With Academe on Hold, She Excels at Beach : Volleyball: All-worldly Nancy Reno is making her mark on the women’s tour.

ENCINITAS — On the days when Nancy Reno wants to push that snooze button, read that extra chapter or linger over that second cup of coffee, she has a line with a money-back guarantee.

Not Olympic gold, bright lights, money or the big time.

Reno’s pep talk is out in Africa.

“I’m putting off a lifetime dream to do this,” said Reno, 26. “Whenever I think I don’t want to train, I tell myself ‘Go to the gym, you could be in Africa.’ ”

This is a pro beach volleyball career that curtailed Nancy’s adventure through India, Nepal and Africa. To concentrate on 1992, her second full season on tour, Reno cut in half what began as a six-month trek with two friends from her days as a marine biology major at Stanford.

One of her friends stayed in Nepal to teach, the other made it to Africa.

As for Reno, she is sixth in the rankings, earnings and points standings on the Women’s Professional Volleyball Assn.’s 18-city tour, which stops in San Diego this weekend.

Last year, when she finished 22nd in points standings, played with seven different partners and had a lone third-place finish, seems as far away as the wildlife she dreams of studying.

Two weeks ago, Carlsbad’s Reno won her first WPVA title with Honolulu’s Janice Harrer in their first tournament together--they finished fourth a week later in Las Vegas. She and Cammy Ciarelli took two thirds earlier in the season. After seven events, Reno has doubled last year’s gross earnings and earned the respect of her peers.

“It’s kind of like people have no choice if you win a tournament,” said Angela Rock, a former roommate of Reno’s and a member, with Karolyn Kirby, of the tour’s top-ranked team. “A lot of the older players respected her, but winning is like the final frontier.”

Reno knows a thing or two about frontiers.

Growing up with three older siblings in Glen Ellyn, Ill., Reno learned early the political lessons of the real world. Her parents let their teen-age daughter handle her own fight in an administrative battle to control her high school athletic career.

“The whole basketball-volleyball thing was real controversial. We almost went to court about it,” said Reno, a three-sport letter-winner. “The basketball coach said legally she couldn’t keep me off the team, but she didn’t have to play me either. It was ugly.”

The incident left a taste in her mouth that she has to this day.

“It was very disappointing,” she said. “I handled myself as an adult more than anyone else.”

The lesson wasn’t over. Reno was the first female to be named the Chicago Tribune’s Athlete of the Year, yet she couldn’t even get the same distinction at her high school.

“My dad told me even though it was painful, it was a good lesson to learn early,” she said.

When she left Illinois, “I never looked back. I knew I wanted to be on the ocean, so that’s where I looked at colleges. I had this gut feeling about Stanford, and I operate on gut feelings.”

Stanford never won an NCAA title during Reno’s stay. The Cardinal was second three times and third once during her collegiate career.

“I still sort of have a chip on my shoulder about it. That’s why the win two weeks ago was so important to me,” said Reno, who hadn’t won anything since her state high school basketball title.

Reno has done so much in so little time, it’s difficult to sort out where it’s all leading.

She took three years of Swahili in college, because after seeing “Born Free,” as a youngster, she was convinced she would be the next Jane Goodall. She lived on a boat for two summers in Alaska and worked as a diver doing research on the Exxon oil spill cleanup efforts.

She played volleyball on an indoor team in Turkey for a year because everyone else was going to Italy. There she learned enough Turkish to earn a B in a physical chemistry class at a school she said was comparable to MIT, and played the guitar and read voraciously to fend off loneliness.

And she will begin work on her doctorate in animal behavior next year in Colorado, with a specialty in wolf behavior because “as a biologist, they attract attention,” she said. “People hear wolf and they listen. I want to do research on something that evokes a reaction in people.”

Any association with Reno tends to do that. It’s not that she seeks it, it’s just that, well . . .

“Something about me creates controversy,” she said. “I don’t know how to play other people’s games. I certainly don’t seek it, but it seems to find me.”

As it did her tumultuous eight-month stint with the national team, which ended when she was unexpectedly cut.

“It was devastating,” she said. “I wasn’t prepared for it. Usually when you’re on thin ice you know it, but I was getting playing time. It was the first time my individuality slapped me in the face.”

Rock, who was on the national team at the time, said that is precisely why the beach game is the perfect release for a free spirit like Reno.

“You have the ability to author your own opportunities,” Rock said. “You can be your own coach. No one can sub you out or decide if or when to play you. You’re in charge of your own future, and it’s like that slogan, you really can be all that you can be.”

What Reno’s proving to be is an opponent worthy of notice by the top players.

Former UCLA star Liz Masakayan, who has won three tournaments this year with Linda Carrillo and is now the tour’s second-ranked team, was Reno’s partner last year when they got the third.

Masakayan said Reno has paid her dues and is now one of the hottest players on the beach.

“It’s unbelievable how many people would love to play with her. She’s probably gotten more phone calls than anyone. That’s how established she’s become,” Masakayan said of the calls that precede partner-switching. “She tends to have no fear, and that’s a special quality to have on the court.”

Said the 5-11 Reno: “My turning point as a player was with Liz. She was my definition of a beach volleyball player and she had confidence in me. She saw something in me.

Maybe it was the same thing Harrer saw two years ago, but waited to act on until she broke off a long-term association with Elaine Roque.

“When I saw her two years ago, she wasn’t quite ready,” Harrer recently told Volleyball Magazine. “I’ve seen her mature. Obviously, she proved herself more this year with those finishes. She has a lot of untapped potential.”

Harrer saw Reno’s drive and desire and blocking and serving skills as the perfect complement to her own experience and defensive and setting abilities.

“She’s young, she’s hungry,” Harrer said.

The very characteristics that finally persuaded Reno to return early over the winter.

“She wanted to make this season a special one,” said Rock, who came to an amicable agreement with Reno not to live under the same roof while they were competitors. “Africa probably would have destroyed her health, and she realizes she can go back.”

Said Reno: “It was a serious statement about my commitment to this season, because I actually had a grant to go to Africa.”

Still, her success isn’t without an element of surprise.

“I didn’t want to set myself up for disappointment, so I was thinking more in terms of thirds, fourths, fifths,” she said. “If you’d have told me I’d win one the fifth time out, I would have said you were crazy.”

Not so crazy is how Reno applies her experience as a field scientist to her game. For example, she is one of a handful of players to stick around for the final and scout other teams.

“You learn a lot from watching, and I’m a trained observer.”

The self-proclaimed black sheep of the family, Reno said her family is less observant in tracing what she does for a living. The first time she made the finals was the first time they could see her on a tape-delayed ESPN broadcast.