Ryan ChartrandI was running late Friday night after a mid-afternoon nap that turned into an early-evening slumber. I awoke at precisely 6:23 p.m., seven minutes before I had planned to arrive at the Cal Poly volleyball match.
The match didn’t start until 8 p.m., but I wanted to make sure my butt was firmly planted in a courtside seat as the Mustangs battled Michigan in NCAA Tournament action. No matter, I thought – I’ll just stroll in around 7 p.m. and maybe settle for something a few rows up and near mid-court.
Several pieces of lasagna later, I hopped in the car and calmly drove to the game, completely oblivious to the horde of fans already in the stands.
As I entered the gym, I looked in bewilderment at the student section – not a seat to be found. All around the gym, the bleachers were packed with Mustang fans, young and old alike. Only a smattering of seats on the edges of what usually is the student section and on the rims of the smaller bleachers at the narrow ends of the gym remained.
As many of you already know, Cal Poly volleyball took an early exit from the tournament with a loss to a very strong Cal squad Saturday night.
Big deal.
Yes, the team played poorly. It clearly wasn’t the best the Mustangs had to offer. But the loss is unimportant. Sure, it would’ve been great to see Cal Poly move on to the round of 16. We all would’ve loved to see Candace Milton and Arleen Paperny, the team’s only seniors, go out with a win in their last home match as Mustangs.
The 2006 team will be remembered for something else: it was the team that brought the spirit of Cal Poly volleyball back to Mott Gym.
Usually you can wander into a volleyball match 30 minutes late and still grab a great seat at mid-court. That’s why I thought it would be fine if I was only an hour early last Friday. I figured I would catch as much of the Cal-LSU first-round match as I could while saving some seats for some buddies who were showing up later.
Instead, I found a seat in the smaller bleacher section on the North Perimeter end of Mott Gym.
Last year, Cal Poly head coach Jon Stevenson painted a picture for me. He told me how the Central Coast was a volleyball mecca. He described a fervent rivalry between Cal Poly and UC Santa Barbara. One time the football team trekked from the football stadium up to Mott Gym immediately following a game so they could watch the volleyball match between Pacific and Cal Poly – and when they got there, it was standing room only.
Team members from the days of the “Magnificent Seven,” or so they were nicknamed by a local television news station to mimic the old western flick, recalled volleyball as the hottest ticket on campus at the time.
Last spring I spoke with some of the players from the 1984 and 1985 squads at a fundraiser for Carol Tschasar-Daniel, a former All-American at Cal Poly who was the target of a hit-and-run driver. The players were shocked to see such a small crowd – an estimated 500 or so loosely distributed around the gym.
Stevenson was disappointed about the lack of spectators at matches last year and at points during this season. He’s old school – a guy who played volleyball at UC Santa Barbara in the 1980s when it was an emerging sport and fans flocked to the gym to watch the matches. He was worried that nobody was paying attention, that his team wasn’t being noticed.
Forget the loss.
The 2006 Mustangs were worth more than wins and losses. They gave people a reason to watch – a reason to care.
They have ushered in a new era of Cal Poly volleyball.