Ready for the Madness to Return
Volleyball team first to welcome fans back to Moby Arena
The crowd was abuzz.
Thousands of folks inside Moby Arena, roaring with each point, each one building the anticipation for the deciding moment, then a celebration.
Kennedy Stanford could feel it all build.
“It adds energy. It makes the atmosphere a little more electric,” the sophomore said. “The game I think I came for was the one they won the Mountain West on, so confetti rained down afterward. It’s a magical feeling.”
This is why Colorado State head volleyball coach Tom Hilbert wants to bring in recruits for matches, especially the bigger ones. Annually, the Rams are ranked among the best in the country -- usually the top 10 – for home-crowd attendance at volleyball matches. Beyond the normal trips to the NCAA Tournament and the parade of Mountain West championship trophies in his office, the Moby crowd leaves a lasting vision for impressionable young minds.
Moby Madness is real for Colorado State volleyball. It is not just an added layer, it is a major factor in why some women choose to play here.
“They were very lively, and you could tell everyone in the crowd supports the team,” sophomore Karina Leber said. “When the team played, they would feed off the energy of the crowd. The student section was great, and the sheer amount of people from the community who came in was exceptional and nothing I’ve ever seen before.”
Which is the issue. Leber still hasn’t seen it from the vantage point she wants. Neither has Stanford, or any of the five other freshmen who were part of their class. Moby Arena sat empty all last year, the effects of the COVID-19 global pandemic. Friday, they get to see it come to life.
The Rams’ match with South Dakota will be the first athletic event inside Moby Arena with fans since Feb. 29, 2020, when the men’s basketball team beat Air Force. Leaping forward, that will amount to 545 days. There are two classes of students who have never seen a live athletic event on the CSU campus, and the student-athletes are welcoming them back with open arms.
“There’s no doubt about it. You lose some of identity,” Hilbert said. “Some of that identity for us was our home-court environment. We want to get that back, and we want to make that a big part of playing here, and we want to make it a big part of playing here for our opponents. I’m excited to do that, to see that happen.”
A year ago, with a shortened schedule played in the spring, the university did all it could to create an environment. They played crowd noise through the sound system, but it just wasn’t the same. Before long, Stanford said it just became white noise in the background for the players. The cheers were from some other place and time, not for them. There was no rise in pitch when a player rose above the net and slammed a ball to the court. Nothing when a block turned away an opposing threat. There was no audible gasp as the tension rose for a set or match point.
A crowd has the ability to alter the performance, and without the shot of adrenaline, the players were left to their own devices to create their own. Hilbert knows his older players have more of an ability to do that, but the problem with his spring 2021 roster was there weren’t many players like that. There were seven freshmen on the roster, and most of the upperclassmen had not logged in many sets so far in their career.
“The players on the bench really had to fill that empty space of sound,” Leber said. “They were very involved with cheering and clapping and making sure everyone, when they came on the court, felt like they did a good job.”
That’s’ an atmosphere we’re all excited for. I think the adrenaline will push us through. It will be a lot for the first couple of points. None of us have experienced thousands of people, so that will be something new. I think you can push through that and it can motivate you early.Kennedy Stanford
As good as they could, as good as can be expected. And now with fans returning, Hilbert knows his team is going to have to get used to playing in front of people again, and what that does to them physically and mentally.
The last time any of them saw fans was on the road last year in Wyoming. As Leber and Stanford recall, those people amounted to what they played in front of in high school, if that. So when there are a few thousand people on hand Friday evening, they are going to experience a jolt.
“I think the No. 1 thing it does is creates a level of energy that’s higher than when you’re in practice or an empty gym,” Hilbert said. “That’s the biggest difference, but also it heightens people’s focus, because large crowds add accountability. There’s pressure, but there’s also a positivity in the energy they’re going to feel.
“It’s great for them, and I think almost every year we have to at some point kind of reign them in,” he said. “As young as some of these guys are going to be, they’re going to be really hyped. I want them to still remember the basics. I think what’s been interesting, both last spring and last fall so far, we’ve seen a lot of intra-squad competition, because there’s a lot of uncertainty about who is playing where. So that has created the fact our team is more outwardly competitive, they’re more vocal. That’s’ a result of the fact we had no fans and the fact we had all this completion on our squad. It was that way last spring, and that was really good to see. I certainly hope we build on that as well.”
The pandemic eliminated a lot of what builds the student-athlete experience. Team gatherings were limited, even when they were allowed. The same went with off-campus team-building experiences. Virtual learning took center stage, eliminating a lot of time off campus where they could see and meet others. Hilbert and his staff did all they could to try to give his team the best experience they could, but the one thing he couldn’t give them was outside support.
The cheers were muted. Friday's match is the annual White Out, with the first 1,500 students getting a free T-shirt to wear.
With it being an indoor venue, fans will be required to wear masks, but they are more than welcome to come back and cheer. And the players hope they return in droves. They’ve missed fans, and for the youngest two classes on the team, they have no real idea what they’ve missed.
“It’s huge. Especially knowing what the White Out is, and how many people are expected with this being the first event in Moby for all the freshmen here,” Stanford said. “That’s’ an atmosphere we’re all excited for. I think the adrenaline will push us through. It will be a lot for the first couple of points. None of us have experienced thousands of people, so that will be something new. I think you can push through that and it can motivate you early.”
When Hilbert searches from the emotions of a year ago, some normal ones are absent. He expected it to have a different feel, and it seemed more like a developmental season. Part of that was the roster and playing in a different time of year. But part of it was walking into Moby Arena and seeing two teams, some officials and the operations staff.
His family wasn’t allowed in, and neither were those of the players. The stands were pushed back, not down on the floor. It seemed cavernous, and even the players and coaches on the bench were spread out.
It was maddening, really.
Now, they all can’t wait for Madness to return.