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John Zant: Olympian Volleyball Player Karch Kiraly, on Sand and Off |
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By John Zant
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Wednesday, April 04 2007 |
Karch Kiraly is the winningest volleyball player of all time, but that does not mean he would be successful as a coach. In fact, during an interview on Fox's "In My Own Words" program last year, Kiraly confessed that he was not well-suited to coach a team.
"I like to be in control," he said. "It's too hard to stand off to the side and give up all the control to the players."
Kiraly has controlled things so effectively as a player that he has won three Olympic gold medals and 148 professional beach tournaments in a career that started in 1978, when he was a senior at Santa Barbara High School. He was such a perfectionist that on the beach he became known as "The Computer."
But as he is about to enter his final season on the AVP tour at the age of 46, Kiraly has changed his mind about coaching. The reason? Two names: Kristian and Kory.
Those are Kiraly's sons. Both are on the varsity volleyball team at St. Margaret's Episcopal School in San Juan Capistrano. Kristian is a 6-foot-4 sophomore hitter ("I've been looking up to him for a year," said Karch, who is 6-2), and Kory is a 5-8 freshman who has been playing the libero, a defensive position.
With Kristian on the team a year ago, St. Margaret's Tartans did not win a match. Furthermore, they did not win a game.
"We lost 3-0 every time," Kiraly said.
That was rather difficult for him to stomach. In Karch's last year of high school, the Santa Barbara Dons went undefeated and won the CIF championship. In his four years at UCLA, the Bruins won three NCAA titles. Karch Kiraly is retiring after this AVP season. Photo by Holly Stein / AVP
"We lost only five matches in college," Kiraly said.
They won 123.
So Kiraly offered to help coach the Tartans this spring. He tapped into the lessons he learned from his former coaches, Rick Olmstead at Santa Barbara High and Al Scates at UCLA, and he picked the brains of several others.
The results have been dramatic. With Kiraly serving as co-head coach with Jeremy Dailey, the Tartans went 3-3 in the preseason and won their first two Academy League matches.
Kiraly discussed his new outlook on coaching during a wide-ranging interview last week. Here, in his own words, are some of his thoughts:
"I didn't think I had the patience for coaching, especially over the course of a whole season. Then I had this opportunity to coach a high school team, a team our boys would be on. The thing about being a parent, over the years it has helped me build my patience and humility. Also, seeing our boys' varsity team go through such a rough season last year, I didn't feel the practices were much of a good use of their time.
"So it was a combination of my frustration over how little they accomplished in practice, seeing them lose every match, and my wife (Janna) saying, 'Come on Karch' … plus we started the Karch Kiraly Academy this year and hope to get it going year round. It turned out to be a good time to coach high school kids.
"St. Margaret's is an academic school, not particularly focused on athletics. My wife and I had been home-schooling the boys for five years, and it was hard to tell how well we were doing. We're pleased to find out we did OK.
"The sports programs are no-cut. The Academy League is Division 5. We aren't going to be world-beaters. A team like Santa Barbara would wipe us out.
"I'm immersing myself in learning how good a coach I can be. I've consulted Bill Neville, the coaching director of my academy, who was a big part of the national team's success. I contacted Jim McLaughlin at Washington. He's the only coach who has won NCAA championships for men (at USC) and women (at Washington).
"I learned a ton from Rick Olmstead, an incredible coach. (Olmstead is now the athletic director at Carpinteria High.) I've written a few of his sayings up on the white board, like: 'Excuses are like armpits; everybody's got them and they all stink.' Sometimes he used a different word from armpits. If we were not playing to the level he thought we were capable of playing, he would get us to realize that even if other team wasn't that good, we can't lower ourselves. He's been influence in terms of trying to be the best prepared team.
"Al Scates impressed me with his demeanor, how calm and composed he was -- and still is -- on the sidelines. No matter how good a play we had made or how poor, he'd come into the huddle with a positive outlook and calm the guys down. That helps a lot in college and even more in high school. 'We're going to make errors, but there's another play, the next serve's coming, we've got to put our arms up, make a good pass, get the ball over the net, then make a tough serve ourselves.' Al's really gifted in that way, that helped me a lot with this high school team.
"Officially my title is co-coach. Jeremy Dailey is a teacher who takes care of administrative stuff like scheduling the bus. He's handled some of the parent issues, like why doesn't my kid get more playing time. He allows me to do what I'm most focused on, running the practices so they're the best use of players' time and coaches' time. We sit on the bench as equals. It's nice to celebrate and commiserate with someone else on the bench.
"Our first match was a great experience. We won in four games in San Diego. My wife and I have had some great parent moments. In Solano Beach, a five-game win, Kristian had 23 kills, and Kory had 24 digs. It was so rewarding to watch them blossom.
"It's hard for me when an easy ball comes over the net and drops untouched because players aren't vocal and aren't hustling. It's hard for me to control my frustration. Most of us on the (AVP) tour beat ourselves up if we make a poor play, I'm more positive with the team than with myself. As you get better you start raising expectations as to how you should perform."
Coming Friday: Kiraly talks about the upcoming beach season, his last on the tour. |
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