Bulldogs volleyball surprising fun for this first timer

I’ll admit I’m not much of a sports fan — at least by the standards of The Collegian sports page.

My interest in the topic hardly extends beyond a casual interest in Fresno State teams (what happened, football team?) and a few professional ones (what happened, Oakland A’s?).

That being said, I usually enjoy watching a good athletic competition.

Since I’m not much of an athlete myself, there’s something particularly special about watching others do things I have no chance of ever physically doing.

Despite that, I’ve recently found myself becoming a bit wary of Fresno State football.

The spectacle of the games is just too polished and professional for my tastes.

Watching a game with around 40,000 other people can be exciting, it’s true, but also tiring.

It becomes particularly tiring when those same fans decide midway through the third quarter that the team’s efforts have been in vain and begin pouring toward the parking lots.

Maybe it’s just me, but I also dislike the rather obnoxious barking noises made by middle-aged men with Pat Hill-style beards. The hypocrisy and ineffectuality of the university’s alcohol “ban” also angers me, particularly when I remember that the rich folks up in the skyboxes are enjoying their beer while the rest of us are, at least officially, teetolers.

That’s not to say that I lack school spirit. In fact, I now believe that I’ve found the most exciting and entertaining sport on campus.

That sport is, of course, women’s volleyball. There’s no other sports experience like it that I’ve found on campus — yet its appeal is difficult to explain.

Of course there’s the obvious element of lovely young women throwing their bodies around the court in the pursuit of victory. But it’s far more than just that.

When you go to volleyball games there’s a passion and attitude that you don’t often see in other athletic events.

Part of this stems from the nature of the game itself.

Every time the ball is served you can be sure that one of the teams is going to score on the play.

There’s no room for error — either your team scores or your opponent does.

The players celebrate each point, earned or otherwise, as if it were the last one of the game.

The team spirit on the court is incredible. High-fives are seen in abundance — even when a player gives up a point in a service fault.

There’s an almost delightful team dynamic that gives you the impression that, no matter whether the team wins or loses, the players out to have a good time and play their hardest.

Saturday night the team battled back from the fairly horrific loss of a game mid-way through the match against the Nevada Wolf Pack.

As two rather loud Wolf Pack fans commented to one another between games, “that was an ass kicking!”

While that game was in fact a bad loss for the Bulldogs the squad nearly came back, tying Nevada in four games and only losing on the fifth game that decides the match.

Perhaps the football team should take over section 110 at the Save Mart Center for the next home match for a lesson on battling back against the odds after a setback.

Part of volleyball’s appeal is the team spirit evident on the court — but it’s also the fact that it is, unfortunately, a rather sparsely attended sport.

Saturday’s game against Nevada brought in only about 300 fans. This, however, can be seen as a good thing.

With such a small crowd there’s a feeling of intimacy.

One can easily pick out individual groups of fans cheering their favorite players or team – as was the case with the previously mentioned Wolf Pack fans.

The gentlemen in question must have been hoarse at the end of the night from their constant yelling.

Unfortunately for them, most of their cheering was impossible to understand. The chants of “Wolf Pack, Wolf Pack!” sounded more like “Ragh-Rogh, Ragh-Rogh!”

Even their version of “We will rock you” sounded like a drunken version of Rod Stewart singing karaoke.

While this could have easily been annoying and intolerable, instead it was entertaining and a bit quaint.

The passion of the fans matched the passion of the players — passion that can be easily and accessibly seen in the environment of the games.

Its easy to get seats right on the sidelines — something unheard of in the “major sports” of football and basketball.

What all this amounts to is an experience like no other.

This intense athletic competition coupled with the passion, attitude and grace of the players make for the best way to spend an evening at Fresno State.

I highly recommend checking it out.

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