Making Everyone Around You Better
Sometimes the mindset and focus of a single person can elevate an entire team.
In 1981, the emerging star for the USA men’s national volleyball team was also its youngest player, Karch Kiraly. A versatile talent, Karch excelled on both the court and the beach. At UCLA he led the Bruins to three national championships in four years while spending his summers winning beach tournaments up and down the coast of Southern California. Even while still enrolled at UCLA, Karch trained with the national team, and his presence elevated the mentality and focus of many of the players. Karch’s intensity and competitiveness set a new, higher standard, driving his teammates to demand more from themselves and each other.
“Karch set the bar,” said Dave Saunders, Karch’s teammate at both UCLA and on the national team. “Even though most of us figured we couldn’t get to the bar he set, we all tried to get there. Some people folded. They couldn’t handle it, but others rose to the occasion.”
Karch Kiraly diving for a ball at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Source: ©️ Photo by Bruce Hazelton
“I was sitting on the bench, trying to break in as a starter on the national team for years,” said Aldis Berzins, the former national team member and current men’s coach at Stevenson University. “Then this UCLA beach god [Karch] walks onto the court and he’s still in college and he’s a starter.”
It was tough for some of the veteran national team players to take a back seat to such a young player, but begrudgingly, they realized why.
“Karch made us different,” said Berzins. “He made everyone around him better. At the level we play, everyone can jump, everyone can hit, but what made Karch special was his mental game, his grit. He didn’t sandbag, ever. Not in practice and not in a game. He would always compete and try to win, at anything he did.”
Mike Krzyewski, the winningest coach in NCAA men’s basketball history, has observed something similar in the championship teams he coached at Duke.
"The single most important ingredient, after you get the talent, is internal leadership,” said Krzyewski. “It's not the coaches as much as one single person or people on the team who set higher standards than the team would normally set for itself."
In my book, If Gold Is Our Destiny: How a Team of Mavericks Came Together for Olympic Glory (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022), I chronicle the journey of the USA men’s volleyball team from perennial under achievers in the late 1970s to winning a gold medal in 1984. One of the many leadership lessons that emerged from studying this team is the importance of setting high standards, and the critical role athletes like Karch play in the process, whose sheer energy and competitiveness elevate the effort of everyone around them.
Karch finished his playing career as the most accomplished volleyball player in the history of the sport, having won olympic gold medals in both indoor and beach volleyball. In 2012 he became the head coach of the USA women’s national team and coached the women to their first olympic gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
In the Foreword to my book, Karch Kiraly reminisced about the transformation of the national team in the 1980s from mediocrity to greatness. In typical Karch-style, he de-emphasizes his own outsized contribution to his team’s success, writing:
“My teammates and I lived, and regularly suffered, through a mountain of unique experiences on our journey to becoming the best in the world.”
To learn more about the “mountain of unique experiences” this team suffered through, and what we can learn from their experience, purchase a copy of the book today, or contact me about speaking to your organization on the topic of leadership and building a winning team-culture.
Sean Murray is a keynote speaker, leadership coach and the author of If Gold Is Our Destiny: How a Team of Mavericks Came Together for Olympic Glory. His firm, RealTime Performance, provides leadership development and training to businesses and non-profits.
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