Company’s Coming to Challenge Arnold : Volleyball: Starting middle blocker on U.S. national team prepares to meet all comers for a spot in ’92 Olympics.

As it turns out, the two-page color photo in Sports Illustrated last year featuring Steve Timmons, Mark Arnold and Bob Samuelson standing at attention before a volleyball match represents more than a study in contrasting hairdos.

Timmons, with his gravity-defying orange flattop, and Samuelson, with his shaven head, flank Arnold, whose dark hair is neat and short.

But Arnold, the starting middle blocker on the U.S. national volleyball team, has to be feeling the squeeze from all sides these days. The battle for the middle blocker spots on the team that will represent the United States in the 1992 Olympics already is heating up.

Timmons has returned from Europe, where he earned $600,000 for playing for an Italian team for six months. He’s going to play a little beach volleyball this summer, then join the national team in the fall. Doug Partie, another veteran of the ’88 Games who also played professionally in Italy, has expressed an interest in returning to the team. So has Craig Buck, who played in the last World Championships.

And, since former USC star Bryan Ivie joined the team last month, Samuelson has been playing mostly at middle blocker. Laguna Beach’s Scott Fortune, who recorded the match point when the United States beat the Soviet Union in the ’88 Games, is also listed on the roster as a middle blocker even though he has been playing more on the outside lately.

“It’s going to be very, very competitive,” said first-year Coach Fred Sturm, declining to list specific names. “Let’s just say that when everyone gets back, there will be six very strong candidates and there’ll be four middle-blocker spots.”

Arnold, whose volleyball career began when he was recruited from the Costa Mesa High School golf team to help a sagging volleyball program, has been on the national team for two years. He tried and failed to make the ’88 Olympic team.

He knows what it’s like to be on the bubble. And he knows what it’s like when the bubble bursts.

Still, Arnold prefers to concentrate on improving his chances for the ’92 Olympics rather than fret about things he cannot control.

“I think about it only when I’m asked,” he said before a recent workout at the San Diego Sports Arena. “A lot of those guys aren’t here and you are. All you can do is play as well as you can. I really don’t think about it.”

It has to be frustrating to watch a guy stroll off the beach and take a spot on a team you’ve been training with five hours every day for the past two years, but Arnold understands the desire to put the best team on the court in Barcelona. And he plans on doing whatever it takes to be part of that team.

The first step in that direction would be a good showing in this summer’s World League. Arnold was a member of the national team last summer when it staggered to a 1-11 mark in the league’s first summer. This year, the U.S. squad is off to a 3-1 start after upseting defending world champion Italy in five games Sunday night at UC Irvine.

“Nobody is guaranteed a spot,” Arnold said. “One way or another, you have to earn it. Sure, some of those guys have already proven at the last Olympics that they can win at the highest level, but the better we play right now, with the players we have, the more we’ll make the coaching staff think that maybe we don’t need to bring back the older players.

“And I have to believe it helps to be with the team now.”

At 27, Arnold is the oldest player of this new wave in U.S. volleyball, but he doesn’t believe he’s peaked. He has, however, attained a remarkable level of consistency.

Like his hairstyle, Arnold’s play is not flashy. But Sturm says he is “rock solid” and “a pillar of consistency.” And he insists those aren’t just polite ways to say unspectacular.

“At this level of play, consistency over long periods of time is a very important factor,” Sturm said.

Arnold says he’s not sure if his style of play is an outgrowth of his conservative nature, but he does admit to being the quiet type.

“Mark Arnold?” Samuelson asks, smiling. “Let’s see, he’s married, he went to Pepperdine, he’s an accountant. Oh boy, is he a lot of fun.”

But Samuelson, who rooms with Arnold on the road, is quick to point out that Arnold’s even temperament and steady play is a comfort to his teammates.

“You never have to wonder what you’ll get out of him on any night,” he said. “Mark’s performance is a given. He never plays spectacular one night and real low the next. He just plays at a consistently high level.”

Arnold’s steady hand helped Costa Mesa make it to the Southern Section playoffs three times and Pepperdine win two NCAA championships in 1985 and ’86. After graduating with an accounting degree in 1987, Arnold tried and failed to make the U.S. team.

He and his wife, Jill, stayed in Malibu, however, and for the next 18 months, Arnold worked for a Woodland Hills accounting firm. He stayed in shape by lifting weights and occasionally working out with the Pepperdine team, but he figured his playing days were over.

“At that point in time, I was ready to start a normal life,” he said. “But then, after the Olympics when a lot of the players were going over to Europe to play professionally, I contacted (then Coach) Bill Neville and asked him if he would be interested in me trying out. He invited me down and in ‘89, I made the team.”

After a three-month tryout period, Arnold celebrated the announcement of his addition to the roster by breaking a bone in his left hand while attempting a block.

“That set me back five weeks and then the day I came back, I broke it again, chipped the bone in the same place, doing the exact same thing,” he said. “It was just a freak thing, I guess. I was starting to wonder, but the doctors said it healed fine the second time and it’s been fine ever since.”

It was the summer after the Olympics, however, and there were no major competitions. So Arnold was able to stay with the team and stay in shape by playing with a cast. (He’s a right-handed hitter.)

Hanging in there, obviously, is one of Arnold’s strong suits.

“If an athlete thinks he doesn’t have room to improve, it’s time for him to quit,” he said. “I try to be very critical of myself. My hitting is my strong point and my blocking might be weaker, but I try to consistently work on all aspects of the game.”

Arnold maintains a rigorous regimen--practicing from 8 a.m. until noon, lifting weights after practice and then donning his business suit and putting in four hours at Ernst and Young as a tax accountant.

“It’s really a good release to work, though,” he said. “I really love what I’m doing. It’s good to have work to take your mind off volleyball, and it’s good to have volleyball to take your mind off work.”

It’s a combination Arnold would like to maintain through, oh, say the summer of ’92.

“I can’t say the Olympics are a lifetime dream, but it is the goal I’ve aimed to reach for the last three years,” he said. “If it doesn’t happen, though, I’ll still be happy. I’ve got a great marriage and a good profession.”