Lara Asper, Millennium Hall of Fame

Living proof that volleyball was ahead of basketball in the Newport

Harbor High girls athletic pecking order in the mid-1980s, Lara Asper was

always on special assignment during halftime at basketball home games.

She would shuffle over to the girls gymnasium, where Coach Charlie

Brande was conducting volleyball practice, and set for hitting lines.

Then she’d hustle back to the regular gym in time for the second-half

tipoff.

“Charlie thought it was great,” said Asper, who performed the

intermission task for four years, while developing into one of the top

Newport Harbor setters of all time.

The Sailors’ girls basketball team apparently was understanding,

because Asper would earn All-CIF Southern Section honors all four years

in volleyball and lead Coach Mike Neese’s Tars to the CIF State Division

I championship match her senior year in the fall of 1985.

“I came at a good time, when they needed a setter,” said Asper, a

5-foot-10 standout who also led the ’85 Sailors to the Southern Section

5-A title match, when they lost to Mira Costa.

Asper, who also competed in four events in track and field, was

Newport Harbor’s 1986 Female Athlete of the Year, the same year former

All-CIF quarterback Shane Foley was the school’s Male Athlete of the

Year.

She attended Stanford on a volleyball scholarship and started at

setter for three years, twice leading the Cardinal to the NCAA Final

Four. Asper was an assistant coach at Stanford in 1992, when the school

captured its first NCAA volleyball title.

She was married in May 1998 and has changed her last name to Sellers,

but for the purpose of the Daily Pilot Sports Hall of Fame, which she

enters today as the latest honoree in the millennium celebration, we’ll

refer to her by her maiden name for local fans.

“And there’s a baby due (Oct. 2),” Asper proudly announced. (The sex

of the baby will be a surprise to Asper and her husband, Scott.)

Asper accepted a head coaching position at NCAA Division III Colorado

College, a small, liberal arts school in Colorado Springs, Colo., but

after two seasons her frustrations increased over the limited time she

could meet with her team -- three months -- according to school policy.

Accustomed to year-round volleyball training, while being groomed in

Brande’s Orange County Volleyball Club, Asper returned to Northern

California.

“It was a tough decision (to leave Colorado College), then I

interviewed for various first assistant positions at Division I schools,”

said Asper, who began to feel that relocating to another part of the

country was undesirable. “I think it hit me that (coaching) wasn’t the

life I wanted to have.”

Asper went to work for a nonprofit organization, Teach For America, as

an executive director, a position she held for four years, until

recently.

Once the nation’s top high school recruit, Asper remembers the Tars

beating Los Altos on the road in the state Division I semifinals, a wild,

five-game match in front of a large, boisterous crowd.

“I’ll never forget that feeling after we won,” Asper said. “They had a

pretty stacked team that year, and most of their starters went on to play

in college. They were tall, and more physical than us, so in a way we

were underdogs.”

The Sailors earned their trip to the state final and lost to Mira

Costa at Golden West College.

At Stanford, Asper’s best memories include beating UCLA in Pac 10 play

and BYU in Provo, Utah, in the NCAA West Regional finals her sophomore

year, which gave Stanford a berth in the Final Four.

“It was a great match and (to beat BYU in three games) and everyone

played well, and it felt like we’d won a national championship,” she

said.

Asper, who once held the school basketball record for rebounds in a

season (1985-86), started playing volleyball under Brande’s tutelage in

fifth grade.

“Charlie was an outstanding coach,” Asper said. “He was tough to play

for sometimes, but if you make it through his whole program, he’s a very

loyal person and he’ll help you in any way he can. He is, I can say --

and that includes through college and everything -- the best coach I

had.”

In track, Asper, who was used to team sports, would perform any task

assigned to her by Sailors Coach Eric Tweit, competing mainly in the 440

yards, 880, mile relay and long jump.

“But track wasn’t my sport,” she said. “If I had it my way, I probably

wouldn’t have run track, but I did it for training. I used to throw up

before (races). I hated it. I hated the sound of the gun. Competing in

individual sports is so much different. Even playing in the (NCAA women’s

volleyball) Final Four in college, I wouldn’t get as nervous as I did

running track in high school.”

A four-time all-league setter, Asper was the Times’ Player of the Year

in Orange County her senior year, 1985-86.