Rolling Hills’ Ross Pier Sets Up Volleyball Success

The first-place Rolling Hills High School boys volleyball team will play its biggest match of the Bay League season Tuesday at Leuzinger High.

But don’t expect the Titans (8-0 in league play) to show signs of nervousness, even though they start two sophomores. Rolling Hills is led by strong-willed team captain Ross Pier, a senior setter who is in constant control of the Titans’ offense--and their emotions.

“He really is like a coach on the floor,” Coach Harvey Crow said of Pier, who will play for either UCLA or UC Santa Barbara next year. “He sets a tremendous example for our younger players because he doesn’t let anything get to him.

“He’s a commander out there and takes a lot of pressure off me. He always knows exactly what he should do and what everyone else should do.”

Pier’s father, Bob, the junior varsity coach at Rolling Hills, said coming from a sports-oriented family has helped Ross be a team leader. Citing his father’s positive influence, Ross Pier said: “I’m interested in being a coach some day. I know that.”

But Pier added that it was his mother who first got him actively involved in sports, volleyball in particular. “I started playing when I was about 6,” he said.

“She was into beach volleyball and would drag me to the tournaments she played in at Hermosa and Manhattan. That’s the key to what I’m doing now: the fact that I’ve played so long and know a lot about the game.

“I’ve really been exposed to the sport.”

But Pier admitted that despite being a coach’s son and having extensive volleyball knowledge, he hasn’t always been an effective leader.

After saying how much he enjoys playing with fellow Rolling Hills star Chris Ritchie, a 6-foot-3 senior outside hitter, he added: “We’ve gone through some pretty bad times because I used to be too intense, and Chris would get sick of it.”

Although his on-court demeanor has been tempered, Pier said he still occasionally battles to keep his emotions in check. “I’ve got a lot to say on the court,” said the four-year varsity player, “especially to the younger players.

“But I have to remember they are young. It’s a fine line, because you want to be a leader but you don’t want to get on everyone’s nerves.”

Crow, who has coached Rolling Hills since 1978, said the Titans have benefitted from Pier’s steady tack this season. “He has demonstrated great resolve and maturity,” he said. “He knows that you waste a lot of energy jumping around and getting upset, changing your temperament all the time.

“He’s a more mature athlete as a senior.”

Bob Pier, a graduate of Morningside High School, was inducted into the El Camino College Hall of Fame last year in recognition of his prowess at baseball, basketball and football in the early 1960s. His daughter, Keri, is a volleyball player at Cal State Fullerton.

But Ross Pier said he has never felt pressure to match the accomplishments of his father and sister. In fact, he said, it’s pure love for volleyball that drives him to succeed.

Pier plays almost year round. In addition to setting for the Titans, who are ranked ninth in the Southern Section 4-A Division coaches’ poll, he is an A-rated beach volleyball player (with partner Pat Ivie, a star middle blocker at Mira Costa High School) and a starter for the nationally competitive Torrance Volleyball Club.

“I like (two-man) beach ball better (than six-man indoor volleyball) because it’s a lot less specialized,” the 5-9 Pier said. “You have to be able to pass the ball and hit and set.

“We got our A rating last summer. We beat a couple of guys from Stanford, which was fun.”

Still, Pier said, “the best time of my life” came when he led the Torrance Volleyball Club to the national championship for 16-year-olds in the summer of 1988.

Before going to college, Pier will play one more year with the club team. The 1990 team for 18-year-olds will have the same stars as the squad that won the national title two years ago in Colorado.

“It’s a great team,” Pier said, including Ritchie, Ivie and Mira Costa setter Canyon Ceman. “It’s basically me and a bunch of huge guys.”

Ivie is 6-5 and Ceman 6-4.

“It’s awesome,” Pier said. “It’s just ideal for a setter to have a bunch of big, great hitters. And there’s a lot of good passing and ball control, too, not just great hitting.”

An even bigger thrill than the national title, Pier said, would be for Rolling Hills to win the Southern Section 4-A crown this season. But to do that, the Titans will have to outdo top-ranked Mira Costa, a team for which Pier has great respect.

“They’re the best players anywhere,” said Pier, who works out informally with some of the Mustangs at Marine Street in Manhattan Beach. “Canyon (Ceman) can do a lot of things, and we talk a lot and try to help each other.”

One of the highlights in Pier’s athletic career came in another sport, basketball. As a sophomore, he started at point guard on his father’s junior varsity team, and Rolling Hills won the league crown.

“He was hard and intense, but not overly so,” Pier said of his father’s coaching that season. “Every now and then he would say something funny on the bench to keep us loose.”

After three years of basketball at Rolling Hills, Pier opted instead to play soccer this year.

Bob Pier, who is also an assistant coach for the varsity, said he was disappointed to miss the final opportunity to coach his son on the basketball court. “I really did miss working with him,” he said, “and I think he missed the camaraderie.

“He would have stepped right in as the starting point guard, but he just didn’t feel comfortable in basketball. He knows that’s not where his future is.”

Said Ross Pier: “I didn’t want to make the time commitment (to basketball) in the summer.”

He added that he didn’t get any negative feedback from his father.

“He has supported me in whatever I’ve done,” Pier said. “He lets me be myself and do my own thing because I’ve got a good academic background. Even if I’m an athletic failure, I won’t be a complete failure because of the academics.”

Crow, who guided the Titans to a seventh-place finish in the prestigious 25-team Dos Pueblos Tournament earlier this season, said he is proud of a budding tradition for great setters at Rolling Hills. Danny Greenbaum, a junior setter for top-ranked USC, is a Titan alumnus.

Crow said Pier is headed for similar success, despite his lack of height.

“It’s unfair to compare (Greenbaum and Pier) because Danny is tall (6-3) and left-handed, and Ross is quicker,” Crow said. “They’re just two different athletes who do things their own way; it would be like comparing Willie Mays and Joe DiMaggio.

“I know in the college game there’s a big emphasis on size. But history has shown that speed, with heart and desire, can get it done.”

Pier conceded: “I’m definitely not the standardized college player. But setting is almost all technique, and I have pretty good technique.”

Second-place Leuzinger’s only league loss came at Rolling Hills. Pier, who knows some of the Olympians, said: “They’re getting pretty fired up” for the rematch.

Pier, of course, is taking it in stride. All he would say is that Tuesday’s match will be “a big one.”

In the first Rolling Hills-Leuzinger battle, the Titans took the initial two games, lost the next two and then regrouped to win the fifth.

Looking back at that encounter, Pier said losing the two games to Leuzinger was a positive factor in the Titans’ growth as a team.

“It was a great experience,” he said, “even more so for the younger guys. We learned a lot about what we were doing wrong fundamentally.

“It gave us a chance to focus on what we need to improve on. We’re better on the fundamentals now because of it.”

Somehow, it’s not too hard to imagine Ross Pier wearing a coach’s whistle some day.