She’s the Hottest Thing on the Beach : Volleyball: A firefighter in training, Angela Rock has teamed with Karolyn Kirby to burn up the women’s pro circuit, winning eight of 11 tournaments.

There are days when Angela Rock doesn’t know if she can keep dealing with the burning buildings, the medical emergencies and the alarms clanging in her ears at 3 a.m.

But she has to.

There are days when she leaves her job exhausted, only to look forward to a weekend of pounding a volleyball into the hot sand.

But she has no complaints.

Rock, a firefighter in training with the San Diego Fire Department, moonlights on the weekends with the Women’s Professional Volleyball Assn. beach tour.

The demands of each job take a toll on Rock, a former multi-sport standout at El Toro High School who played on the 1988 U.S. Olympic team.

The 24-hour shifts at the fire department. The 70-hour work weeks. The tournaments. The travel. It all runs together sometimes.

“It’s stressful,” she said. “There’s no time to sit and relax. I’m on the go all the time.

“Am I burned out? No way. I get a lot of satisfaction out of what I do. And I have too much to learn with firefighting. I’m too new. I’m too hungry.”

Rock has a similar approach to volleyball.

She and teammate Karolyn Kirby have dominated the WPVA tour this season, winning eight of 11 tournaments. They lead the tour in prize money with $44,250 each.

The San Diego duo is the top-seeded team for this weekend’s $40,000 tournament at Club del Beach in Camp Pendleton.

The season has been a rewarding one for Rock, who is in her sixth year on the tour. But she has no problem keeping perspective. She knows the risk every time she answers a fire call.

“I’ve had a few little injuries from the job,” Rock said, “but nothing serious. It worries me, though. Back and knee injuries are pretty common among firefighters. I know I’m taking a chance, but this is what I want to do.”

She also knows that concentrating on volleyball can be difficult after riding a roller coaster of emotions during the week.

“I had a situation a few months ago where I was really scared,” Rock said. “A lady had just shot herself in the head, and we were among the first ones there.

“It was so traumatic . . . to see the impact it had on everyone there. The family was there, and the lady was still alive when we got there. It reminded me how precious life is.”

She toyed with the idea of becoming a firefighter three years ago. She applied to the academy, passed the tests and went though training.

“I wanted a job where I could have some contact with the public,” she said. “I didn’t want some mundane 9-to-5 job.”

Rock, a 5-foot-8 outside hitter, was a Volleyball Monthly All-American as an El Toro senior in 1981. She also was an All-Southern Section selection in track and basketball.

She had basketball scholarship offers from a few small schools, but accepted a volleyball scholarship from San Diego State.

After two seasons with the Aztecs, Rock was cut from the team as a junior “because of an attitude problem.” She played her way back on the team, only to injure her ankle during the season.

“The summer of 1984 was pretty tough,” she said.

But Rock came back strong in the fall, having her best season and leading the Aztecs to seventh in the final NCAA rankings.

Her comeback was complete in 1985, when she landed a spot on the U.S. national team. She toured with the team for three years, playing on the beach in the summer with Liz Masakayan.

“Liz was my mentor on the beach,” Rock said. “She taught me everything. I was just a rookie back then, and I didn’t know anything.”

Rock continued to excel during the indoor season. In 1988, she played for the U.S. team that finished seventh at the Olympics in Seoul.

Rock had hopes of playing in the 1992 Games, but a wrist injury in 1989 encouraged her to quit the national team.

“I still thought I was playing my best volleyball then,” she said. “But I was getting antsy. I had to move on.

“My wrist was bothering me then, and that was a factor, but I was still playing well. I was sad, but I felt I couldn’t quit if I was down. I wanted to stop when I was still doing well.”

Rock began playing full-time on the beach last year, and continued her training at the firefighting academy. She finished her training in October, and is in the seventh month of her one-year probationary period.

Rock planned to team with Costa Mesa’s Rita Crockett, one of five players Rock played with last year. Then the phone rang three weeks before the season started in April.

It was Kirby.

Her partner, Jackie Silva of Redondo Beach, was sidelined with a shoulder injury and wasn’t expected to return until midseason. Kirby knew Rock when they played together on the national team, and wanted her as a partner.

Crockett was scheduled to play in Italy for the next several weeks, so Rock agreed.

Kirby and Rock opened the season with victories at Austin, Texas, and Daytona, Fla. They’ve been together since.

“I’m surprised we’ve won eight of 11,” Rock said. “I thought we might win 50%. One thing that helped us was that we had to come from behind in almost every game in that first tournament in Austin. It was kind of nice having that under our belt.”

Rock and Kirby haven’t finished lower than third this season. They won four consecutive tournaments in May before Gail Castro and Lori Kotas broke the streak at Reno in early June.

The secret to their success?

“Karolyn and I are very similar,” Rock said. “We’re both solid fundamentally and we both come prepared to play.

“I guess it’s just good chemistry. I can’t really say if it’s just one thing.”

Rock said Kirby, as well as fire department officials, have been patient with her scrambling between jobs.

Kirby has been flexible and understanding as far as practice time.

Rock trades shifts with fellow firefighters so she has weekends free for tournaments.

“It takes a lot of planning to find people to work for me,” Rock said. “Usually, I’ll work three 24-hour shifts during the week. Sometimes it will be slow, but sometimes you’re assigned to a busy station and you’re going all the time.”