First, a little story:

The first major sport I covered for the Daily Cal was volleyball. I went on calbears.com to do some research before my first interview with coach Rich Feller. Up in the top right corner of the volleyball page, there’s this picture of him, yelling, pointing and looking rather intense. It scared the shit out of me.

I went into the interview thinking I was about to get a chair thrown at me. Turns out, the guy was pretty damn nice. Now, a year later and covering Cal volleyball for the second season in a row, I can definitively say that people don’t come as nice and personable as Rich Feller. It’s been my pleasure to work with him. The man is a true class act.

So now I’m returning the favor.

When I sat down with Coach yesterday to interview him about the Bears’ homestand this weekend, he came ready to air a few grievances. One of them — which he’s brought up before — is his frustration at the inability to draw students to volleyball matches. The team has passed out fliers in person at Crossroads. They’ve done promotional deals. And still, like Coach Feller pointed out, if you take away Rally Comm and the Cal Band, there are maybe a handful of students.

We don’t usually do promos for teams. We’re not supposed to, and it makes sense. But I figure I can do this one favor for Coach. There are two home games left, one on Friday at 7 p.m., and one on Sunday at 12:30 p.m. It’s free for students, and volleyball is incredibly fun to watch, if you’ve never gone.

Afterward, you can get autographs from the team and meet Coach Feller. And if you do, tell him you’re a student who heard his call for fans. You won’t find a more appreciative man in all of Berkeley.