Upbringing Launched Ferguson’s Career : Prep volleyball: Royal’s standout setter received an early education in the sport.

There is no truth to the story that Royal High setter Travis Ferguson found a volleyball in his bassinet. It only seems as if he has been playing that long.

The son of two volleyball coaches, Ferguson will lead the Highlanders into their fourth consecutive Southern Section final today against Esperanza at Cerritos College.

Ferguson was 3 when he asked his mother Sandy if she could teach him to pass a volleyball, family legend holds.

“Travis has always been playing with some kind of ball,” said Sandy, a Royal assistant and junior varsity coach. “With him, it was never toy cars or fire engines. It was always balls. He used to shoot a basketball into his high chair.”

It is volleyball that now takes center stage for the 17-year-old senior.

“It’s something that is in my blood,” he said. “I grew up with it. I was destined to play.”

Sandy Ferguson played on Mira Costa High’s first competitive volleyball team and has coached since her college days at Pepperdine. Bob Ferguson took up beach volleyball as a teen-ager and played basketball on the freshman team at Pepperdine. He has coached the Royal girls’ volleyball team since 1984 and founded the school’s boys’ program in 1989. Heidi Ferguson, Travis’ 13-year-old sister, is a setter on her club volleyball team.

A scrawny, 5-foot-4 freshman on Royal’s first boys’ team, Travis moved up from the junior varsity to play a reserve role on the Highlanders’ 2-A championship squad.

In 1990, Travis became a starter and the Highlanders repeated as 2-A champions. Royal moved to the 3-A last season and advanced to the final before losing to Harvard-Westlake in five games.

Now a sturdy 5-11, Travis has matured into one of the top players in the country. The two-time All-Southern Section standout has competed on U.S. national development teams and will play next spring for UC San Diego, which is coached by former U.S. Olympic team setter Rod Wilde.

Benefiting from Ferguson’s growth as a player and the development of Steve Hodge, Brett Osterhoudt and Kerry White as top-flight hitters, Royal has enjoyed remarkable success.

The Highlanders have lost only two games in 21 matches, winning their fourth consecutive Marmonte League title along the way. Royal also won the Dos Pueblos invitational in March, becoming the first 3-A team to win the prestigious 4-A-dominated event.

Ferguson’s down-to-earth nature off the court is contrasted by his almost cocky confidence on the floor. He is often the target of barbs from opposing players and spectators. If there is a Royal player that others love to hate, it is Ferguson.

“I play with a lot of energy,” Ferguson said. “I scream and yell the whole time. That’s the only way I can play.”

But Ferguson claims he has discovered the fine line between confidence and arrogance.

“You have to be completely sure of what you can do,” he said. “I’m not cocky to where I think I’m better than anyone else. If you lose respect for your opponents, that’s when you are going to get beat.”

Ferguson learned that lesson the hard way as a freshman. He yelled at a couple of junior-varsity teammates for making mistakes and then watched the squad collapse and lose.

“Seeing us lose because I was a jerk showed me we could not win with me acting like that,” Ferguson said. “When I came in as a freshman, I was pretty high on myself and didn’t work with the rest of the team.”

Such competitive juices began to flow early for Travis. At 10, he entered his first two-man, beach tournament with his father. After winning two games, they were beaten by one of the top-ranked teams in the tournament.

“Travis was mad when we lost,” Bob said. “He thought we should have won the whole tournament.”

Channeling that intensity in the right direction has made Travis a better player.

“Travis is a real self-motivated kid,” Bob said. “It’s not just his athletic ability or his passion to play volleyball. It’s his intelligence that makes him such a good player.”

Travis spends plenty of time before matches studying film to discover opponents’ tendencies and to break down his own mistakes. Ferguson carries a 4.2 grade-point average and will graduate fifth in a class of about 550 seniors. He hopes to eventually study medicine, with a goal of becoming an orthopedic surgeon.

“If he didn’t play athletics at all, I would still be very proud of him for what he has done as a student,” Bob said.

But while the family tries to balance other interests with sports, “you can come home and talk always turns to volleyball,” Travis said. “It’s a great environment. You always are learning something.”

The whole family is aware that today will mark the end of an era: It is Travis’ last high school match.

Said Travis: “I just want to go out and make the best of it. Winning the championship would be a great culmination to my high school career.”