IN: Kiraly grew up in Santa Barbara, California. He began playing volleyball at age six with encouragement from his father, Dr. Laszlo Kiraly, who had been a member of the Hungarian Junior National team prior to fleeing the country during the Hungarian national uprising of 1956. At age 11, Kiraly entered his first beach volleyball tournament paired with his father. Kiraly attended Santa Barbara High School, where he was a member of the boys' varsity volleyball team.

Kiraly had a long career on the professional beach circuit, and with 148 career wins is the 'winningest' player in the sport's history. He won at least one tournament in 24 of the 28 seasons he played in a career that spanned four decades. He claimed titles with 13 partners, and in domestic events he made it to the semifinals over 80% of the time. Kiraly competed into his mid-40s. Kiraly played in his first beach tournament at age 11 as his father's partner. Kiraly has said as an 11-year-old he was thrilled to discover in beach volleyball he could compete with grown men on even terms. He earned his A and AA rating on the beach at the age of 15 and his AAA rating at 17. Kiraly's first big beach breakthrough came at Hermosa Beach in 1978. 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. In the early 1980s, Kiraly made a successful beach team pairing with UCLA teammate Sinjin Smith. The partnership split up as Kiraly came to focus on the U.S National Team. In 1992 Kiraly left his indoor career behind, returning to the U.S. to play beach volleyball full-time on the AVP tour. Kiraly chose Kent Steffes as his doubles partner. Steffes was a talented younger player who had left UCLA early to start playing on the professional beach tour. Kiraly and Steffes soon became the dominant pairing on the tour, supplanting former teammate and doubles partner Smith and his partner Randy Stoklos as the beach's top team. In 1996 Kiraly returned to the Olympics, this time competing in beach volleyball with his partner, Steffes. Kiraly and Steffes won the gold medal, the first ever awarded for men's beach volleyball. Kiraly continued to win tournaments into his 40s, recording two AVP tournament victories with his partner Brent Doble in 2002 and 2003, and four more with Mike Lambert in 2004 and 2005. Kiraly's last victory came in August 2005, when he and Lambert won at Huntington Beach. In 2006, Kiraly partnered with Larry Witt, and in 2007 partnered with Kevin Wong. His teams continued to make high placings. Over his career on the beach, Kiraly won over $3 million in prize money, and earned considerably more in endorsements. Kiraly retired from the AVP tour after the 2007 season. Ultimately Kiraly won 148 professional beach volleyball titles, 74 of them with Steffes. The next closest player in total wins is Sinjin Smith at 139. Following Smith is his longtime partner, Randy Stoklos, at 122. The next closest player behind these four from the top two teams is Emanuel Rego, with 78 wins.

When did Kiraly start a career in beach volleyball

OUT: terms. He earned his A and AA rating on the beach at the age of 15

IN: Woodes Rogers was the eldest son and heir of Woods Rogers, a successful merchant captain. Woodes Rogers spent part of his childhood in Poole, England, where he likely attended the local school; his father, who owned shares in many ships, was often away nine months of the year with the Newfoundland fishing fleet. Sometime between 1690 and 1696, Captain Rogers moved his family to Bristol. In November 1697, Woodes Rogers was apprenticed to Bristol mariner John Yeamans, to learn the profession of a sailor.

The ships then went to the Dutch port of Batavia in what is now Indonesia, where Rogers underwent surgery to remove a musket ball from the roof of his mouth, and the expedition disposed of the less seaworthy of the two Spanish prizes. Dealing with the Dutch there constituted a violation of the British East India Company's monopoly. When the ships finally dropped anchor in the Thames River on 14 October 1711, a legal battle ensued, with the investors paying the East India Company PS6,000 (about PS820,000 at today's values) as settlement for their claim for breach of monopoly, about four percent of what Rogers brought back. The investors approximately doubled their money, while Rogers gained PS1,600 (now worth perhaps PS218,700) from a voyage which disfigured him and cost him his brother, who was killed in a battle in the Pacific. The money was probably less than he could have made at home, and was entirely absorbed by the debts his family had incurred in his absence. However, the long voyage and the capture of the Spanish ship made Rogers a national hero. Rogers was the first Englishman, in circumnavigating the globe, to have his original ships and most of his crew survive. After his voyage, he wrote an account of it, titled A Cruising Voyage Round the World. Edward Cooke, an officer aboard Duchess, also wrote a book, A Voyage to the South Sea and Round the World, and beat Rogers to print by several months. Rogers' book was much more successful, with many readers fascinated by the account of Selkirk's rescue, which Cooke had slighted. Among those interested in Selkirk's adventure was Daniel Defoe, who appears to have read about it, and fictionalised the story as Robinson Crusoe. While Rogers' book enjoyed financial success, it had a practical purpose--to aid British navigators and possible colonists. Much of Rogers' introduction is devoted to advocacy for the South Seas trade. Rogers notes that had there been a British colony in the South Seas, he would not have had to worry about food supplies for his crew. A third of Rogers' book is devoted to detailed descriptions of the places that he explored, with special emphasis on "such [places] as may be of most use for enlarging our trade". He describes the area of the River Plate in detail because it lay "within the limits of the South Sea Company", whose schemes had not yet burst into financial scandal. Rogers' book was carried by such South Pacific navigators as Admiral George Anson and privateering captains John Clipperton and George Shelvocke.

Why did he want to go home?

OUT:
Rogers notes that had there been a British colony in the South Seas, he would not have had to worry about food supplies for his crew.