Fans won’t cheer, but the referees will if veteran spiker Steve Obradovich quits the pro tour because the bucks didn’t get a lot bigger. : The Bad Boy

As far as famous last words go, Steve Obradovich is no Lou Gehrig.

“Unless they raise the prize money to about $8 million,” said the veteran beach volleyball star, “all you’re going to see is two elbows and a big fat butt going out the door.”

Quite the touching farewell. But if what Obradovich says is true and the power-hitting southpaw retires after this season, the tour’s referees will consider themselves the luckiest men on the face of the earth.

You see, Obradovich is the bad boy of the beach. He’s “OB,” the last of the old-time volleyball rogues. Brash and colorful, an entertainer and, well, not exactly humble. One volleyball publication described him as “the best *!%$&!*% player on the beach (just ask him).”

Anyone who has come upon a beach volleyball event since the mid-1970s would likely remember him. He’s the quintessential beach boy with the wavy blond hair and piercing eyes who was doing some or all of the following: (1) shouting at his partner; (2) shouting at the referee; (3) shouting at a loudmouth in the crowd; (4) shouting at himself and (5) using a tremendous leap and lightning quick arm swing to spike the ball at improbable downward angles.

Such an athlete. And such language . Enough to make Zsa Zsa blush.

“I’ve got a kid on the way, I’ve played 17 years--I’ve given half my life to the game--and it’s time to move on,” said Obradovich as he sat at an outdoor table at Julie’s, the restaurant across from USC that his family bought 10 years ago and OB now runs. “I don’t want to go out mid-year like Mike Schmidt, hitting .220. I didn’t want to go out kneeling in the sand getting the . . . beat out of me.”

At 34, the Manhattan Beach resident hasn’t changed much on the court. Just ask Sinjin Smith, who sees OB from two perspectives--the result of Smith’s dual roles as a volleyball player and figurehead. On one hand, Smith is a student of the sport’s technique and peculiar history; on the other, he’s a businessman and president of the pro players association.

On the one hand: “He’s a creature,” says Sinjin. “He’s just a great athlete.”

On the other: “I get along with Steve, but he’s got a certain abrasive personality that’s not always best for the sport,” says Mr. Smith, the executive. “He’s a controversial kid. He’s one of those guys who add something to the sport, who’s fun to have around. But I’d like to see him be colorful without being damaging to the sport.”

One of Smith’s complaints is Obradovich’s treatment of officials. Chris Marlowe, the cable television commentator who teamed with a 21-year-old Obradovich to win the Manhattan Beach Open in 1976, laughs when the question comes up. “He is one of the great ref baiters,” he said, not bothering to hide his admiration.

Time has not increased Obradovich’s appreciation of the game’s officials. When the subject came up, so did the volume of his voice. It seems he had been hit with two red cards in a recent tournament--a penalty that includes the award of a point to the opposition.

“I didn’t even swear at him,” he says, looking astonished. “One of (the red cards) might have cost me the game. Name another sport where they give away points. In basketball, if you get a technical (foul), you at least have to shoot the ball through the hoop.

“I mean, fine me. Fine me big. Fine me $150. Fine me $250. But don’t take the goddamned game away.”

Obradovich stops his tirade and grins: “Of course, I deserve everything I get.”

Although he relishes his bad boy image--”Great, they’ll come out and watch me”--Obradovich isn’t leaving the sport without regrets. He’s the first to admit he’s the court jester who could have been king, winning only 13 more tournaments after that first one in Manhattan Beach.

Obradovich and Marlowe, one of the top beach players at the time, were without a partner as the tournament neared. They teamed up at the last second.

The brash kid and the brash veteran proved unstoppable. When they came up against the top team at that time--Jim Menges and Greg Lee--it was no contest. Marlowe-Obradovich rolled, 15-7, ending Menges and Lee’s streak of 13 straight tournament victories.

“I remember Lee coming up afterward and saying that they served Steve every single serve and just couldn’t stop him,” Marlowe said. Then his voice took on a touch of melancholy. “We never won another tournament. He (Steve) didn’t realize what we had. He just didn’t have the drive and determination to practice and keep it going.

“He won 13, 14 tournaments? Well, he could have won 30 or 40 if he had been as dedicated as Menges or (Ron) Von Hagen. He’s probably the most physically talented guy on the beach but, at the same time, the laziest.”

Obradovich is the first to agree. “I remember when we won Manhattan I thought, ‘Jeez, that was not a lot of work.’ I just didn’t practice. I was young, I won Manhattan and said, ‘Hey, this is neat.’

“Now I know if I’d trained, Marlowe and I would have been awesome. He was the kind of player I wanted to be. He was funny, an entertainer. And he was one of the greatest teachers in the world.”

Obradovich went on to gain fame, if not fortune, with Gary Hooper.

“I heard about this surfer guy who was loud, aggressive and hit the . . . out of the ball,” Obradovich said. “It was sort of like falling in love.”

But it looked more like divorce court. With Obradovich and Hooper it often seemed more combat than teamwork, even though they won a world championship before an arm injury forced Hooper to leave the sport in 1983.

“I was more silent and cutting, and he was more loud,” said Hooper, now a corporate insurance broker in Brentwood. “People would hear him shout, but they never heard what I was saying under my breath. Neither of us kept anything in. Neither of us had a headache. We also didn’t carry any grudges, since we were exploding constantly.

“And we probably had more fun off the court than on. Here we were, two single guys traveling up and down the coast, living a life you wouldn’t believe. It should have been a movie.”

Obradovich, who is engaged and an expectant father, doesn’t like to talk about the old days of booze and babes--tales he once spun for anyone who would listen. “I’m trying to get away from that,” he said. “Now we’re well-behaved. Now (the players) cannot wait to finish Saturday and get on the golf course.”

He’s also largely misunderstood, says Marlowe. “People who know him well will tell you, ‘He’s a pain . . . but I like the guy.’ But if you don’t know Steve well, you’ll think he’s the biggest s.o.b. you’ve ever met.”

When his current partner, young Craig Moothart, had a sloppy start early in a recent tournament that threatened to dump the pair into the losers bracket, Obradovich called two timeouts simultaneously. “I wanted to make sure he got two minutes of the four-letter barrage I was about to give him,” he said. And in the course of the verbal assault, Obradovich also shouted at Moothart’s girlfriend nearby.

Moothart got mad and they blew away their lesser opponents. “Afterward, his girlfriend comes up, tears in her eyes and everything,” Obradovich recalled, “and I said, ‘Aw, I didn’t mean it. It was a motivational type deal.’ ”

Obradovich has hovered around the No. 10 spot on the pro circuit money list this season, gaining third-place finishes in Miami and Venice. But it’s just not the same as winning a tournament--something Obradovich hasn’t done since 1981.

“That makes me want to cry,” said the former USC football and volleyball star. “I know if there wasn’t this kind of money in the sport, I would not be playing. But I feel the game owes me money. I get a good income from my regular job and now I can go out and steal money from volleyball. I mean, I steal it. I get 20-, 30-, 40-thousand dollars for goofing around.

“Hey, not everybody can win. There are guys on the tour who have been here seven years and are never going to win. Flat never .

“John Robinson taught me there’s a little loser in everybody. Nobody wins all the time--but Sinjin Smith tries.”

Looking back, Obradovich says he wishes he might have tried harder after the magic of that one weekend in 1976. “It all would have been pretty empty if I had never won Manhattan,” he said.

Marlowe agrees. “That one day, that one Sunday at Manhattan, we were as good as anyone. We were golden for one day. And I think I created a monster.”