Krista Vansant (born March 31, 1993) is a volleyball player and coach who played collegiately for Washington. In 2022, she was the assistant coach for the University of Illinois volleyball team after spending 3 seasons as an assistant coach at Indiana.[2][3]
Vansant was born in Whittier, California, east of Los Angeles, to Tricia and Robert Vansant and grew up in Redlands, California.[4] She played volleyball all four years at Redlands East Valley High School where she helped lead her team to three CIF championship titles.[5] She recorded 1913 kills during her four years on the high school team.[6] Her high school accomplishments resulted in being awarded the Gatorade Player of the Year award in volleyball. She was the consensus top pick in the nation as a senior, and chose to go to the University of Washington.[4]
In her junior year at Washington, Vasant was named the National Player of the Year by the American Volleyball Coaches Association, as well as Pac-12 Player of the Year.[7] She helped lead her team to the semifinals of the 2013 NCAA Division I women's volleyball tournament.[7] In 2014 and 2015, she was the winner of the Honda Sports Award, given to the nation's top female collegiate volleyball player.[8]
Vansant had played professional club level volleyball for only 2015/16 season with the Swiss side Voléro Zürich.[9] She won the Swiss Championship as well as the Swiss Cup with her team and contributed to club's eleventh double in twelve years.[10] At the Champions League; Voléro topped their respective group with six wins from six matches,[11] and eliminated Lokomotiv Baku in the first knock-out round to reach the playoff 6 stage of the competition,[12] in which they were defeated by the eventual finalist VakıfBank S.K.[13]
Vansant represented United States national team on an international competition for the first time at the 2015 Pan American Cup.[5] She led the team to gold medal with a tournament-leading 50.4% kill percentage to go with 81 total points,[9] and earned "most valuable player" and "best outside hitter" honors for the tournament.[14] At the 2015 Pan American Games, she was the top scorer for the Team USA in five of their six matches and selected as the "best outside hitter",[5][15] while the Americans winning the title.[16] She also helped Team USA to capture the gold medal at the 2015 NORCECA Championship[5] and was on the preliminary round squad at the 2015 and 2016 FIVB World Grand Prix,[17][1] where Team USA won the gold and silver medal, respectively.[18][19]
Vansant was named as an alternate for the 2016 Rio Olympic Team,[20] but did not take part at the Olympic Games.[9]