VOLLEYBALL / SEAL BEACH OPEN : Back From Italy, Kiraly Is Set for Profitable Homecoming

Karch Kiraly is back on the beach, back home in San Clemente. And not a moment too soon.

For eight months, he found creative new ways to prepare pasta while playing in the Italian indoor volleyball league. The homesick Kiraly returned to San Clemente in June craving Mexican food and beach volleyball.

“It’s good to be home,” he said. “It’s tough being away that long, no matter how superbly the Italians treated us or how handsomely they (team management) compensated us.”

Kiraly will be competing for a pretty decent sum on his home turf this weekend with a $20,000 first-place prize at stake in the $100,000 Seal Beach Open. He and partner Kent Steffes of Pacific Palisades are seeded second behind Sinjin Smith and Randy Stoklos. Kiraly, 30, grew up playing on the beach in Santa Barbara before moving to San Clemente a few years ago. He plans to play on the beach exclusively after one more indoor season in Italy, where he earned $500,000 last season.

He made good on the Italians’ investment.

Kiraly, a four-time All-American at UCLA and a two-time Olympic gold medalist, and Steve Timmons, a former Newport Harbor High and Orange Coast College standout, led Il Messaggero to the Italian League championship last spring.

But Kiraly had more than volleyball on his mind. He had his wife, Janna, and new-born son, Kristian, with him.

“It was tough to take Kristian over there, away from both grandparents,” Kiraly said. “He was only three weeks old when we left. Dealing with a newborn baby, a new language and new people can’t be easy on anyone.”

It wasn’t easy on Kiraly, who said so in his Italian journal that was published monthly in a volleyball magazine and read like a monthly log of misadventures..

Throughout his eight-month stay he:

--Ragged on the snail-slow Italian postal system. A package from Hawaii took four months to arrive in Ravenna, and a computer monitor Timmons had ordered cost $400 to get out of customs.

--Complained about the traffic while driving to practice. “Watch out for those bikers cutting in front of you, and those three-wheeled mini-trucks that lurch along at 15 m.p.h.”

--Chided gas prices. After all, it is $4.70 a gallon.

Was there anything Kiraly liked about Italy?

“It made me learn a new language,” he said. “That was something I really enjoyed. I had never got around to it before.”

Despite the problems, Kiraly and Timmons signed to play one more year in Italy. A lot of it has to do with a dollar sign followed by six figures.

Although no terms were released, Kiraly said it was a raise from last season’s contract.

He and Timmons will leave the beach again in September to play for Il Messaggero, the newspaper that took Danny Ferry away from the Clippers to play for its basketball team two years ago.

Because the Italian season lasts until the late spring, both players will miss the first two months, or nearly half, of the beach season, as they did this year.

But if U.S. national team Coach Fred Sturm had his way, Kiraly would be playing indoors exclusively--and wearing a red-white-and-blue uniform.

Kiraly, a 6-foot-3, 190-pound outside hitter, has the consistent all-around skills that the United States, coming off a disappointing 6-10 finish in the World League, has been craving. The U.S. team has steadily dropped in the international arena since Kiraly and Timmons left two years ago.

Kiraly isn’t as sure about his plans to return to the U.S. team as Timmons, who has indicated that he might be back.

Kiraly’s hesitation stems in part from his family life. Janna is pregnant with their second child and due in March.

“I’m trying to put off my decision as late as possible,” Kiraly said. “A lot can change between now and then. Right now, I would say no, I’m not coming back. But I would rather wait until later, then decide.

Kiraly’s frantic, year-round playing schedule and obligations to his beach sponsor, Quiksilver, a Costa Mesa-based beachwear company, also influence his decision.

“After playing on the beach last year,” he said, “then in Italy, then back on the beach after only a week off this year, then back to Italy, I’m not sure if it would leave me physically ready.”

Sturm invited Kiraly to return to the U.S. team this month. Kiraly said no. He’s busy on the beach.

Sturm asked Kiraly to come back in November to play in the World Cup.

No, says Kiraly, who’ll be playing in Italy by then.

So why is Sturm so diligently recruiting Kiraly?

Just look it up.

Kiraly, along with Timmons and Craig Buck, turned the U.S. national team from an international doormat in the early 1980s into a two-time Olympic champion.

UCLA lost only five matches in four years with Kiraly in the lineup.

Kiraly has been a dominant figure on the Assn. of Volleyball Professionals tour.

He won world titles in 1979 and 1981 with Sinjin Smith and in 1988 with Pat Powers.

He played in 23 tournaments last year, winning seven and finishing second nine times. His fellow players voted him the tour’s most valuable player and best offensive player.

Kiraly has won four tournaments this season with Steffes, including the Manhattan Beach Open last month. It was the fourth time Kiraly had won that tournament.He has collected $300,000 in prize money in his 12-year career, including $124,000 last season.

If he played full-time on the tour, he would likely be challenging leaders Smith and Randy Stoklos in the overall standings.

Kiraly played last season with Brent Frohoff, who played with other partners while Kiraly was in Italy this season.

When Kiraly returned from Italy, he teamed with Steffes, 23, a power hitter and blocker with solid defensive skills.

“Kent was playing with Tim Hovland and wanted to break off the partnership,” Kiraly said. “And from everything I had heard and seen, Kent was the most improved player on the tour.

“He got stronger over the winter and had improved all the phases of his game. I hadn’t seen that improvement in a lot of the other players.”

After finishing fifth in their first tournament together, Kiraly and Steffes won four in a row. They were second to Adam Johnson of Capistrano Beach and Ricci Luyties of Pacific Palisades last week at Cleveland.

“We’ve been clicking pretty well,” Kiraly said.

Kiraly is excited about playing in Seal Beach, only a 45-minute drive from his San Clemente home. He missed the tournament last year because he was working as a TV commentator during the Goodwill Games.

“It’s nice because I can stay at home and play,” Kiraly said. “I didn’t want to be away traveling. 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.”

But with the growth of the Assn. of Volleyball Professionals tour, and increasing prize money, the travel is a small price to pay.

“It seems like we’re getting fewer stops in California every year,” he said. “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.”

Seal Beach Open

What: $100,000 Seal Beach Open pro beach volleyball tournament.

Where: North side of the Seal Beach Pier.

When: Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday, 8 a.m. start with championship match at 3 p.m.

Admission: Free

Format: Double-elimination tournament. Fifteen-point games must be won by two points. If two teams with one loss each meet in the finals, one seven-point game determines the winner.

Prize money: $20,000 to first-place team.

Who’s competing: The top 36 two-man teams on the Assn. of Volleyball Professionals tour, including two-time Olympic gold medalist Karch Kiraly of San Clemente and current tour leaders Sinjin Smith and Randy Stoklos, both of Pacific Palisades.

Locals competing: Rudy Dvorak (Laguna Beach), John Eddo (San Clemente), Sean Fallowfield (Huntington Beach), Scott Friederichsen (Laguna Hills), Leif Hanson (Laguna Beach), Adam Johnson (Capistrano Beach), Brian Lewis (Newport Beach), Larry Mear (San Clemente), Craig Moothart (Costa Mesa), Eric Wurts (Huntington Beach).

Defending champions: Smith and Stoklos.

Top-seeded teams: 1. Smith-Stoklos, 2. Kiraly-Kent Steffes.

Television: Prime Ticket Network will televise the the final Wednesday at 8 p.m. and Friday at 8 p.m.

Notes: Steve Timmons, a former Newport Harbor High and Orange Coast College standout, will miss the tournament because of a shoulder injury. He’s expected to return in time for the Team Cup in September. . . . Johnson and Ricci Luyties of Pacific Palisades have won the last two tour stops (Milwaukee and Cleveland). Johnson, a former U.S. national team member and 1986 NCAA player of the year at USC, also won the Santa Barbara tournament with Pat Powers of San Diego. . . . Tim Hovland and Mike Dodd rejoined forces last weekend in Cleveland, one year after they ended their 10-year partnership in which they won 55 tournaments and more than $1 million together. They finished fifth at Cleveland. . . . The Seal Beach Open is the 22nd event on the 24-stop AVP tour. The next stop on the tour is Aug. 16-17 at Santa Cruz, followed by the U.S. championships Aug. 23-24 at Hermosa Beach.

1991 AVP Results

Tournament site Winners Ft. Myers, Fla. Sinjin Smith-Randy Stoklos Ft. Lauderdale Smith-Stoklos Phoenix Smith-Stoklos San Diego Kent Steffes-Tim Hovland Santa Barbara Adam Johnson-Pat Powers Clearwater, Fla. Steffes-Hovland Sacramento Smith-Stoklos Fresno Smith-Stoklos Houston Smith-Stoklos Arlington, Tex. Cancelled, rain San Antonio Mike Dodd-Ricci Luyties Boulder, Colo. Smith-Stoklos Philadelphia Smith-Stoklos Cape Cod, Mass. Smith-Stoklos Belmar Beach, N.J. Steffes-Karch Kiraly Manhattan Beach Steffes-Kiraly Grand Haven, Mich. Steffes-Kiraly Chicago Steffes-Kiraly Milwaukee Luyties-Johnson Cleveland Luyties-Johnson