Karch Kiraly Volley Quotations

I still get excited just attending a final four, because the process is so long, so arduous, so challenging, that when it finally arrives, the adrenaline can't help but take over. I love the sense of accomplishment and camaraderie that the indoor game can engender.

I was fortunate to start the sport at a young age. I was 6 years old when my dad started teaching me. We started playing tournaments together when I was 11, in the lower ranking of beach volleyball in California. We weren't playing against kids; we played against grown men, so immediately, I had to raise my game to compete.

We play at the world's most beautiful beaches but in the world's most challenging conditions. It is not like you play one match and you go back to air conditioning. We do it all day long.

It's the best. And the job site isn't too bad, either.

Most people put a hat and glasses on to go incognito. I take them off.

Physically I'm not as strong as I was, but I try to make up for it mentally. It's a big challenge, and I relish it, competing with guys half my age.

The indoor game is much more of a team game, having to work effectively with a group of 15 to 20 people, striving to improve every day, every drill, even every contact. The beach game is much more of an individual game within a team sport, much less about organized practices with coaches and much more about just playing the game.

It's a serve and pass game.

Volleyball is not like a formula so we must give players some freedom.

There's nothing worse than the feeling of wishing you had another chance at a play because you weren't ready. Every athlete has those feelings to mull over, and over and over ... Don't even expose yourself to the possibility to being caught off-guard. —

The beach game taught me great lessons about how to elevate the play of my teammate, or teammates, and how to anticipate and expect the ball so much more than the indoor game ever could. It taught me - even forced me - to be a much better all-around player. That allowed me to help our USA Olympic Team in many more ways than I ever could have otherwise.

I never did. I only prepared to win the next day.

It's hard to give a career like this up, when I tell my wife I'm going to the office, and it's the beach.

Not everything you're going to do in volleyball - or in life, for that matter - is exciting or fully functional, but if you have the willpower to make each minute count, you'll benefit in some way. And it will make you a better player and a better person in the long run.

No volleyball play can begin without a serve, and the serve is the only technique that is totally under your control. In other endeavors, you cannot succeed without believing in yourself, and that belief is completely under your control.

We are all going to fall short. We are going to have some bitter losses, very painful defeats and failures. We have to use those to come back even stronger. That's what makes it sweeter, when we can overcome those and figure out a way to win. The great teams can do that, and those are the gold medal winning teams.