By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

College volleyball thought it had seen the last of Lindsey Yamasaki here three years ago after Stanford lost to Penn State in the NCAA Championship game at the Stan Sheriff Center and she announced plans to concentrate on basketball.

Coaches were sure Yamasaki had left the volleyball floor for good when they glimpsed her on television this summer playing for the Miami Sol of the WNBA.

YAMASAKI

For three months now — ever since this remarkable woman threw open the doors at Stanford with her version of "I'm baaaack!" — quizzical looks and disbelieving double-takes have been regular reminders of the uniqueness of her comeback.

When Yamasaki entered Stanford out of Oregon, where she was both the state's volleyball and basketball player of the year, it was to chase national championships. She just didn't envision still doing it while drawing a pro pay check.

But here she is at age 22, using the basketball "off season" to finish a degree in urban planning and trying to help the Cardinal volleyball team make it back-to-back national titles.

After leading Stanford in scoring in basketball and earning All-Pac-10 honors, and helping take the Cardinal to the national championship game in volleyball as a sophomore in 1999, Yamasaki was forced to make the choice between the two sporting loves of her life.

Basketball, where she would achieve All-America honors and become a second-round WNBA draft pick, promised the biggest payoff. But the volleyball dream, while deferred, would not be abandoned.

"I told myself that if, somehow, someday, I could get the opportunity to play (volleyball) again, I would," Yamasaki said. So, for three years and through two head coaches, she had kept in contact with volleyball. She attended games and even a few practices, all the while asking to save a place, just in case. Not that anybody held their breath.

After all, even if Yamasaki was willing to jump back into volleyball after the rigors of a WNBA season, what were the chances of her talking the team that held her contract into allowing it?

So it was a surprised coach John Dunning who Yamasaki approached last July with the Sol's permission, asking for a jersey and a locker. And it was an elated Dunning who discovered it would not only not cost him a scholarship (Yamasaki is paying the $12,000 fall quarter tuition), but that her return would become almost providential in helping lift the Cardinal until preseason national player of the year Logan Tom came back from the national team.

Long after her volleyball career was supposed to have ended here, Yamasaki is still proving full of surprises.