A FREE SPIRIT FINDS A HOME : UCSD’s Shannon Quigley Fires Up Discus, Shot After Burning Out at Freshman Volleyball

Shannon Quigley is hard to miss when driving her vintage Volkswagen van, with its faded red paint and shiny new bumper stickers proclaiming the virtues of one cause or another.

She’s becoming almost as tough to ignore in the shotput and discus rings.

Quigley has found a home for her individuality there after a souring experience as a member of the UC San Diego women’s volleyball team as a freshman. Quigley was red-shirted after her freshman year, which in this case was the same as waivers.

Quigley admits she did not fit in on the volleyball team. She says that there is a time and place for individuality, and that wasn’t it.

“That kid’s a throwback to the ‘60s,” Tony Salerno, the UCSD throwing coach, said recently as Quigley drove off in her van. “She’s into tie-dye and all that stuff.”

But the kid can throw.

Quigley, who threw the shot just once at Redondo Union High School, leads the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. Division III in the shot (44-9) and the discus (153-2) in only her second year of competition. She is hoping to follow through at the Division III nationals May 24-27 at Naperville, Ill.

Quigley has come a long way from the time she reluctantly tried out for the track and field team after being cut from volleyball. Salerno thinks she can go a lot further.

But Quigley says her tears fell almost as hard as the rain on her first day of practice.

“(Salerno) asked me to come out to a track meeting,” Quigley said. “It was pouring rain. I thought this guy was crazy. We were working out in the dirt and the mud. I was in tears at the end of practice. But I kept thinking ‘Do what he says and you’ll be OK.’ ”

It has worked so far. Much as Salerno says he knew it would if Quigley applied herself.

That day two years ago was not the first time Salerno saw Quigley throw. He had seen it in his mind a year earlier.

Salerno is also the women’s volleyball coach at San Diego Mesa Community College and had seen Quigley play volleyball in a scrimmage against UCSD.

“I was on the bench thinking, ‘That kid would make a great thrower,’ ” Salerno said.

When UCSD decided to revitalize its track program, Coach Mark Stanforth hired Salerno to coach throwers. Salerno’s first act was to find some.

“I was shopping around, talking to different coaches, seeing if they had anybody that might not make their team or weren’t working out but were good athletes,” Salerno said. “Doug Dannevik (women’s volleyball coach) was instrumental in getting Shannon to come out for track. She was the first one he thought of.”

Quigley was reluctant. Volleyball had been her favorite sport, and she said she had scholarship offers to Washington State and some eastern schools. But she instead decided to attend UCSD for academic reasons and try out for volleyball.

“I never really got into the team,” Quigley said. “It was pretty cliquish. There were a lot of players who had been together for four years.”

It didn’t work out as UCSD won the first of three consecutive Division III volleyball titles her freshman year.

“Shannon has a free soul, as we like to say,” Salerno said. “It may not be a good attribute for a team, but it is instrumental in throwing.”

Quigley, 20, has some other important attributes. She has a 6-foot-5 arm span, good athletic ability and is relatively young. Women throwers are in their prime from 25 to their early 30s. According to Quigley’s schedule, she has another 50,000 throws before she hits 25.

“She has a lot of the prerequisites for becoming a good thrower,” Salerno said. “There are a lot of people who are good when they are young. She could be as good as any American. It’s up to her.”

Salerno knows talent. He coached Liz Mueller, the former SDSU javelin thrower. Under Salerno, Mueller was 10th in the Olympic trials and World University Games and fifth at the TAC nationals.

Quigley finished her first year of throwing with personal bests of 43-1 1/2 in the shot and 136-10 in the discus; at Division III nationals, she finished sixth in the shot and 21st in the discus.

She has worked hard on the discus this year and improved by more than 16 feet. She is aiming for the Division III record of 165-0, set by Cindy Lensmire of Wisconsin LaCrosse in 1984. The shotput record is 50-0 1/2, set last year at the nationals by Melanie Herrera of Augsburg.

Quigley said she doesn’t want to look too far ahead and has not set any goals as far as throwing or level of competition.

“I can’t even think about it,” Quigley said. “I know I want to give it everything while I’m here. I’ve committed to stay for my fifth year. I just want to see how it goes. But my mom is looking at airline tickets to Barcelona.” That’s where the 1992 Summer Olympics will be held.

In the meantime, flights of fancy will take a back seat to studying the flights of the shot and discus. Quigley has found a home in the ring. And there she has found her greatest competition.

“All my life I played team sports,” Quigley said. “When I came to college there were a lot of changes. The focus became just me. I like throwing. The whole recklessness. . . I like the attitudes--there are some crazy people in this sport. It was also part of me growing up, too.

“When you hit a big one--it is like nothing else I felt before. In team sports, it is good and all when you win, but when you throw, it is all you.”