Transition Game : Some Athletes Find That They Don’t Fit Into Collegiate Sports as Well as They Did Those on the High School Level

So, you’re going off to college--your bags are packed with extra long twin sheets for those odd-sized dorm beds and you’re wearing the same sweatshirt with the giant school logo that you’ve been wearing since you got your acceptance letter.

But what has become of your soccer ball and baseball glove? Have you left them in your bedroom as shrines to your high school glory years? Or, have you tucked them under your arm along with a bag of high hopes?

For the majority of high school athletes, facing the future means making tough decisions about sports. Even if an athlete is lucky enough to walk on to a college team or--even luckier--to get a scholarship, he or she often faces a rude awakening in a college gym. For most, growing up means leaving behind interscholastic athletics.

Lana Bordcosh ran track and played soccer for four years at Fountain Valley High School and was selected most inspirational track athlete her junior and senior years, but never was selected all-league. She also ran one year of cross-country.

Bordcosh chose to attend UCLA for academic reasons; she wants to be a doctor. She had decided not to pursue athletics after high school, but she grew restless in her dorm during the fall of her freshman year in 1994.

“It was very, very hard to make the transition. I got frustrated because I was so used to spending my time doing some kind of athletic activity,” she said. “I really identified [with sports] . . . Subconsciously, [not playing sports] was bothering me.”

So Bordcosh gathered her courage and walked into the office of UCLA track Coach Jeanette Bolden, who won a gold medal with the U.S. 400-meter relay team at the 1984 Olympics. Since 1982, members of the Bruin women’s track and field team have won 24 individual NCAA titles. But Bordcosh was undaunted.

“I said, ‘This is something that is very important for me and I’m willing to go out there every day. I think I have potential,’ ” Bordcosh said. “[Bolden] said she wasn’t promising anything but [said], ‘We’ll see how you come along.’ ”

Bordcosh concentrated on the long jump, but after working all spring last year, her best jumps were in the low 18-foot range. The top college women long jumpers go at least two feet farther than that.

“I found out it’s not my level,” Bordcosh said.

Bordcosh also discovered that track practice often conflicted with classes she needed to take. She realized she had to make a decision.

“As time progressed, I started to find out that I was forced to prioritize. It was a big time commitment, four hours a day,” she said. “I also realized that I wasn’t going to the Olympics and I didn’t want my grades to be in jeopardy.”

What’s more, Bordcosh found the team interaction much different than on her high school team. She felt different from many of UCLA’s Olympic hopefuls, for whom track is much more than just an after-school activity.

“I didn’t feel the same sense of belonging that I had in high school,” she said.

So Bordcosh settled back into academic life as a sophomore in fall without intercollegiate athletics. She still works out every day with a friend in the students’ gym and competes in intramural athletics for fun.

“When I go to the track and I see it, I think I made the right decision, although I do miss it. But I miss the feeling that I got from high school track. It will always be a passion,” she said, noting that she recently attended the Pacific 10 track and field championships at UCLA as a spectator. “But for now, I’m happy sitting on the bench.”

Unlike Bordcosh, many high school athletes settle quickly into college life without competitive athletics.

Kory Kramer helped Santa Margarita to a third-place finish in the Southern Section finals of the 400-meter relay last year. But Kramer, voted most likely to succeed as a Santa Margarita senior, has moved on to other activities at Boston College.

Kramer was named managing editor on one of Boston College’s student newspapers, The Observer, and is one of 20 student justices on the school’s student judicial board. He also helped found a chapter of the St. Thomas More Society, a Catholic student organization.

“I didn’t have time. I wanted to try something else. After playing four years in high school and succeeding at it, I wanted to try something else to succeed in at college,” Kramer said.

Similarly, Jayne Nichols was burned out on athletics after playing sports year-round for four years at University High before graduating last year. She began playing soccer at age 4 and played four years of soccer and tennis at University. She also ran track as a freshman and played softball as a sophomore as well as playing three years of club soccer.

“Sports were a passion for me. [They] totally enveloped me. That defined who I was in high school,” Nichols said.

Nichols wasn’t offered any scholarships and decided to attend USC to major in nursing. Trojan soccer Coach Karen Stanley encouraged Nichols to try out for the team.

Nichols carried her cleats to the field and sat down.

“I was watching the team practice before tryouts and I just realized that’s not what I wanted,” Nichols said.

Nichols’ mother, Jolayne, was initially distraught over her daughter’s decision not to play sports.

“You almost feel like you quit when you don’t continue in college, but personally, I don’t think I quit,” Nichols said. “I love sports, but I didn’t like that identity. I was just ready to move on. I had a great time at University doing sports, but that’s where I left it.”

For Nichols, the parting was sweet.

“The first semester [at USC] I was so lazy because I was so happy that I didn’t have to [compete]. I just took a year off completely in every way you can imagine. I was always so controlled that I kind of let loose for a year,” she said.

Nichols has taken up sports again, competing with her sorority in Helen of Troy intramural athletics. But now, she sees sports in a much different light--”It’s really neat because I can compete with friends now for fun whereas before I always had to win,” she said.

Occasionally, however, Nichols is struck with nostalgia.

“I’m not going to say I don’t miss it because I do. I went and watched the tennis and the soccer teams at USC. I wasn’t jealous, but I envied the experience they were getting because I know it is a wonderful thing,” she said. “In high school, I hated practice, but now I miss that bonding experience with my teammates and struggling with each other. It sounds stupid, but it’s a really neat thing to work hard together. That connection with your teammates, that’s something you can never get again.”

Nonetheless, Nichols is firm that she made the right decision.

“You know when your time is over, and I just didn’t want it anymore,” she said. “When you don’t have the desire it’s not worth it because other people do.”

For many high school athletes, a variety of factors prevent them from competing in college. If it’s not because of a lack of talent, it’s because of injury. If they can’t get a scholarship, often they must get a job.

Alexei Yanuaria was the 1995 Southern Section Division I wrestling champion in the 130-pound weight class as a senior at Anaheim.

Wrestling scholarships are especially scarce because many colleges have cut back their men’s nonrevenue sports programs in an effort to comply with gender equity regulations.

Even if Yanuaria had earned a scholarship, other factors might have pinned him at home. He has to work to support his 4-month-old son, Felix.

Yanuaria attends Fullerton College but hopes to transfer to Cypress and is considering wrestling again.

“I still want to wrestle because I feel like I have to complete something,” he said. “It’s still on my mind.”

For those who simply can’t put the urge to compete out of their minds, most are overwhelmed by college athletics.

“You go from being a big fish in a little pond to being a very small fish in a gigantic sea,” said David Berney, who finally earned the starting setting position on the USC volleyball team this season after struggling for two years.

Berney, 6 feet, was a Southern Section first-team selection as a senior at Laguna Beach in 1993. He also was selected to Volleyball Monthly magazine’s Fabulous 50 prep list, and was the Pacific Coast League’s most valuable player.

He was offered scholarships to several schools but chose to walk on at USC.

“Knowing my height and knowing that volleyball wasn’t going to be my life, I picked the school that I thought would give me the best education,” he said.

Because of that decision, Berney had to fight hard for a starting spot, enduring last-minute switches that pulled him out of the starting lineup just when he thought he earned it. Through all the frustration, he never quit.

“I have been playing for so long, I didn’t want to quit, and second, I know that nothing in life is going to be easy, and the sooner you start quitting on things, the harder your life is going to be in the long run,” he said. “I knew that, even as hard as it was, if I stuck with it, I would learn something.”

Berney, who has completed the requirements for his business degree but will continue in school in order to play volleyball next spring, knows the end is near.

“It’s hard not to have [sports],” he said. “I haven’t [been out of sports] yet, but I can see it coming.”

Ali Zamora saw the end of her career coming but dodged it.

After graduating from Santa Margarita in 1992, Zamora attended Chico State to play volleyball. After two years at Chico State, Zamora was dissatisfied with the school.

“I think my sophomore year I stepped back and said, ‘How important is volleyball?’ I just want to be at a good place that I will enjoy.”

Zamora gave up volleyball, moved home and took a heavy load for one semester at Saddleback College in order to make the difficult transfer to UCLA. The move was a risk because there was no guarantee she would get in to UCLA.

“Toward the end of the semester I started getting really discouraged and my dad [Capistrano Valley baseball Coach Bob Zamora] said, ‘What about volleyball? Why don’t you give the coach a call?’ I did and it just so happened that [UCLA Coach] Andy Banachowski needed people. They just needed little back row specialists. Faster than I knew it could happen, he had me in the school.”

Zamora initially was overwhelmed by the size of the Bruin women and their power.

“I thought, ‘Oh my gosh. What have I gotten myself into?’ ” she said.

But her confidence and skills soon returned and Zamora got plenty of playing time in the back row last season.

“It was really exciting for me. I had to take a different role than I was used to. At Chico and in high school I was always the leader. Now I had to take this back seat, kind of cheerleading role, but I love it.”

For Brian Haas, putting college sports in perspective helped him during his four years as a reserve linebacker at USC.

Haas was a first team all-Orange County linebacker selection by The Times’ and a Southern Section Division II first team selection after helping El Toro to the section semifinals as a senior in 1990.

Although he was given a scholarship, he was a redshirt his first year in 1991, then struggled to get into the starting lineup for the next four years. Finally, he started five games last season as a senior when regular starter Errick Herrin was ruled ineligible.

Although he was frustrated when he didn’t start, Haas never quit. And somewhere along the way, he realized there was more to life than football. He graduated with a degree in public administration after the fall semester and intends to pursue a career in the Secret Service.

“Every kid goes to college wanting to be an All-American and the No. 1 draft choice and you get there and some kids can do that, but most of them don’t,” he said. “Football took me as far as it is going to. Not a lot of guys can say, ‘I finished my career with a win in the Rose Bowl.’ It was a great note to go out on and I didn’t want to spoil that.”

If the final note rings too long, after all, it can spoil the whole piece.