Volleyball icon Karch Kiraly was nominated for the U.S. Olympic Committee’s Olympic Hall of Fame the AVP announced. Fans can help vote him in this month.

Kiraly, of San Clemente, retired last year as the game’s greatest player with more victories, more prize money, awards and accolades than any other player. In Olympic competition, he is the sport’s only player to win three gold medals. The first two came indoors with the U.S. team in 1984 and 1988, but he and partner Kent Steffes won the first gold awarded for beach volleyball at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.

The U.S. Olympic Committee is inviting fans to vote for Kiraly at www.USOlympicHallofFame.com through March 28.

Kiraly now coaches the St. Margaret’s High School boys volleyball team in San Juan Capistrano. He has also launched an amateur national championship, the U.S. Open of Beach Vollyball, which debuted in Huntington Beach last summer.

Six individual Olympians, one Olympic team and one Paralympian, along with a coach, a veteran and a special contributor, will be honored during the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony June 19 in Chicago.

If inducted, he will join other great Olympians such as Cassius Clay, Mark Spitz, Jim Thorpe, Jesse Owens,“Sugar Ray” Leonard, Carl Lewis,  Peggy Fleming, Mary Lou Retton and the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” Hockey Team.

–Shawn

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