In the spring of 2020, Oregon volleyball coach Matt Ulmer was looking for creative ways to engage his team while they were navigating the early stages of the COVID pandemic.
The team was still meeting together, albeit virtually. For a few of those sessions over Zoom, Ulmer tapped some connections with his former program, Long Beach State. He invited legends of the sport including Misty May-Treanor and Tayyiba Haneef-Park to speak with the Ducks.
Haneef-Park is a two-time Olympic medalist for Team USA, as a hitter on the right side. Oregon's own opposites, Gloria Mutiri and Morgan Lewis, both used the same term to describe themselves in meeting Haneef-Park – "fan-girling.