Former Dana Hills Standout Has Best of Both Worlds : Volleyball: Hilliard’s time spent with U.S. team between college seasons turned out to be a great investment.

Brent Hilliard looked into his rear-view mirror as he drove away from theU.S. national volleyball team’s training center last December. One thought kept bouncing around in his mind.

Is the door he just slammed behind him locked from the inside?

Hilliard left the U.S. team to return for his junior season at Cal State Long Beach, where he had led the 49ers to the NCAA title as a sophomore.

After spending the summer and fall with the national team, Hilliard, a former Dana Hills High standout, was wondering if he should stay or go.

He went, much to the joy of Long Beach Coach Ray Ratelle and much to the chagrin of U.S. Coach Fred Sturm.

“Fred told me that leaving would hurt my chances of making the Olympic team,” Hilliard said. “That’s what made it a difficult decision.

“But I kept the theory in the back of my mind that I was still young (22), and I could come back to the team after the college season was over.”

Hilliard, a 6-foot-5 outside hitter, played with the national team instead of enrolling for classes at Long Beach in the fall of 1991.

He took advantage of a little-known and rarely used NCAA educational leave policy that allowed him to continue training in San Diego without losing collegiate eligibility.

It turned out to be a great investment.

“I thought I had produced enough in San Diego to leave a good impression,” Hilliard said. “It worked out perfect, because I got the best of both worlds.”

His stint with the national team made him a dominant force when he returned to college. He was the NCAA’s player of the year last spring, but the season didn’t finish the way he had hoped.

Long Beach was top-ranked, entering the Western Intercollegiate Volleyball Assn. tournament with a 27-2 record. The 49ers needed two victories to clinch a spot in the NCAA final four.

But Long Beach’s season ended after a second-round loss to eventual national champion Pepperdine, followed by a five-game loss to Cal State Northridge in the WIVA’s lower bracket.

Hilliard had 22 kills against Pepperdine, but it wasn’t nearly enough.

“I could see the fall coming on,” Hilliard said. “I had been playing for two years straight with college and the national team, and I had no break. I was exhausted.

“I don’t want to use that as an excuse, but I was burned out. In the last month of the season, I was drained. I carry the burden of losing those last matches. It was painful, but there was nothing I could do.”

After a two-week break, a weary Hilliard returned to San Diego.

The door was open.

“I still had to prove myself,” he said.

Hilliard began training with the national team as one of 18 players hoping to make the 12-player roster. He was used mainly as a reserve, but Sturm started him in a few World League matches in June during a trip to Japan.

He responded with a 45-kill performance, the league’s season-high at the time, in a U.S. victory.

“If I would have choked during those starts,” he said, “it would have been all over.”

Instead, Hilliard’s name was one of the 12 when the Olympic team was announced June 30.

“I’m glad I made it,” said Hilliard, who probably will be Steve Timmons’ backup at Barcelona. “The pressure is there to win.”

But the United States, which appeared unbeatable early in the World League season, has struggled somewhat lately. After sweeping Brazil in a playoff match July 3, the Americans were swept by Brazil two days later at the Forum.

The U.S. team played without captain and starting outside hitter Scott Fortune, who was nursing a strained hip. Former Olympic gold medalists Steve Timmons, Doug Partie and Jeff Stork had missed part of the previous month.

Hilliard and the other younger players on the team--Nick Becker, Bryan Ivie and Carlos Briceno--were having problems against the Brazilians.

“It was a combination of a few things,” Hilliard said. “Brazil played well and we were without our key player with Scott, one of our top passers.

“Our continuity has been broken in the last month. We haven’t played together enough, guys are coming and going, others are injured. We need some time to heal.”

Becoming an Olympian seemed to be such an outrageous goal for Hilliard when he started playing volleyball as a junior at Dana Hills. He was a two-year letterman in basketball and volleyball, but wasn’t offered a Division I scholarship in either sport.

Instead, he studied political science at Humboldt State in Northern California. He was intimidated about playing college volleyball, figuring he wasn’t good enough.

That began to change during a season with Humboldt’s club team, where Hilliard played with and against men six and eight years older.

Ratelle, one of the few college coaches who showed interest in Hilliard out of high school, heard of Hilliard’s play during a club tournament at UC Santa Barbara. At the end of the season, he offered Hilliard a scholarship.

Hilliard made the 49ers’ starting lineup as a freshman, averaging 6.17 kills per game and was named to Volleyball Monthly magazine’s national all-freshman team.

He began training with the national team’s ‘B’ squad during the summer after his freshman year.

As a sophomore, he set NCAA records for kills in a match (53), kills and kills per game (7.74). He was named the MVP of the 1991 NCAA tournament, where the 49ers beat defending champion USC in four games.

Hilliard joined the national team full time after his sophomore year. He broke into the starting lineup that fall, when Ivie moved from outside hitter to middle blocker. The United States won 11 of its last 12 matches.

Hilliard has been going nearly non-stop ever since. From college to the national team, back and forth.

He was hoping for a vacation after the Olympics end Aug. 9, maybe get some time to take it easy in Northern California.

“The World League playoffs start up again and then school starts,” he said. “I might get two weeks off after the Olympics, but that’s not much of a vacation.”