CSUN Career Helps McClean in New Setting : Volleyball: Deaf Northridge graduate uses his college experience as springboard to international competition.

Deaf player makes good in volleyball. That, says Jeff McClean, is how a lot of people remember his varsity career at Cal State Northridge. But the emphasis is wrong, McClean says. He was a unique player all right--but not because he was deaf.

“The big story,” says McClean, is that he had never played volleyball until the day he tried out for the Matadors as a freshman. “I went from knowing nothing and almost being cut to one of the best middle blockers in the country. Being deaf had nothing to do with it.”

Today, two years after graduation, McClean is playing international volleyball--and his being deaf, ironically, has everything to do with it. He played on the fourth-place U.S. national team in the World Games for the Deaf last year in New Zealand, and this summer, he made the U.S. deaf squad that will play in next year’s Friendship Games in the Soviet Union.

“It’s funny in a way that, because I am deaf, I’m doing more (since college) than just playing club volleyball,” said McClean, 25.

There was a time when McClean was less accepting of his impairment. At 6-foot-5, 235 pounds, with jumping ability and strength, he figures he might have been a pro football player, but football is very difficult for the deaf. Had he not found a niche in volleyball, he might have become bitter.

“Where I’m at in my life, I’m finally satisfied,” he says. “Everything I got from volleyball made up for what I lost in football.”

Another irony: Football intrigues McClean--”Think of what players get paid in pro football compared with pro volleyball,” he says with a smile--but it was football that cost him his hearing. As a young child, McClean had hearing problems and his parents were cautioned that a sharp blow to the head could exacerbate them. “I think the doctor told my parents that it wasn’t a good idea for me to play football,” says McClean, who grew up in Woodland Hills, the second youngest of 10 children.

But McClean also was encouraged to lead a normal life, so it was almost preordained that one day he would play a pickup football game with his buddies. That happened when he was 10. “Goofing around,” he says, “I got popped in the cheek by someone’s head.”

McClean sustained nerve-damage hearing loss. Today, he is completely deaf in his left ear and has 20% hearing in his right. A hearing aid boosts hearing in his right ear to 50%, enabling him to pick up most conversation. His voice hasn’t been affected--he speaks in a rich baritone--and his lip-reading skills are excellent.

“A lot of people,” McClean says, “don’t even realize I have a hearing problem.”

That includes CSUN volleyball Coach John Price. “I never thought of him as deaf,” Price says.

All Price saw that day six years ago when McClean walked in his office was an imposing physical specimen. “When I stopped drooling, I said, ‘Yeah, you can try out,’ ” Price recalls.

McClean had been prodded into trying out by CSUN players who spotted him watching a sorority volleyball game. Before that, his athletic career had consisted largely of one season on the sophomore basketball team at Crespi High. Not unexpectedly, he discovered during his first few weeks of volleyball practice that he “knew absolutely nothing. I was terrible. I couldn’t hit, pass or block.”

McClean sat out his first year as a redshirt, allowing him to practice with the varsity. But the following year, coaches told him they didn’t think he would make the team. “That motivated me,” McClean says. “I thought this was my last chance to play sports.”

The necessary buttons pushed, McClean improved to the point where he was able to start a varsity game two months into the season. By his third year, he was a regular, and finished fifth in blocking in the Western Intercollegiate Volleyball Assn. Various ailments limited his play his final season.

“He was a real good blocker in the best league in the country,” Price says. “He was a great guy to have in the middle because he just loved to block balls.”

McClean isn’t able to wear his hearing aid when he plays--sweat kills the battery--so his teammates had to make adjustments in order to communicate with him. “The setter would stomp his feet to get (McClean’s) attention,” Price says. “Instead of yelling where the ball is, we’d point to it in the air, which is probably a good thing to do anyway.”

McClean graduated CSUN as a psychology major, but a part-time job on the graveyard shift at The Prudential home office in Woodland Hills led to a permanent position with the company as a database coordinator. He works about 55 hours a week but still has time for recreational volleyball, playing on grass on weekends and indoors at Sequoia Athletic Club--Racquetball World in Canoga Park during the week.

“I’m too slow for beach volleyball,” he says, “and I like six on six better than two-man.”

McClean also enjoys coaching volleyball. He coached the Providence High girls’ team for three years but had to quit because the cross-Valley drive to Burbank was too difficult during afternoon rush hour. He currently is looking for a high school coaching job closer to his home in Calabasas.