KING KARCH
The undisputed monarch of volleyball prepares to exit beach

By MIKE LOFTUS
The Patriot Ledger

Name it, and Karch Karily has won it and done it on a volleyball court, whether for free or for prize money, indoors on a hard court or outdoors on sand.

Fans who attend the AVP Bob’s Stores Boston Open tournament at Marina Bay will have one more chance to say they saw the three-time Olympic gold medalist - although not as a competitor. Kiraly, who’s in his final year of competition six full years after his enshrinement in the Volleyball Hall of Fame, can’t play this weekend because of a calf injury, but he’ll still in Quincy as an NBC broadcaster.

Kiraly, 46, isn’t necessarily retiring after the AVP’s regular-season finale on Labor Day weekend at Cincinnati because of his age. It’s because he has too much else to do with the sport to play it full-time.

“I’ve been super busy,” said Kiraly, who with partner Ken Wong form the AVP’s ninth-ranked men’s team despite missing the last three tour events. “I’m starting a volleyball academy, working on grassroots programs for kids and adults, and I’m coaching volleyball where my sons go to school.

“So, in those ways, I don’t feel like I’m retiring at all - just from the AVP tour. I’m busier than I’ve been in 15 years.”

Kiraly was pretty busy 15 years ago, too. He and partner Kent Steffes won 17 of 20 Tour events in 1992, 19 of 25 the next season, and 17 of 22 in 1994. The highlight of the partnership came in 1996, when the Kiraly-Steffes tandem won the first gold medal ever in Olympic volleyball - and on U.S. soil, in Atlanta.

It wasn’t a first for Kiraly, a UCLA product who won gold indoors in the 1984 and ’88, but the ’96 medal was certainly the least expected. Beach volleyball was big in his hometown of Santa Barbara, and in other spots along the Pacific Coast, but he never thought he’d play the beach game for his country.

“No way,” Kiraly said. “When I was growing up, it was almost like a cult thing.

“I learned to play from my father (Dr. Laszlo Kiraly), who was my first coach, and my first partner. There was a bit of a circuit on the beaches. Tournaments were held, and people who were into it would go to watch the top players, but for a long time it wasn’t any more than that.”

Players like Kiraly, Steffes, Sinjin Smith, Mike Dodd and others changed that. California’s Parks and Recreation Department - sometimes with a small amount of corporate sponsorship, often without - operated a beach tour through the 1970s and early 1980s. Kiraly and Smith were one of the P & R’s top teams, and they were ready when the AVP formed and the pro beach game branched out. Many of today’s top players hadn’t struck a ball for the first time in 1985, when Kiraly won the first tour event in Massachusetts, at Hyannis. (Dodd was his partner.)

The tour, and the beach game, have changed. The AVP floundered early in the millenium, holding only eight events in 2001, seven in ‘02 and nine in ‘03. Under the direction of CEO and league commissioner Leonard Armato, an AVP founding father who took over the tour full-time in 2002, the pro beach game in the United States is making a comeback.

“The tour owes a lot to Leonard,” Kiraly said. “It was in some financial straits when he took it over about six years ago, but he’s been able to repair that, and bring sponsors and promoters back.”

It hasn’t hurt to have one of the game’s greats stick around - and not just as a drawing card, either. As recently as 2004, Kiraly and partner Mike Lambert were named AVP team of the year after winning three titles, and in ‘05 he won an event for the 24th season - the 148th tournament victory of his career. He and Wong have played eight events this year, reaching the finals in Tampa on June 3, and making it as far as the semis a week later at Atlanta.

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“I’m having a great time playing with Ken (a mere kid at 34), and we’ve had some really nice results,” said Kiraly, an analyst on TV broadcasts when he’s not playing. “I’m enjoying my last year, and glad to see the tour’s doing so well again.

“And I’m really glad we’ll be coming back to the Boston area. I always enjoyed our stops there when the tour visited at other times ... it’ll be nice to get back there one more time.”

Mike Loftus may be reached at mloftus@ledger.com.