Bird Lifts Highland’s Fledgling Program to Lofty Perch : Boys’ volleyball: Coach leads Bulldogs into Southern Section title match against perennial power Royal.

Royal High boys’ volleyball Coach Bob Ferguson has seen the future of Southern Section Division II volleyball, and it looks like. . . . a crew cut?

Sort of. Mike Bird, proud new owner of a buzz haircut, coaches the hottest and most surprising team around, Highland.

Thanks in large part to the sudden success of Bird’s fledgling program, volleyball has spread its wings in the Antelope Valley.

And why not? He took a team in only its third year at the varsity level to the brink of the mountaintop. And what a view: an undefeated season, the Golden League championship, the Poway and Redondo Beach tournament championships and, now, to the section final.

Highland (18-0) will face perennial power Royal (17-3) at 5 p.m. today at Cerritos College.

“He’s a great coach,” Ferguson said. “I’m really impressed with the program that he’s put together. He’s really a class guy, and I’ve told him that too. I’m not just saying that for the press.”

Nor was Bird’s haircut a staged photo opportunity. Win the Golden League title and you can give me a haircut in front of the whole school, he told his players. They did, and so they did.

As for Ferguson, he is more accustomed to championship matches. This is the sixth consecutive season in which the Highlanders have advanced to the division final, and they have won three times. But this is Royal’s last season in Division II; the team moves to Division I next year.

Ferguson knows how that void will be filled.

“The desert area has just gone crazy,” Ferguson said. “They’re going to dominate Division II.”

An example of the fever pitch: Highland reserve James Gonzaga cheered so wildly at the Redondo tournament, he passed out.

Such fervor has come quickly and could grow if other high desert schools lure energetic, talented coaches to spread the gospel of the bump, set and spike.

“There’s a lot of talent up there,” Ferguson said.

And clearly, a Bird in the sand is worth quite a bit when starting a volleyball program.

Highland opened only five years ago. Enter Bird, fresh off a one-year stint coaching the boys’ and girls’ teams at Agoura High. He had moved to the Antelope Valley in search of affordable housing and a teaching/coaching job at either Highland or Littlerock highs.

He was offered employment at both and chose Highland. The first two years, the newly opened school fielded only junior varsity teams in volleyball. The past three, Bird’s teams have soared.

“It’s a complete surprise and it just keeps getting better and better,” he said. “I knew we were good but by no means did I expect this.”

But unexpected success is not altogether new for Bird, 29.

In the early 1980s, Bird, who played basketball at Calabasas High, was languishing on the bench at Pierce College.

“I realized there wasn’t a whole lot of room for a 6-foot-2 white guy who wasn’t real quick and couldn’t jump very high,” he said.

But by chance, Dave Rubio, a Cal State Northridge men’s volleyball assistant, saw Bird setting volleyballs in a gym one summer day.

Bird was killing time between refereeing some youth volleyball matches. Rubio took a look and offered him a tryout with the Matador program.

Seems Northridge was entering NCAA Division I and needed bodies. Though Bird had never played organized volleyball--he was an avid beach player--he became the team’s starting setter.

“We were horrible,” he said. “But I was forced to learn so much so quickly it helped me become a student of the game.”

The student decided he wanted to teach. He played at Northridge from 1984-87 and was a graduate assistant there in 1988. He earned his teaching credential and set out to teach physics and volleyball.

His first coaching task at Highland was not to make the players good. It was to make them like volleyball.

A self-described volley-a-holic, Bird transmitted his love for the sport to his desert dwellers--none of whom play club volleyball, considered de rigueur for serious players.

Convention be damned. Two-on-two grass tournaments in the summers would suffice, and let the spikes fall where they may--which more often than not has been on the opponents’ side of the net.

Highland’s strength is its talented middle blocker duo, Ryan Millar (6-7) and Mac Wilson (6-8), and dependable outside hitting by Neal Scott and Robert Nester.

Royal, which has lost only one league match in six years, is led by senior setter Josh White and opposite hitter Matt Olsen (6-6). Eric Carlsen and Garrison Chaffee man the middle, and Scott Hambly and Danny Rizzo play on the outside.

White is the team’s lone returning starter--making Royal’s return to a championship match surprising in its own way.

“That’s a total tribute to their program,” Bird said. “And to Bob and (assistant) Sandy Ferguson. Both of them live the game like I live the game.”

Bird may live the game somewhere else in a few years, because he plans to move to the San Diego area sometime soon. Bye, bye, Birdie? Not yet. For now his attention is focused on the present.

“We’re enjoying all the success we’re having, because it doesn’t come that often,” he said. “It makes it so much more fun than if we expected to do it.”