Quirky Quintet

Ryan Millar of Brigham Young has dyed his hair a color that would make Dennis Rodman do a double take.

UC Santa Barbara’s Donny Harris, a mechanical engineer, shaves his mutton-chop sideburns to different shapes and lengths for one reason: fun.

Jason Ring of Hawaii plans to become a fisherman for a year after his college volleyball career.

Kevin Barnett of Pepperdine owns a pair of iguanas, Eeyore and Oscar.

And Tom Stillwell of UCLA was a self-described gangly and awkward player in high school.

Though it may be a fine one, the thread that weaves these five successful and unusual volleyball players is their connection to the region.

Ring and Barnett were teammates at Pierce College. Stillwell attended Notre Dame High. Harris went to La Canada and Millar went to Highland.

They will all be in action tonight in the first round of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation tournament at different sites.

And they will all be relied upon by their teams, Millar maybe more the others.

He was named MPSF player of the year on Thursday, an impressive feat for a sophomore.

Millar his changed plenty since he left Highland, where he was named The Times’ 1995 player of the year in the region. He lifts weights, his vertical leap has improved and he feels more confident. He set a BYU record with 48 kills against Pepperdine.

Millar also has a different outlook, which he adopted after watching two teammates suffer serious injuries.

“It’s kind of scary to watch, but I think I have a bigger love for the game now,” the 6-foot-7 middle blocker said. “Every time might be my last time.”

Millar also changed his hair from a brown buzz cut in high school to a bleach-blond frock.

“I just think, ‘Why be like everybody else when you can be different?’ ” he said. “I don’t think it makes me play better or look better.”

Millar’s goals are to look good as a member of the 2000 U.S. Olympic team or as a pro beach player. The beach, however, will have to wait.

“Maybe when I get to be old and crusty and my body can’t handle the indoor floor anymore,” he said.

Harris, Santa Barbara’s 6-7 senior opposite hitter, can handle just about anything.

He leads the nation with 7.51 kills per game and is only the seventh player to surpass 2,000 kills in a career.

His three trademarks are his arm swing, vertical leap and facial hair.

Whether it’s mutton-chop sideburns, a handlebar mustache or lightning bolts shaved into the sides of his head, the former La Canada High standout has worn them all.

He will not shave his mutton chops until the Gauchos’ season ends.

“It’s just a fun, goofy thing to do,” he said.

In the classroom, Harris is more serious. His father, Alan, is an astronomer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena and his mother, Rose, teaches chemistry at La Canada. Naturally, Harris is a mechanical engineering major.

He does not, however, have the same affinity for studying asteroids that his dad does.

“I’ve never had that desire,” said Harris, who likely will pursue engineering design or administration. “But he’s always asked that one question . . . when will the big one hit the earth?”

Ring, Hawaii’s 6-3 senior opposite hitter, has accumulated the most frequent-flier mileage.

Originally from Topanga, Ring and his family moved when he was 6 to Bend, Ore. He returned to Southern California and played two seasons at Pierce before changing zip codes again by transferring to Hawaii, where he has reached celebrity status.

Last season, the Rainbows advanced to the NCAA championship match and lost to UCLA in five games. When they returned home, the players were greeted at the airport by a throng of fans.

Ring signed autographs for more than two hours and accepted leis around his neck until they were eye level.

The fanaticism carried over to this season, where more than 100,000 fans have seen the Rainbows play at home.

“Anywhere you go, people know who you are,” said Ring, who averages 5.96 kills per game, 10th best in the nation. “With no professional teams out here, the whole island takes pride in the university.”

Ring shrugs off the notion of fame. Instead, he’d rather be fishing, which he plans to pursue after graduating.

Like Ring, Barnett, Pepperdine’s 6-6 senior outside hitter, was an out-of-state import, from Naperville, Ill.

Unlike Ring, Barnett arrived with an attitude.

After playing volleyball for a year in high school, Barnett moved to Southern California and had visions of becoming king of the beach.

“I thought I was awesome,” he said. “I had the ego of a player who was great. I went down to the beach and would call games and get on the court and people would be like, ‘You’re terrible.’

“I look back at that and laugh. I quickly found out I wasn’t very good.”

Barnett enrolled at Pierce and toned down the attitude. The Brahmas reached the state final both years he and Ring played at Pierce, and the Waves came calling.

A second-team All-American last season, Barnett is averaging 5.71 kills per game, 14th best in the nation. His .563 aces per game is fourth best.

He takes special pride in one statistic that doesn’t show up in the box score: Two iguanas thrive in his care.

Early in the high school career of UCLA’s Stillwell, it appeared his name and the term All-American would never be used in the same sentence. Or paragraph. Or story.

As a freshman and sophomore, he merely blocked traffic in the locker room. Gawky and uncoordinated, nobody compared Stillwell to Karch Kiraly.

“I was tall, skinny, jumped high and could get my arms over the net,” Stillwell said. “I was like a raw talent, but I didn’t really have the skills.”

He improved as a junior and attracted recruiters. He also decided that volleyball, not basketball, would be his college sport.

As a sophomore at UCLA last year, the 6-8 junior middle blocker led the nation with 2.09 blocks per game.

Stillwell averages an NCAA-best 1.96 blocks per game for the two-time defending NCAA champion and is on his way to consecutive blocking titles. But he says there’s only one number that matters: “Two more rings.”

Today’s Playoffs

Mountain Pacific Sports Federation tournament first-round matchups:

* Pacific (16-10, 9-10) at UCLA (21-3, 17-2), 8 p.m.

* Pepperdine (18-8, 13-6) at Stanford (22-3, 16-3), 7 p.m.

* Hawaii (18-10, 10-9) at Brigham Young (19-5, 14-5), 6 p.m.

* UC Santa Barbara (16-8, 13-6) at Long Beach State (19-9, 12-7), 7:30 p.m.