He Is Rising to New Heights in Volleyball : Paralympics: Although Tom Sestanovich is a newcomer to the sport, he has earned a berth on the U.S. team that is competing in Barcelona.

Tom Sestanovich, a member of the U.S. paralympic volleyball team, spent very little time playing volleyball last week.

Instead, as he prepared to depart for Barcelona, Sestanovich was busy negotiating contracts and transactions as a real estate attorney for a three-member law firm.

“It’s been building up for the past few months,” said Sestanovich, 29, who lives in Manhattan Beach. “The last two days I might have been putting in 20 hours a day to get enough done so I can leave. I never want to work this hard again.”

A little more than a year ago, Sestanovich, who lost his right leg to cancer at age 15, had never considered playing volleyball.

During a business trip to Sacramento in June, Sestanovich was playing in a pick-up basketball game at Cal State Sacramento when he caught the attention of Dennis Lee.

Lee, a member of the U.S. paralympic volleyball team, was in Sacramento to recruit players at a disabled volleyball tournament. He was impressed by Sestanovich’s athleticism.

The 6-foot-2 Sestanovich does not wear a prosthesis, but said he has a 40-inch vertical leap and can dunk a basketball.

Lee invited Sestanovich to try out for the national volleyball team that will opened play in the IX Paralympic Games Friday against Germany.

“He asked me if I had ever played volleyball and I told him, ‘No.’ Then he said, ‘Well, we’re going to teach you,’ ” Sestanovich said of Lee, who lost an arm in a motorcycle accident.

Sestanovich proved to be a quick learner. A month later, at a three-day tryout in New York, Sestanovich was chosen to the 10-man team from a field of 50 players.

Most of the 10 players had college volleyball experience and disabilities that range from loss of fingers to loss of a limb. Nevertheless, Sestanovich, the only player without any previous volleyball experience, will be a starting middle blocker during the paralympics, which continue through Sept. 16.

“I didn’t know quite what to expect because I never heard of disabled sports,” Sestanovich said. “They won a lot of respect from me. No one ever says, ‘I can’t do it.’ The competition is so intense at this level that their disabilities mean nothing.”

The paralympics began in 1964 to serve as the Olympics for the physically disabled. More than 4,000 athletes--including 520 from the United States--and nearly 100 countries will participate in 16 sports. The athletes will stay in the Olympic Village and compete at the same venues used at last month’s games.

Sestanovich was active in football and baseball leagues as a youth in Woodland Hills. The summer before his sophomore year at Taft High, he developed a bruise on the outside of his right knee. He ignored it until the swelling became so great that he had difficulty walking.

“I was so accident prone and I was almost always never cut up and injured,” he said. “I didn’t think it was anything.”

When Sestanovich finally decided to visit a doctor, the condition was diagnosed to be osteogenic sarcoma, a bone cancer afflicting children and teen-agers. He was told it was doubtful that he would live another year.

“You always assume that you’re going to be alive and nothing is ever going to hurt you,” Sestanovich said. “I was so young and there were so many things that I hadn’t done. When you’re fighting for your life on the hospital floor, trying to make heads and tails of what’s happening, you learn there are no such things as fairness.”

He underwent extensive chemotherapy and radiation treatment for nine months, which resulted in complete hair loss. Doctors removed the tumor and performed a bone transplant on his right thigh bone.

The cancer started to subside, but Sestanovich began to lose circulation in his lower leg. In an attempt to restore blood flow, three operations were performed during a two-day period. Doctors were unable to save the leg and were forced to amputate it four inches below his hip.

“I was basically in a stupor from all the medication,” Sestanovich said. “When I woke up my leg was gone. It was a psychological jolt.”

He was fitted for a prosthesis and learned to walk with the aid of crutches and a cane. Three months later, he enrolled at Taft, where he made the gymnastics team and was elected class president.

Sestanovich attended UCLA and was an oarsman on the crew team for two seasons. He also competed in intramural basketball, racquetball, football and water polo.

Through sports, Sestanovich discovered he possesses greater mobility and balance without wearing a prosthesis. He is the only player on the U.S. team to play without one.

After surgery, Sestanovich had initially worn a prosthesis everywhere. But as time went on, he began to wear it less. By the time he graduated from UCLA, he rarely wore it at all. He now wears his prosthesis only for work and formal occasions.

“I wore it at first because I was embarrassed,” Sestanovich said. “It took a while but I finally resolved to the fact that I was completely different and that I would always stop conversations when I walk into the room. Now most people know me on one leg and in shorts.”

He’s also become a familiar sight on basketball courts at Venice Beach, where he plays full court pickup games several times a week.

“The ones who know me don’t treat me any differently, but the out-of-town people are a little timid to try to take advantage,” Sestanovich said. “But their attitude changes real quickly after I score.”

In his spare time, Sestanovich often returns to the UCLA Medical Center, the site of his treatment, to help counsel patients with similar disabilities and injuries.

Lately, Sestanovich’s emphasis has been on volleyball.

Sestanovich solicited sponsors to help raise funds to travel to the national team’s training camps several times a year and to make the trip to Barcelona. He hopes to continue playing volleyball through the 1994 world championships and the 1996 paralympics in Atlanta.

“We have some fantastic individual players and if we gel as a team, we could do pretty well,” he said.