his business and just puts up great numbers. Yeah, he's good. Um was one of I'll be honest, like one of the few Puerto Ricans I could I could think of off the cuff that are currently active today. Yes, yes. Yeah, I was I was struggling with like who's who's out? I mean like Rourke probably somewhere, but like I don't know.

Arielle Houlihan 14:20

We need to look that up.

Matt Houlihan 14:21

Yeah. I like it. We got a current, we have we were covering all the bases here. Doc, bring us back.

Daniel Rasay 14:26

Way back. Uh I mean this was this was tough for me because like I said, Portuguese were hot when I was um playing, but Hector Soto. Um there's bitches, those wrongs they there must be some YouTube videos of him because he had a 50-inch vertical. Um probably about 6'6 or so, went to IPFW. Oh kind of after Loy Ball put them back on the map. Because I think they made a final four during his time. But there was a legend that when they came and played at Hawaii, he was bouncing the ball straight down and hitting the jumbotron in uh hitting warm-ups, and kind of everyone was just in awe because 50 inch vertical 6'6. That's pretty I guess that's more normal now than it was back then.

Matt Houlihan 15:15

But that's some that's some Lionel Marshall Cuba Cuba style YouTube videos. Pretty good. Yeah. The whole videos in slow motion. Yeah.

Daniel Rasay 15:22

It's probably really grainy, but maybe you can find a YouTube video from back then.

Matt Houlihan 15:27

But here's the story. I was talking with I believe this was a Brad Keller story. We're talking about like recruiting videos or like funniest recruiting videos you ever see. And he's talking about this Puerto Rican kid. He said it was it was the funniest, but also just the best video of all time, because it's literally all he needed. It was a one-minute slow-mo video of him hitting a naked two-ball, and his belt buckle is just above the net, and he just yachts this too, and that was it. That was the video. And this is like when you had to send it on a DVD. That's perfect. And Brad was like, number one, hilarious. And number two, absolutely, we want this guy. It's just like sending into the photo Juan Figueroa. There you go. Juan Figueroa. Juan Figueroa. Juan Figueroa. That's it. That's it.

Chad Gordon 16:15

Yep. I'm imagining that, like, you know that photo of Jeff Menzel where like basically like his kneecaps are like above the net. Yeah. He's just like, he's got his ready to swap the ball. Yeah, it looks like a water polo goalie. Um, I'm like, imagine just like printing out that photo, mailing it to like Brad Calegar, like, hey, I apply.

Matt Houlihan 16:33

Yeah, here's here's my cover letter. This is gonna sound clickbaity to all the the viewers out there, but I promise you, this is not this is very Why did volleyball fumble the gays? I've been watching Heated Rivalry. Great. I have. I had because it's it's so culturally relevant. So I had to throw on an episode, and it is good. You watched an episode of Heated Rivalry, yes, and I had to understand I just needed to understand what was going on, and immediately my immediate thought when watching this was this was volleyballs. Yeah, I agree with that. Now, volleyball has always had a history of just gay athletes playing it. It's been one of the more openly, openly gay sports for athletes in in my perspective, obviously just being in it and living it. Um, and I'm seeing hockey just get all this coverage, and there's all like all the support from the gay community notoriously, and I'm like, Yeah, they're demographic. Volleyball, what are we doing? Like, this is this is such a great opportunity for us to have embraced the gay community and been like, This is this is our sport, these are our people, but we have never embraced the gay community in any like culturally relevant way. And so I I made a video about it and I sent it to our fellow, our fellow Beta Bay coach who is also gay, and was like, Hey, am I gonna get canceled for talking about this? And he's like, No, but his point was ever there's lots of people in volleyball that are gay, and so the heated rivalry factor of it being hockey is what makes it more like culturally relevant. Like there's a lot of people that are uh a faux pas there.

Arielle Houlihan 18:05

But that wasn't the case though, however many years ago.

Matt Houlihan 18:09

Correct.

Arielle Houlihan 18:10

That has only recently become more of a uh culturally accepted thing.

Matt Houlihan 18:17

Now you got Jordan Lucas dropping 30 kills on USC hitting 500. Yep. And he's just I I want just a clip of all of his celebrations after each kill. Yep. It is pure entertainment. You get if you got Jordan Lucas after he's done playing college volleyball to be a commentator. Commentator 100%. The the ratings and views you would get would be incredible.

Arielle Houlihan 18:40

Okay, so I was watching ice skating with the Winter Olympics, and I was watching uh Tara Lipinski and Johnny Ware that were commentating, and they obviously are incredible and very, very watchable and hilarious. And my automatic comment to you guys was like, why do we not have gay announcers for volleyball? It would be so much more entertaining and so much funnier and much more watchable for all of us. Even like two gay volleyball players commentating on women's volleyball, it would be the funniest thing and the best thing I'd ever heard, and just like rip it apart. In like not a like you would I feel like they would be able to get away with more of like like two you going out and like commentating on women's volleyball and ripping it apart is one thing, but two gay guys doing it is another thing, and it would be more ex I think it would be better, like and more accepted and funnier and just better for TV.

Matt Houlihan 19:43

I'm just looking at it from the perspective of like there's so there's already such a large gay community within the volleyball community. Right. I'm I I'll I'll I'll throw this over to Daniel in a second because he's actually played in a Nagva Nationals tournament. But right, you've got the North American Gay Volleyball Association running massive tournaments all around the country every single year. Yep. And there's such a sub not even a subculture, a culture within volleyball that hasn't truly been tapped into in any mainstream way from the volleyball perspective.

Arielle Houlihan 20:20

I don't know. I just don't think it I think in other sports it's become this huge thing, and I think that we're it's getting like we're dated in the lack of support.

Matt Houlihan 20:32

Yeah, I don't know. I I just I would love to see us lean into it more rather than it be like it's not like volleyball is pretending to not have gay athletes or that it's not a part of our community.

Arielle Houlihan 20:46

We're just not highlighting anything.

Matt Houlihan 20:47

We're just not we're not highlighting it. We're not putting it on the stage of of being able to make it a make it a more impactful setting from what we could do. So that was just one of the thoughts I had when I watched that episode.

Arielle Houlihan 21:00

Maybe okay, thought bubble of do you think that there's a part of volleyball culture that everybody has to hide who they are, no matter who you are, because there is a box that you need to fit in in volleyball, and that's been the culture of the way things have gone.

Daniel Rasay 21:20

I think it's part of men's and boys' volleyball is it's always been more of a girl sport. And so I think it's that long history of it trying to prove that it's you know not a girl sport, and that's why people are gonna shy away from um highlighting the gay people that play volleyball because of that. And I think we are in a uh state of the world where it's it should be highlighted now.

Matt Houlihan 21:52

Right. I see that. So there's the there's definitely when I was growing up and playing the stigma, quote stigma of it would be that it's a girl sport and Therefore, people wouldn't apply legitimacy to it. We still get that all the time. The amount of beta-betay comments that we get when we go our videos that go viral of people being like, what a waste of talent or girl sport or just stupid comments like that. Yeah. It's like you think you I I think there's a way that you flip that on its head where people think that they're insulting and instead we just lean into lean into what makes one.

Program History And Culture Rituals

Arielle Houlihan 22:27

That's what we've done, at least with Bay to Bay, like we literally could care less on that.

Matt Houlihan 22:32

But yeah. But food for thought. I'm I'm and I don't think we have the the correct answers. I just saw that as a you can see the cultural cultural moment happening right now where you've got every you've got the gay community and you've got girls all showing up to the boy aquarium. Yeah. It's just hilarious, which is just the greatest name ever for a pro sports arena.

Arielle Houlihan 22:53

Yeah, girl, like people yeah, a NHL game yelling, Kiss is the funniest thing that I've ever seen happen. Like it's incredible.

Matt Houlihan 23:02

Like and so I think volleyball has that built-in opportunity that you know whether or not it's a missed opportunity, I don't know. I think it's something for all of us to consider as we're as we're looking for ways to grow the sport of volleyball. Moving us along here, our last little topic of discussion, brought up by Chad Gordon, a very strong observation.

Chad Gordon 23:25

I really like this one, yeah.

Matt Houlihan 23:27

Are middles obsolete now? We've seen the movement of just pin hitters moving into the middle and taking away the positions of the big bruisers. What's your what's your thoughts? Lay the land.

Chad Gordon 23:38

Thought number one is that middles a few years ago, very, very important, because otherwise I'd be sleeping on the couch tonight. Okay. It's true. Allegedly. Um Yeah, I think you've seen this with certain teams over the past you know couple of decades where you know maybe you have a dearth of middles on your team and you slot in a lack of, a gap, a want, a need for. Um and maybe you put in your backup right side, you put in your fourth outside hitter or something. And hey, if it's a perfect pass, commit, and if it's a high ball, just go and jump next to the guy. Like how hard could it be? And you're gonna hit like a one and a half. And I think you know, obviously, the easy example here is you know, a guy that you know we we grew up with, right? Taylor Averill, where you know, leaves Irvine, goes to Hawaii. Hey, we don't have a roster, or we're not gonna put you on the right. Can you hit a front one? And he becomes a first small American and he's on the national team, and now he's got a medal from the Olympics. Voted best middle blocker in the world. That's pretty high praise uh and pretty embarrassing for all the other guys who trained his medals forever. Um but that's sorry, uh, one Maxwell Holt, but that's okay. Um and I think you're seeing it now. I mean, Irvine has done this for years, uh, of just, you know, NIF wants to be creative with how he scores points. And so if he has a guy who, hey man, maybe you're the third left, I can just have you hit a two-ball and go be an athlete. Because I think when you like your default is like, man, I have to hit a bunch of high balls against, you know, four hands, six hands, whatever it is, and then it's like, oh, I just have to beat one dude, and the ball's gonna be right here every time. It's like, oh, you're over here? I'm just gonna hit it over there. This is really not that hard. Um, and I'd be interested to see if this phenomenon kind of grows as you know the verbiage around volleyball is like, hey, you gotta train people to do everything. Why can't you you know have more pins just finding their way into more creative situations in the middle?

Matt Houlihan 25:42

Let me layer in a little a little extra on top of that. Take take USYRIVAN as a good example right now. Both of their middle blockers were former pins that NIF has converted. This past week they played a game where for a big portion of, I believe, two of the sets, they didn't use a Libera. They just had they had the middles going around, they were hitting out of the back row, they were passing, they were doing everything. And it was very creative. They did lose the set to Concordia whilst doing this, but it still was one of those ones where you kind of look at it and you go, hmm, that's interesting. I could I could see something in there. I could see a world where uh the benefits would be out would outweigh the cons, right? Of of trying to try something like that. But Daniel, what's your what's your perspective on this? Is there is there legs to this idea?

Daniel Rasay 26:30

NIF is just going back in time. We he and I both played in a time where there was no liberos, and so you had to be good volleyball players, and right now you probably want your best volleyball players to be on the court at all times, and sometimes middles aren't your best volleyball players. So he's not being creative, he's just taking it back to the old school.

Arielle Houlihan 26:54

I think this is just a product of him talking to himself because there is no actual assistant coach. Like Brinkley's there, kind of, and like he's just there in his own mind, and this is just a product of NIF volleyball. NIF is in the simulation, and usually he's had somebody to like talk these things through. Someone that can convince him not to be.

Matt Houlihan 27:33

He gets to go full crazy, yes, exactly. He's in he's playing in the sandbox right now. That's what he's doing.

Arielle Houlihan 27:38

Exactly. I did make the joke earlier to everybody that we should nominate Niff as assistant coach of the year. Yeah.

Chad Gordon 27:44

He's literally, he's doing all the jobs. I'd give it to him. I mean, I get it. No, but I mean it's it's one of those interesting, I think, tactical things, right? Of like, hey, I pass the ball to 12 feet. I don't need to fire in this this three ball. Here's just kind of just like lob. It's like a little like 32 over here and just kind of run like a little back two over there. You keep some weird spacing, you don't let blockers like really start to cheat one way or the other. And these guys are just like, oh, it's not a one. I'm just I I hit a two ball from ten, like it's it's I can easily feel where the blocker is. If if you've been a pin hitter your whole life, like that's a really easy and natural thing to do. So I'd be interested to see how that opens up also with the back row, right? If you're gonna keep these guys in more rotations, you know, if do you have four guys or five guys on routes? I mean, do you start looking like nine man out here of just like I get some random crossing patterns just uh just a mess with people?

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Speaker 3 28:36

Who's got the best third outside in the country right now?

Matt Houlihan 28:42

Third outside. I'm just thinking of uh examples of it. Justin Todd for Hawaii is an example of a former pin that they trans turned into a middle. He was an opposite before this? Yeah, opposite. Or it might have even been a left side, but yeah.

Arielle Houlihan 28:54

There's some interesting ones out there that could be utilized in funny ways.

Matt Houlihan 28:58

Certainly. I think there's a lot of a lot of teams that could look at it in that way. It's really blocking, I think it's probably it's insistent blocking that's the hardest skill for the middles to get to get under their belt.

Chad Gordon 29:08

That's the big piece. Well, I mean, McHenry was in the middle, right? Bang off. I mean, you're getting these guys who just like I mean, I think I've had beers with Jones where it's like, what would happen if you just put okay, you're gonna play TJ, Taylor Sander, and Aaron Russell, and like, alright, if it's TJ and Aaron, what if Sanders like hit a two-ball? Like, oh my god. Yeah. Like, what are you gonna do against that? Someone needs to put Taylor Sander in the middle. See what happens.

Matt Houlihan 29:35

Yep. Yep. It is a it is a is it the new the new offense? Is it the is it the future? I think we you will continue to see more of this start to play out. I think you'll start to see more of this in the women's game too, right? Where you just get some more you get you get more uh offensive turns. The big piece that I think I look at is who can serve too. And usually the pinhitters are gonna be in a more consistent, higher level serving level than typically middles because and this is no fault of the middles, there are so many times in club where the middles never serve.

Arielle Houlihan 30:10

Yeah.

Matt Houlihan 30:11

I'm guilty of this too, right? If I'm looking for a role for one of my bench guys, they're gonna go in and serve for the middle. Yep. And so they just have way less reps in development level than the pinhitters do on the serve side, and then you get to college and all of a sudden you have to serve, and so it's usually one of the weaker serves that you're gonna face on a team. You flip that, you put a pin in there who's been serving their whole life, you get a you get you shave a couple points every now and again on your sets, and you're looking you're looking pretty damn good. Yeah. So it's it's there's part of the development that we have that starts to kind of kneecap middles. The same thing that coaches have talked about on USA right sides is so much of the club system for USA right sides is 6-2s and playing time. And yeah, so no one no one allows the right sides to really play through the back row, so they lose that development until they get to college, and then they need to try and get up to speed. So there's some interesting dynamics at play, but you can see where people are are finding some unique slivers and some unique opportunities to improve their team a little bit with us.

Arielle Houlihan 31:14

Well, it's funny, I've seen the trend for I don't know, maybe 10 years now. Their college coaches are asking late in the game, are asking, like, we just need a big body in the middle. Like, where do you guys have anybody, some big bodies in the middle? And we're like, no, we put them all on the pin when they were 13 and 14 years old. Like, that's been the way that we have developed our kids is we've taken those kids that were typically middles, we've tried to put them on the pin from earlier, and if that doesn't end up working out and the passing is really that difficult, then they go to the right and then they go back to the middle. And like that, but does the kids that are smaller and develop that the quickness, we've been able to be very successful with those kids in the middle, and but the projection of them to the next level is not as high because they need those big bodies. Yeah, you still don't need to be size. But I wonder if, yes, if you need size across the board, but I wonder if that will start changing and you'll start seeing some uh six, five middles that are just twitchy and can jump, but can like they're more athletic, like a Max Gregory kid that is just like speaking of NIF creativity.

Matt Houlihan 32:27

Yeah, exactly. Like that setter into the middle.

Arielle Houlihan 32:29

But it's setter in the middle, like that that's the type of stuff that like I wonder if we start seeing more of that kind of stuff that they can be successful.

Matt Houlihan 32:36

What are you and then we turn middle into middle?

Arielle Houlihan 32:38

You seem like a crazy person.

Matt Houlihan 32:39

We'll turn middles into setters.

Arielle Houlihan 32:40

You just look like an evil mad scientist.

Matt Houlihan 32:43

Uh well, I was going, I was going NIF mode right there. We'll turn the setter into a middle and the middle into a setter.

Chad Gordon 32:49

But it's the what's the quote? It's like the show me the incentives and I'll show you the outcome or whatever, right? It's just like okay, if you have 43 subs, sorry, man, I'm gonna go with the small ball control kid who's been playing since he was eight, yeah, instead of the 14-year-old middle who's coming out for the very first time in his career. Yep. And then by default, it's self-fulfilling, right? Of like, oh, well, okay, I don't serve, so therefore I don't work on serving, therefore I don't think of myself as a server, and then I'm spiraled, oh I got to college. Shit, six subs. Yeah. Better figure this out.

Matt Houlihan 33:16

Like and all of a sudden, as a college coach, you're looking, how can I how can I point square from the service line? I put a pin in the middle, yeah, problem solved.

Arielle Houlihan 33:23

I'm surprised that I haven't had any conversations with college coaches saying, like, do you have any middles who can serve? Like, I don't ever get that question from anybody of like, do you or I don't know if that's what they're looking at of like how do they serve? Because I feel like that should be something to look at.

Matt Houlihan 33:40

Well, yeah, if you think about it from a first principle perspective of I'm trying to point score and I'm trying to be efficient offensively, it's not you're not looking at positions, you're looking at probably size, and then you're looking at the overall volleyball player. Yeah. And I think it's easy to get stuck in the I'm trying to fill these boxes with these players that fit this general criteria. So much of so much of college coaches like you're you don't want to be quote, be embarrassed, right? You like you need to make the right selections on oh, that's a good middle. Oh, that was a good middle too. Oh, we got a good libero there, we got a good setter, rather than I got a really good volleyball player. I'm he could be a right, you could like Cameron Cossey's a great example. Great example, was a setter, was he was a left side, he was a right side. He was a he was our starting opposite going through uh his 18th year.

Arielle Houlihan 34:33

But he had a tough time getting recruited. Correct. Which is such a bummer because that kid was a great volleyball player and had a hard time with and that may be other things, but like that that is there's a lot of kids that are out there like that, that are like good across the board and their their stock is higher, but it's the kids that I they're six eight and they're whatever.

Matt Houlihan 34:56

It just takes one college coach to say yes to you to find the right spot, and he did find a very good spot for himself.

Arielle Houlihan 35:03

He went in dirt and he was setter of the week for Big West this week.

Matt Houlihan 35:06

He was this week, and he went in as a left side, and then I think last year, NIF said, Hey, we're training you full time as a setter. They had three setters coming into this. They're I think he was the second setter on the depth chart. Their starting setter got injured, and now he's got to run the show. And but he's he's played that position before, he understands what that's like. He can also hit, he can also, he also has a good serve.

Chad Gordon 35:30

He does all of these things so well that you're finding that's so funny because like when you watch him play, like you'd probably think like, wow, like this guy has like a really live arm rather than like his hands are like kissed by God. Yes, but it's also one of those things of like if that guy doesn't go down, is Cameron Costa the middle of the year for Irvine, right? Like, I mean because you would put his arm somewhere out there because he can serve and he can hit some balls. Yep, and hey, we can teach you to read block, you know. Yep, it's interesting.

Matt Houlihan 35:56

It is so much, so much creativity coming out coming out the gate here from the men's volleyball season. Jackson, anything?

Arielle Houlihan 36:03

We got we're that's a good episode.

Matt Houlihan 36:07

Ladies and gentlemen, another great episode of the Coach's Group Chat. We are heading to Washington, DC.

Arielle Houlihan 36:13

I'm leaving in eight hours to go run a volleyball tournament with my family. And Chad's coming.

Matt Houlihan 36:20

Yeah. And my middle fiance.

Arielle Houlihan 36:23

And your middle.

Matt Houlihan 36:24

And I am also coming because I want to see the Barry Goldberg Court at American University this weekend and help run the event for Bon Bon. But we'll be back again next week.

Arielle Houlihan 36:35

Go ahead.

Matt Houlihan 36:36

For another Rousing Coach's group chat.