Tara Cross Relies on Club Play to Mark Her Spot

To understand why Tara Cross, who is considered one of the nation’s three best high school volleyball players, transferred from CIF Southern Section 5-A champion Gahr High to tiny 1-A division Southern California Christian in Anaheim, you must understand why the high school volleyball season has become almost an afterthought as far as the top players are concerned.

And you also have to understand the nomadic life of one Tara Cross.

The volleyball part is simple. With the increased emphasis placed on participation in private clubs over the past three years, the high school season has become virtually insignificant in terms of attracting the attention of college scouts.

Club volleyball is where it’s at. There are about 35 clubs in Southern California, where the best players compete against themselves and against college teams in local and national tournaments from January to July. And it’s where college coaches do most of their recruiting.

“It’s like a bunch of high school all-star teams,” said Andy Banachowski, UCLA coach. “The kids improve more in club ball because they’re playing with athletes who want to make it to that next level.”

Cross came to Southern California Christian, a private school with an enrollment of 450, to be with her best friend, Cinnamon Williams, who has been the Flames’ setter for four years and also is a Division I prospect. They have played together on the Huntington Beach-based California Juniors Club for four years.

Cross doesn’t need the exposure of playing at a 5-A school or the competition of Southern California’s best high school teams. She gets that at the club level.

Even before she transferred, most coaches had her at the top of their recruiting lists, along with Newport Harbor’s Lara Asper and Tonya Williams of St. Joseph in Lakewood.

So, it didn’t matter whether Cross, a 6-foot outside hitter, was getting her spikes against prep powers such as Mira Costa and Newport Harbor, or Olympic League members such as Brethren and Maranatha.

“What we call the high school season, for them it’s the off-season,” said Flames Coach Ed Gover, who also coaches for Cal Juniors. “This is their fun time to be with their friends and play, but club time is serious. That’s where we train them to be college players. Here, I try to make it enjoyable for these two (Cinnamon and Tara).”

Cross, who helped Gahr to the 5-A title last year, and Williams have made this an enjoyable and successful year for the Flames. Southern California Christian (18-0) will meet Charter Oak at 11:30 today for the 1-A championship at Marina High School.

Having a player of Williams’ caliber was enough for the Flames to win the 1-A title in 1984. Add Cross, and you have a 1-A giant.

The Flames haven’t lost a game in three tournament matches. Whenever they need a big point, which isn’t often, they go to Cross, who is awesome at the left side of the net.

“You see a lot of players who have all the skills,” Banachowski said. “But I haven’t seen that in a player with her size and strength, which makes her stock much higher.”

Said Charlie Brande, Orange County Volleyball Club coach and former assistant at the University of Hawaii: “She steps into any college team and starts on the left side.”

It may not have been the most competitive year for Cross, 17, but she is making the most of it.

“There’s been a couple of teams with good hitters we couldn’t stop, but a couple of schools couldn’t even serve the ball over the net,” Cross said. “But it’s been fun. I’m laughing all the time. I think I’m having more fun here than I would have had at Gahr.”

Cross, a senior, said she had intended to go to Gahr, but, while she was visiting her father (Lee) in Houston last July, her mother, Ruthie May Larry, moved the family from Cerritos to Tustin. Larry, who has been divorced from Lee Cross for about 11 years, wanted to move closer to her job as a systems analyst for Hughes Aircraft in Irvine.

She became a “born-again” Christian on Sept. 1 and enrolled at Southern California Christian to be with her best friend, Williams.

This was just the latest in a long list of moves for Cross, who grew up the daughter of a service man (Lee was a Marine), and lived in Texas, Louisiana, Tennessee, South Carolina and Hawaii.

She came to Southern California at the start of kindergarten, but in 13 years of formal education, Cross has been to 10 different schools, including three high schools.

“My mom doesn’t like to stay in one place too long,” Cross said. “And everywhere my mom goes, I go.”

Cross began her high-school career at Bolsa Grande, but her mother moved to Cerritos in the summer after her sophomore year and she transferred to Gahr. She spent one year there before moving to Tustin and transferring to Southern California Christian.

There would seem to be a connection between Cross’ participation in volleyball, especially at the club level, and some of her moves.

Bolsa Grande had a marginal volleyball team. One of the Gahr co-coaches last year was Brian Gimmillaro, who is an administrator for the Cal Juniors. He also left Gahr last year to become the women’s coach at Cal State Long Beach. And Ed Gover, the Flames coach, also coaches for Cal Juniors.

The move to Southern California Christian was surprising, but the move from Bolsa Grande to Gahr was intriguing. Why would Larry move from Garden Grove to Cerritos, which is about 15 miles farther from her job in Irvine?

“I just felt like it,” she said. “We move around a lot. I like changes. They’re exciting. When things don’t change, they get kind of boring.”

She said she wasn’t aware of Gahr’s volleyball team, which was ranked by Volleyball Monthly as the nation’s best high school team. Two of Gahr’s star players in 1984, Trisonya Thompson and Joyce Koehn, also played for Cal Juniors.

“When we move, I never know about the schools,” Larry said. “It didn’t matter where she played. I think she would have been good at any school.”

Said Cross: “I knew (Gimmillaro) was coaching at Gahr, but I wasn’t going there because he was there. I went because I had to move.”

Said Charlie Brande: “If that (transfer) had happened in football or basketball, there would have been some real investigations. But it happened in volleyball, and no one really said anything.”

There wasn’t much said about Cross’ move to Southern California Christian. When Gover found out she was enrolled, he had his athletic director, Dave DeWoody, call CIF Southern Section officials to make sure she was eligible, which she was.

“If Cinnamon went to Gahr or if Tara went to another big school, they might have questioned that move,” Gover said. “But they saw why she came here and realized it was foolish to go from a 5-A school to a 1-A school (just to play volleyball).

“I can see how people would draw those conclusions, but if you know the family and how they’ve moved, you know it’s just the life style the mom has led.”