Intensity Has Helped Youngs Reach the Top : Women’s volleyball: Former El Toro High and UCLA player not afraid to get angry on the court.

The long rally is punctuated by powerful spikes and diving digs that elicit oooohs and ahhhhhs from the spectators. It ends as the ball thumps into the sand inches beyond the nylon strap that marks the court’s perimeter.

And an anguished, primal scream overpowers the applause.

These are the sounds of women’s beach volleyball . . . when Elaine Youngs is playing.

“She brings a real dimension of power to the women’s game, but what I like best is that she gets really (angry),” said Dee Rambeau, public address announcer for the Bud Light 4-Woman tour. “Elaine gets into the game the way the men do.”

Off the court, Youngs is more apt to giggle than snarl. But her game face bears a scowl that would discourage subway thugs. When she played at El Toro High (she graduated in 1988), an opponent said she felt as if “Elaine, at any moment, is going to turn around and punch me in the face.”

“It’s funny,” Youngs said. “You see the men play like that, but then if a woman does it, it’s like ‘Oh, my gosh.’ It just seems to make people uncomfortable. Even a lot of the women I play with can’t handle it.

“I don’t know, maybe I do get a little too out of control sometimes, but there’s nothing wrong with being into the match.”

Her aggressive intensity was honed in the street in front of her house while playing football with her four brothers and their friends. “She never learned to play like a girl,” said her mother, Carolyn.

Drive and passion have always been a combustible combo for Youngs. In high school, she heckled opponents, screamed at teammates and all the while dominated the action on volleyball and basketball courts.

Some liked her spunk. Many hated her antics. Everybody marveled at her talent and ability to use it so efficiently.

A four-time All-American at UCLA, Youngs led the Bruins to a pair of NCAA Championships and was the tournament MVP in 1991. This summer, she’s competing on the Bud Light Tour and last month, she became the newest member of the U.S. National team.

Clearly, the fire still burns. She hasn’t exactly mellowed.

“What Elaine has is a great gift for any athlete,” said U.S. Women’s Team Coach Terry Liskevych. “The key to success on this level is the intensity, the competitiveness and just the will to win.

“A lot of people may say it’s a sexist statement, but it really helps a female athlete to grow up playing with boys. Boys in our society learn to compete very hard from a very young age. You’re in an environment where you learn to scrape for every little advantage. It’s something no coach can teach you. You either have it or you don’t and Elaine has it.”

Youngs sat in the sand at Seal Beach recently, taking a break between games during a stop on the four-woman tour. She dug her tanned feet into the sand and let the grains sift between her toes as she reflected about her past and pondered her future.

“There’s really so much I want to do,” she said. “I want to play in the Olympics. I want to play (professionally) in Italy. And I want to keep playing the four-person beach game while I’m playing indoors.

“But eventually, after ‘96, I want to play doubles on the beach. That’s the ultimate for a volleyball player. You’ve got to cover a lot of ground and you’ve got to be able to do it all to play two-man.”

Youngs wanting to prove herself in the game’s most macho format? Gee, what a surprise.

She has been blessed with talent, no question, and no one has ever doubted her desire to make the most of the gift. Like Tina Turner, Youngs never ever does anything nice and easy.

During her sophomore year at UCLA, she was jumping in warm-ups before a volleyball game and felt something “give” in her knee. She underwent arthroscopic surgery and missed only five regular-season games before returning in time for the NCAA championships.

“I rushed back too soon,” she said. “Then I played in two basketball games and had to quit because the cutting and everything was too much for it.”

She spent the next six months in rehabilitation, venting her frustration on weight-room equipment, but results came painfully slow. “I ended up having another (arthroscopic) surgery to clean it up because it just wouldn’t get better,” she said.

After eight more months of rehab, the machines were as tired as Youngs, who, incredibly, had increased her vertical jump by two inches. “It feels great now,” she said, “absolutely no problem at all.”

Youngs has never been afraid of a little pain or hard work, and she pays as much attention to the game’s little necessities--passing and defense--as she does to the glory aspects of hitting and blocking.

She has always known that down and dirty is just as important as high and mighty.

“I take a lot of pride in my all-around game, especially my passing and defense,” she said. “I know I’m good at it and I want people to understand how important it is to the team.”

Her all-around skills have not gone unnoticed. Just ask Liskevych, who decided to make room on the roster for just one player this year.

“Elaine is a complete volleyball player,” he said. “She’s a big hitter, but she also plays good defense and can pass the ball and she’s a great server.

“She’s the only person we’ve looked at in ’93 and added to the team without a tryout.”

Actually, Youngs did work out for two days with the national team in San Diego before Liskevych put her on the roster and put her on a plane to Switzerland, where the U.S. team competed in the B.C.V. Volley in Montreux.

“I practiced with the team for five days before the tournament started,” Youngs said. “I made the starting lineup and played the whole time. It was a great experience for me to see what it’s like on that level.

“I loved the competitiveness of the players. I loved the intensity of the atmosphere. It’s the type of situation I’ve always wanted to be in.”

Youngs can expect the atmosphere and the plot to thicken in the next few years as the American women prepare for the 1996 Olympics. Liskevych says you can plan on seeing a great deal of Youngs in Atlanta.

“We’re kind of in flux now,” he said. “A lot of our people are playing (professionally) in Italy, but Elaine played very, very well in Switzerland. I was impressed.

“I’ve been here for nine years and I’ve seen a lot of players come in and then seen what kind of player they become in three or four years, so I feel like I have a pretty good eye for that. And I think Elaine is somebody who is going to be one of the top players in this program in ’96.”

So stay tuned, but keep your finger on the mute button if the kids are around. If Youngs nets a serve, the Olympic telecast might become R-rated in a hurry.