Kiraly Wants to Be the Man on Sand : Volleyball: He doesn’t regret his decision to bypass Olympics and not try for a third gold medal.

Karch Kiraly, possibly the world’s greatest volleyball player, won’t be at the Barcelona Olympics this summer.

He’ll be back home, playing in the sand, trying to establish himself as king of the beach.

But if Kiraly has second thoughts about turning down an invitation to rejoin the U.S. team in its pursuit of an unprecedented third consecutive gold medal, he hasn’t expressed them.

He felt not even a twinge of doubt on April 27, when four of his former teammates returned to the program. Like Kiraly, all had left after helping the United States win a second gold at Seoul in 1988.

“I happened to be on the beach that Monday,” said Kiraly, who lives in San Clemente. “It was a gorgeous day. About 10:30 that morning, it hit me that all the other guys were in the gym in San Diego, and I thought about how happy I was not to be there.

“I couldn’t have been in a better spot. I was five minutes from home and, a little while after my workout, I would be back with my (two) kids and my wife, Janna. I didn’t have any regrets whatsoever.”

Certainly able, Kiraly realized again that he was no longer willing to pursue Olympic gold.

“That team deserves the 12 most motivated guys,” he said. “And I wouldn’t be among those 12.”

His priorities, he realized, hadn’t changed since 1989, when he retired from the program.

Kiraly went out on top, having conquered the indoor game.

After leading UCLA to three national championships, he joined the U.S. team as a full-time member in 1982 and helped it improve from 13th at the World Championships that year to gold medalist at the 1984 Olympics. The team remained on top for the next four years, winning the World Cup in 1985, the world championship in 1986 and a second Olympic gold in 1988.

In 1989, the team disbanded.

Kiraly and Steve Timmons signed $1-million contracts to play in the Italian pro league for Il Messaggero.

“We’d won everything we could and needed some new challenges,” Kiraly said. “It seemed to come upon us, this feeling of needing a change. Maybe it was a post-Olympic letdown.”

For Kiraly, it never subsided.

As a revamped U.S. team struggled to attain the success of its predecessors, Coach Fred Sturm let it be known that he would welcome back any former Olympian who wanted to try out.

Of the six players who were introduced as starters for the U.S. team during the 1988 Games, only Kiraly declined, despite repeated pleas from Sturm.

His hunger was gone.

“I don’t feel that it’s fair to all those guys on the team, and to the coach and everybody involved with the program, to be practicing there but not wanting to be in the gym,” Kiraly said. “That’s wasting everybody’s time.

“If I don’t want to be there, then there’s no sense in my being there. It’s certainly not fair to them and, secondarily, it’s not fair to me, either, to do something I don’t really feel like doing.”

His energies now are channeled toward his family--Kiraly, 31, and his wife have two sons, Khristian, 20 months, and Kory, 10 weeks--and beach volleyball.

Because of his commitment to the U.S. team and, in the last two years, to Il Messaggero, Kiraly has never devoted a full summer to the beach game.

For Kiraly, who learned the game on the sand in Santa Barbara, it offers a new challenge.

“I want to accomplish some things on the beach that I haven’t been able to before, such as being a part of the best team on the beach in any given summer, racking up the most wins in any given summer,” Kiraly said.

If he had rejoined the U.S. team, Kiraly would have missed almost all of the beach season and, in his mind, would have lost an opportunity to play with Kent Steffes, 23, who is considered the best young player on the Assn. of Volleyball Professionals tour.

Since Kiraly returned from Italy two months ago, he and Steffes have combined to win five of six tournaments, each earning $74,500 in prize money.

“I don’t think I would have been able to convince him to come back to be my partner (next year), so I would have been doing the partnership shuffle,” Kiraly said.

Scott Fortune, a reserve on the ’88 team, will replace Kiraly in the starting lineup in Barcelona, but Sturm said of Kiraly: “He’s irreplaceable. I don’t think there’s another player in the world who does the kinds of things he does.”

Timmons, a former teammate and close friend, has publicly questioned Kiraly’s decision, probably because it decreases the chances of the U.S. team successfully defending its Olympic title in Barcelona.

“I’m disappointed that he’s not here only because I’m being selfish in that I’d like to have one of the best players in the world playing next to me,” Timmons said. “But I’m not going to hold it against him.”

Kiraly said he won’t regret it.

“I tried to take that into account,” he said. “And I really felt like I would regret never accomplishing my goals on the beach, or missing special moments with my kids, more than I would miss winning a third gold medal.”