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,"
