He is the only player (man or woman) 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.

Kiraly has credited his high school coach, Rick Olmstead, for teaching him the value of hard work and dedication.

[3][4] In 1978, Kiraly enrolled at UCLA, where he majored in biochemistry and also was a brother of the Epsilon Sigma Chapter of Lambda Chi Alpha.

Under head coach Al Scates, Kiraly led UCLA to the NCAA Men's Volleyball Championship in his freshman season in 1979.

[5] Kiraly earned All-American honors all four years,[6] and was awarded NCAA Volleyball Tournament Most Outstanding Player in 1981 and 1982.

[7] Kiraly earned a Bachelor of Science degree in biochemistry from UCLA, graduating cum laude in June 1983 with a 3.55 cumulative GPA.

[8][9] Growing up, Kiraly wanted to be a biochemist to follow in his father's footsteps, but that changed when he joined the US national team and led it to multiple gold medals.

Along with teammate Aldis Berzins, Kiraly was the foundation for the "two-man" serve reception system Doug Beal created in 1983.

[12] Along with covering half the court on serve receive and consistently delivering the ball to team setter Dusty Dvorak, Kiraly proved to be an excellent defender and a highly productive outside hitter.

As a 17-year-old who had just graduated from high school, he shocked Hermosa onlookers by gaining the finals before he and partner Marco Ortega lost to the day's dominant team on the beach, Jim Menges and Greg Lee.

[17] In the early 1980s, Kiraly made a successful beach team pairing with UCLA teammate Sinjin Smith.

In 1992, Kiraly left his indoor career behind, returning to the U.S. to play beach volleyball full-time on the AVP tour.

Steffes was a talented younger player who had left UCLA early to start playing on the professional beach tour.

Kiraly worked as an analyst for NBC Sports during their coverage of the beach volleyball competition at the 2008 Summer Olympics.

In 2012, Kiraly was named head coach of the US National Women's Volleyball team to try to compete in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

[22] In October 2014, Kiraly coached the Women's National Team to the FIVB World Championship, defeating China in the Gold Medal final.

American Volleyball Coaches Association College Sports Information Directors of America U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame in 2008.