Kiraly's career has survived sands of time

Friday, July 08, 2005
BY ERIN FARRELL
Star-Ledger Staff
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Karch Kiraly's wife was going through some newspaper clippings recently when
she found one about her husband that called it "amazing" he was still
playing so well at his age.

It was written nine years ago.

It could have been written yesterday.

Kiraly is 44 now, the oldest player on the Association of Professional
Volleyball Tour. The guy who almost single-handedly made beach volleyball an
Olympic sport still enjoys going to the "office" and brings his remarkable
legacy to the Jersey Shore this weekend for the Belmar Open.

Was it really more than 25 years ago that he won three NCAA championships
with UCLA? Has it really been more than 20 years since he won his first
indoor Olympic gold medal? Almost 10 years since his gold medal in beach
volleyball in the Atlanta Games?

Can it be Kiraly is now the father of two teenage sons who are launching
their own volleyball careers?

"I want to see how far I can push it," Kiraly said. "It's hard to give a
career like this up. When I tell my wife, 'I'm going to the office,' it's
the beach. But I'm also looking to see how late is too late, how old is too
old."

For the past eight years, he has hinted at retirement but keeps coming back
-- despite three shoulder surgeries, a recent change in playing partners and
not being the biggest, strongest, quickest player on the beach anymore. And
despite, well, his age.

The when-to-hang-it-up question eventually nags all superstars, but Kiraly
-- still drawing crowds -- doesn't seem ready to answer it yet. What he
lacks in speed, he replaces with savvy. The young stars of the Tour
understand.

"He's going to go out on his own terms. He's a stud and he deserves to play
as long as he wants to play," said Kerri Walsh, 26.

"It would have been easy for him to quit a long time ago, but he has that
desire and heart," Misty May, another competitor who grew up watching Kiraly
dominate on the beaches of California, "He's a competitor."

Kiraly has won three gold medals and is the all-time pro beach volleyball
victories leader. He has been named the MVP of the AVP Tour six times, has
won more than $3 million and twice was named the "Best Player in the World."

Last year, Kiraly and Mike Lambert -- who is 10 years younger -- won four
tournaments and were named the APV's team of the year. But the two could not
duplicate that success this year.

At the first event of the season, Kiraly took an awkward swing and heard
some scary noises come out of his shoulder, which had undergone its third
surgery in the off-season. He thought he was done.

"I don't think I want it to end on an injury, but I know it's going to end,"
he said. "I've had a tremendous career, and if it ended tomorrow, I would
not be disappointed except that if it ended tomorrow, it would probably be
because of an injury."

Kiraly's career did not end that afternoon, but his partnership with Lambert
did. Fearing he was holding back the fourth-year player, Kiraly encouraged
Lambert to find a new partner, and the two parted after the Austin Open in
April.

When an MRI revealed no real damage to his shoulder, Kiraly jumped back into
competition. He will compete in the Belmar Open this weekend with new
partner Adam Jewell, 30, trying to improve on last weekend's 13th-place
finish at the Cincinnati Open.

Kiraly says playing with Lambert, Jewell and others who are nearly half his
age has made him appreciate the game even more. His favorite victory, he
insists, is not his first, nor any of his gold-medal triumphs. It came last
year in Las Vegas with Kiraly's shoulder in great pain.

"It's a lot more difficult to win at 44 than at 19 or 18," he said.

To help him continue to stay competitive, he has taken up a daily
conditioning program he describes as "45-minutes of hell."

"The day he retires we are going to lower the AVP flags to half-mast," AVP
commissioner Leonard Armato said. "He has meant more to the sport of beach
volleyball than anyone in history."

If not for Kiraly -- who kick-started the sport with his first Olympic gold
medal in 1984 -- there might not have been a new generation of stars. Today,
volleyball darling Misty May might be soccer darling Misty May; his former
partner Lambert -- who had a Kiraly poster on his wall when he was 14 --
might be former middle school volleyball star Mike Lambert; Karch Kiraly,
with a degree in pre-med biochemistry, might be Dr. Kiraly.

And beach volleyball might never have escaped the California borders.

"He's been the icon for so long that I couldn't imagine if he wasn't," May
said. "I think this sport would be missing out if there was no Karch. My
life would be missing out, everybody he's had an influence on or met at some
point would be missing out."

Kiraly, who was 6 when his father started teaching him the game, isn't so
quick to take credit for growing the sport over the past 25 years. Saying he
"helped put (the game) on the map," he credits the players in the 1950s and
1960s for getting it started, then the players in the 1970s for building on
that foundation. And he will never forget the 1984 Games.

"It all changed overnight when we won the gold medal in 1984 and I had the
opportunity to continue playing volleyball, and I could earn a living at
it," Kiraly said. "Because of that, I put my plans of becoming a doctor on
hold, and here I am still playing."

Amazing.