Top 140 Quotes & Sayings by Karch Kiraly

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American athlete Karch Kiraly.
Last updated on December 3, 2024.
Karch Kiraly

Charles Frederick "Karch" Kiraly is an American volleyball player, coach and broadcast announcer. In the 1980s he was a central part of the U.S National Team that won gold medals at the 1984 and 1988 Olympic Games. He went on to win the gold medal again at the 1996 Olympic Games, the first Olympic competition to feature beach volleyball. He is the only player to have won Olympic medals of any color in both the indoor and beach volleyball categories. He played college volleyball for the UCLA Bruins, where his teams won three national championships under head coach Al Scates.

From what I've heard, the Gold Crown is kind of in a class by itself. The other players tell me it's superbly run and promoted. The money is kind of nice, too.
If I can help my teammate or teammates play at a level they've never played at before, then it doesn't even matter so much how I play.
I don't know when pink is going to come back in style. — © Karch Kiraly
I don't know when pink is going to come back in style.
I love being a parent, and when I'm gone even 2 1/2 days for a tournament, I'm forcing Janna to be a single parent.
I have been lucky enough to inherit the patient, loving and nurturing side from my mother, and the organizational and productive side from my dad.
I sit at the beach and I keep thinking there is something more I could be doing.
I love beach volleyball.
I can stay in the game for a long time.
I've been really lucky to come up the time I did, to live in California when I did, and to be a part of the generation of players we were and the great coaching we got. All of it really came together.
I think if you had asked me in 2004, 'Karch, you're going to be coaching the U.S.A. women's team from 2013 through 2016,' I would have said: 'What are you talking about? You're a little batty right now.'
You know, I've never been in Huntington during the U.S. Open. I've been practicing down there for a few days and have watched as they set the area up. It amazed me at how early they begin the setup and what a terrific job they've done. It's a monster production, and I'm excited to be a part of it.
Great passing and setting - I admire that more than the super big guys pounding the ball.
For us it's better to think of our opponents as idiots. It's easier to play hard against someone you don't like than it is to play against a friend. — © Karch Kiraly
For us it's better to think of our opponents as idiots. It's easier to play hard against someone you don't like than it is to play against a friend.
Part of the lore of the beach is how long some of those matches would last. Scores would hold and it was a battle of wits and endurance.
Here I am, 11 years old, and these grown men have to give it everything they have to beat me. In one part of my life, I was standing toe-to-toe with grown men. It was a great feeling. My dad gave me that gift and volleyball gave me that gift.
Each guy on the team had to make a decision about what life style he was going to live down the road. I made the choice to get better and more responsible.
Playing before an enthusiastic crowd is great. It really gets you going.
I could foresee myself having some frustration in trying to help people do what I tried to do on the court and maybe having some challenges in trying to transmit that.
It's more challenging on the beach. And there's a totally different atmosphere. There's not nearly so much protocol as indoors. It's not so strait-laced.
My mind is ready to go on, but I want to have something left to continue to play this game that I enjoy so much, not just for another year, but for years and years to come, and so for that reason, I have got to stop. It's just taking too much out of me each and every weekend to have every serve come at me, to pass every ball.
The sand is so bright in Clearwater, you can go snow-blind. In fact, Clearwater and Brazil are the only places where I felt like passing out from heat stroke.
When I think of those who were the greatest in their respective sports, it was their drive for perfection that made them the best.
I don't know if it'll happen four years from now or 52 years from now, but our job is to make an Olympic gold medal happen at some point for the history of the U.S. program.
It was amazing to look across the net and see grown men and the panic in their eyes that they were close to losing to a kid. It was a very empowering moment for me.
I played with my dad until I was 15.
All partnerships are doomed to die. Almost no partnership ever ended with neutrality and both people retiring at the same time.
I'm very well-recognized in Japan, on a par with a rock star.
The regular pro tour focuses on just the very few top players. But it doesn't focus on the other thousands of passionate volleyball players out there.
One of the things I thought was lost in the move to a smaller court was there were fewer smaller players. Like, you have to have a huge blocker to be able to excel, but that wasn't always the case.
Strength is the ability to move really heavy objects. Power is the ability to move them faster and faster.
I'm losing money by being here. But in the long run, we're happy we chose to stay. I would not be helping American volleyball if I was over in Italy.
I take a tremendous amount of punishment and abuse every weekend because every team serves at me. So I have to carry the offensive load. I'm hitting the ball all the time.
The Latin teams have this idea that they can't beat a good team in the same tournament twice.
The men's game probably has a little more power to it, so the rallies aren't quite as long. Some people prefer that power and other people prefer the somewhat-longer rallies that tend to happen in women's volleyball.
It's harder to improve once you're in your 40s.
I started on the beach in Santa Barbara with my father when I was six.
Since June of 1981, between school and the national team, I haven't had much time to spend with myself or my family.
It tastes sweeter when you come close and suffer some really painful losses. — © Karch Kiraly
It tastes sweeter when you come close and suffer some really painful losses.
For lack of a better calling, I just figured my dad's a doctor. He seems to enjoy what he does, so I had my eye on playing volleyball in college, maybe a tiny bit after, but then going to medical school and becoming a doctor.
Our objective is always to do something that hasn't been done before, but the opponent has a lot of say over how that works out.
In the past I was doing a lot of jump training and felt like that was sufficient for my lower body.
It's the quest for perfection that makes athletes great.
Remember, it won't matter how strong your chest and arms and legs are if the core of your body is weak.
If it were easy, everybody would have a gold medal, but they don't.
Dealing with a newborn baby, a new language and new people can't be easy on anyone.
When three-quarters of the tournaments were being held in parking lots and other artificial locations, that was a growing frustration for me as someone who grew up playing beach volleyball and idolizing the guys who came before me and knowing the history of the sport.
It's hard to grow up to be a good man and a good husband and a good father and at least at some level, my dad gave me a great gift to be able to grow up in the volleyball context and know that I was on a good path.
Sometimes a team can be a little too rested. Then they never really snap out of it. — © Karch Kiraly
Sometimes a team can be a little too rested. Then they never really snap out of it.
I love to visit any gym or any training site of any coach in any sport.
My mind could keep going all day long. You give me a new body, and I could go for another 20 years out here, and do it well.
I consider myself lucky that I grew up in a time that there were no video games to keep my attention on indoor activities.
It feels awesome to be back in the winners' circle.
It seems like we're getting fewer stops in California every year. It's good because we're exposing the sport to other parts of the country. But it's not like it used to be, when we played for a hearty handshake, slept in vans and traveled up and down the coast from Santa Cruz to San Diego.
When I was with the national team, I couldn't even touch my toes.
My buddies and I were just hooked on beach volleyball. We were obsessed with the game.
You have to be even better as a coach than as a player in dropping what happened, good or bad, and moving on to the next one, because there is always a new matchup to prepare for.
I would love to be playing in Manhattan one more time.
From the mid-'70s to the mid-'90s, that was the golden age of the beach volleyball mystique. I was absolutely mesmerized by the best players of that time.
There have been a lot of great players through the years who have played at UCLA. I hate to be singled out while other guys are being left out of that kind of group.
In college, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do as a career.
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