U.S. OLYMPIC FESTIVAL : Lockwood Turns Up With Gold : Ignores Injury to Help North to Title

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — In the past year, Adam Lockwood had unintentionally developed a specialty.

Warmups--he went through them, and then, inevitably, he wore them.

As a first-year transfer to the University of Hawaii, he was required by NCAA rules to sit out the season.

He could practice with the volleyball team, and he could warm up, but when the games began, he had to remain on the sidelines in full warmup suit.

Lockwood, of Newport Beach, found himself on the sidelines more than he expected here at the U.S. Olympic Festival as well. After suffering a shoulder strain in the first match here, he did not play in the next two.

But he played Thursday--in the gold-medal match--and he helped the underdog North team to a convincing victory over the previously undefeated West.

The West won the first game handily, 15-6, but the North came back, winning the next three, 15-5, 15-5, 15-4.

“It was my swinging arm,” said Lockwood, fingering his right shoulder. “But I figured I had to play in the one for the gold.”

He had 16 kills, second only to the North’s Lawrence Hom of Torrance, the USC player who led all players with 19 kills in the match, 88 in four Festival matches.

By the middle of the final game, some North team members were kissing each other in jubilation.

“After we blew by them that second game, we knew we could win,” said Lockwood, 20.

Lockwood was a two-sport star at Estancia High School, from which he graduated in 1985. He was voted Most Valuable Player of the Sea View League in both basketball and volleyball, and helped the Eagles to three Southern Section title games--two in volleyball and one in basketball--only to fall short of victory in each of them.

In fact, when he graduated after averaging about 18 points a game in his final basketball season, Lockwood thought it was basketball he wanted to play, and he accepted a scholarship to Chapman College. He played there for a year, starting in half of the Panthers games, and averaging about eight points a game.

But the Chapman team did something Lockwood wasn’t used to doing.

“We lost about half our games,” he said. “I only lost about six in all of high school.”

Thus he decided to turn back to volleyball, and accepted a still-standing offer to Hawaii.

“Volleyball will turn out better, I think,” he said. “I didn’t have a chance to go pro in basketball, and I think I’ll be able to play pro beach volleyball.”

Lockwood likes to play his beach volleyball around 41st St. in Newport Beach, at what he calls “an Estancia hangout.”

The North team, which had lost to the West in five games in the second round, used a completely new lineup in the gold-medal match. Beside reinstating Lockwood, the North started Scott Drake of Fresno, normally an outside hitter, at setter.

“After the first game, it just all worked for us,” Lockwood said.

Mark Kerins of Huntington Beach had 13 kills for the silver-medal winning West.

Carlos Briceno of Fountain Valley and Hawaii had 13 kills to help lead the South to a 15-11, 16-14, 15-8 victory over the East to win the bronze. Team captain Dan Hanan of Huntington Beach had nine kills, four blocks and two service aces in the victory, the first in four matches for the South team.