Karch Kiraly

Karch Kiraly is number one in the “Top U.S Players of All Time” for indoor and outdoor beach volleyball. He is Volleyball’s highest governing body and the greatest player in the 20th century. He has won three national championships under head coach “Al Scates”. However, all this success came from hard work during high school, and college. To begin with, Karch is presently still working with volleyball. He was six when he first started. His dad, Dr. Laszlo Kiraly, had encouraged him to start playing the sport. Then at age 11, (1956), he went to his first beach volleyball tournament. By the time Karch entered Santa Barbara High School, he was already enrolled on the varsity team, since his father was the coach. When Kiraly joined, the Dons (Team Name) got to the championships twice. Then, as he went into this senior year, the team was undefeatable. Never losing at any tournaments, and making gold medals at every championship. Even after all his accomplishments over his time in college, Karch didn’t stop there. In 1978 he enrolled at UCLA (University of California at Los Angeles) where he majored in biochemistry. Since he kept playing volleyball, he got to lead UCLA to the “NCAA Men’s Volleyball Championship”. After the four years in college, The Bruins (Team Name) compiled a 123-5 match record with tiles in 1979, 1981, and in 1982. This made him earn All-American Honors all of the four years, and he was also awarded the “NCAA Volleyball Tournament Most Outstanding Player” in two of the years. It wasn’t long until Karch became a professional. He joined the national team in 1984. As he played, he got even more things, like the foundation for the “Two-man” serve reception system created by Doug Beal in 1983. Not only that, but during the first year that he joined the national team, he led the U.S. National Team and won the gold medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics, even though he was the youngest player on the team. After years of even more accomplishments, he