Courting a New Game : Gabe Higa Joins Brother at Pierce, Goes From Basketball to Volleyball

This is no midlife crisis for Gabe Higa or a fantasy he is trying to fulfill.

But even Higa, who at 21 appears to have few worries, concedes that the idea of being a novice volleyball player at Pierce College after a distinguished high school basketball career is, well, unusual.

“I thought I’d still be playing basketball in college,” said Higa, a former standout at Quartz Hill High, where he also was a champion triple jumper. “I had no idea I would be playing volleyball.”

And a couple of years ago, Michael Jordan probably never thought he’d be playing minor league baseball, although Higa, already an excellent spiker, has proved he can hit a ball more consistently. But that’s another story.

This one is about a versatile 6-foot-6 athlete who not only has taken up a new sport, but is enjoying success as a starting opposite hitter on a powerful Brahma team that is 14-0 (13-0 in Western State Conference play) and a strong contender for the state championship.

Not altogether bad for a guy who first picked up volleyball seriously about two years ago, when he started playing at the beach with his brother Branden, 19, a sophomore outside hitter at Pierce.

Right about then, Higa’s basketball career was in transition from a Division I program at UC Irvine to the junior college ranks at Irvine Valley College. His interest in the game had fizzled to nothing.

“Basketball got to be kind of a job,” Higa said. “I’m happier playing volleyball than I was playing basketball. I pretty much got burned out on it.”

At Quartz Hill, Higa’s opponents were the ones being torched by his shooting.

He averaged 24.7 points and 11.5 rebounds his senior season, when he was an All-Valley selection. He left Quartz Hill with eight school records, including 1,486 points in his career. In the spring, he was a two-time Southern Section 4-A Division champion in the triple jump, winning in his junior and senior seasons with jumps of 48 feet 8 inches and 48-2 feet, but gave up track after high school and accepted a basketball scholarship to UC Irvine.

“There was no scholarship money in track unless you were a sprinter or someone who could score a lot of points for the team,” Higa said.

Under Bill Mulligan’s up-tempo offense at Irvine, Higa played off guard and small forward his freshman season. But when Mulligan resigned and Rod Baker took over the next season, Higa’s playing time dwindled in Baker’s half-court offense. Higa also had a nagging ankle injury and eventually received a medical redshirt for the season.

“I didn’t fit into (Baker’s) plans,” Higa said.

Higa transferred to Irvine Valley, where Mulligan had become coach, and played about half a season before pneumonia knocked him out of action.

By then, volleyball was beginning to pique his interest, so Higa decided to join his brother at Pierce.

Initially, Brahma Coach Ken Stanley didn’t know whether Higa would be skilled enough to stick with the team, but he was pleasantly surprised after watching Higa on the court a few times.

“I knew he was a good athlete, but I’ve seen a lot of good athletes who can’t play volleyball,” said Stanley, who guided the Brahmas to the state title two seasons ago.

“But he has a tremendous ability to jump (43-inch vertical leap), which is pretty impressive, and he is able to take instruction very well and is so consistent in doing what we ask him to do. . . . He has improved a ton. He has made steady, upward improvement.”

For Higa, the challenge of playing a new sport has rekindled his athletic spirit, something he says was missing the last two years.

He enjoys his teammates and is grateful they have accepted and helped him.

Even having to rise before dawn to make practices at 5:45 a.m. at Valley College, where the Brahmas work out and play their home matches because the Pierce gym was condemned after the Jan. 17 earthquake, hasn’t dampened his newfound enthusiasm.

“It’s a new sport and it’s exciting to learn it,” Higa said. “I consider myself a good beach player, but when I came (to Pierce) I had no concept of the footwork or the timing needed to hit a ball, for example. I’m still pretty rough and I don’t like the way I look when I watch (game) tapes of myself but I’m having a great time.

“My job on the team is pretty basic. Just hit the ball as hard as I can and block. Our team could survive without me.”

Stanley doesn’t share that opinion but admits that Higa needs to refine his skills, including his defensive work at the net.

“The one area he really needs to improve on is his blocking,” Stanley said. “He could be much more effective.”

Higa could have attempted to make the Irvine Valley volleyball team, the defending state champion, but chose Pierce for three reasons: His brother plays there, he considers Stanley and assistant Bert Fuller two of the best coaches in the state, and he wanted to move to the Valley.

“This is an ideal situation,” said Higa, who was born in Encino and moved to Antelope Valley when he was 7. “We (Branden and he) live with our grandma (Florence Bunde) in Northridge and we can go home and she cooks dinner for us and we don’t pay rent. You can’t beat that.”

Living together and playing side-by-side have allowed the brothers, who had a moderate sports rivalry in high school, to become closer.

They refer to the other as their best friend and would love to play together at a four-year school, although Gabe questions whether a coach would take a chance on a player with only one year of college eligibility remaining.

“It was important to me back (in high school) to be my own person,” said Branden Higa, who has always concentrated on volleyball. “But volleyball has brought us closer together. . . . Just having a talent like him on the team is great. Thank God he is here and nowhere else.”