Janna Kiraly is a celebrity spouse who rose to fame as the wife of Karch Kiraly, a former American volleyball player, broadcaster, and current head coach of the US women’s volleyball team.
Born Charles Frederick Kiraly, Karch Kiraly’s life and career is not news to the public as he currently remains the only player, both male and female, to ever win Olympic medals in both the beach and indoor volleyball categories. He is also presently the second-ever player to have won the Olympic Gold medal as a player and as a coach after China’s Lang Ping.
On the other hand, not much is known about the wife of such a great sporting personality as Janna Kiraly prefers life behind the spotlight. This article aims at revealing the unknown facts about her life and career.
Summary of Janna Kiraly’s Biography
- Full Name: Janna Kiraly
- Gender: Female
- Ethnicity: Caucasian
- Nationality: American
- Sexual Orientation: Straight
- Religion: Christianity
- Marital Status: Married
- Janna Kiraly’s Husband: Charles Frederick “Karch” Kiraly
- Janna Kiraly’s Children: 2 – Kristian Kiraly (son), Kory Kiraly (son)
- Current Residence: Heber City, Utah, USA
- Famous for: For being the wife of US women’s volleyball head coach, Karch Kiraly
Who Is Janna Kiraly?
Janna Kiraly keeps details of her early life private and away from media scrutiny and the resultant effect is that there is little to no information regarding her age or date of birth. This has also led to a number of speculations about the coach’s wife with the prevailing one putting her birth around the 1970s.
Not much is known about Janna’s parents or other family members which also leads to assumptions regarding her ethnicity. However, internet images of Janna would easily lead one to believe that she belongs to the Caucasian ethnic group. Janna Kiraly is an American citizen who was most likely born in the United States of America.
Janna Kiraly Met And Married Her Husband In The Late 1980s
Janna Kiraly and Karch Kiraly tied the knot in 1986 – which is about the only credible information about their relationship there is. Not many members of the public can accurately describe the timeline of the relationship from when or how they met to when they began dating and down to the exact details of their wedding ceremony.
A closer look at Janna Kiraly’s husband’s career will reveal that they got married almost at the same time as when his career was taking off. It was a period of intense mental strength and it is a testament to their commitment to each other that they didn’t let any pressure from his career negatively impact their marriage. Janna Kiraly and her husband, Karch Kiraly, have been married for over three decades now.
Remarkably, in a world where a good deal of celebrity marriages go through one scandal or controversy, Janna Kiraly’s over 30-year marriage is yet to experience one. Janna and her husband are parents to two sons, Kristian Kiraly and Kory Kiraly. Like their mother, Kristian and Kory prefer to keep a low profile which makes it kind of hard to determine their exact dates of birth.
In all likelihood, that won’t be for long as it has been reported that the boys have followed in the volleyball footsteps of their father and paternal grandfather who is recorded as having played for the Hungarian national team in his playing days.
Janna Kiraly Is Mostly Known as The Wife Of Karch Kiraly, A Volleyball Coach
Like most things about Janna Kiraly’s life, her formal education background is one of the things about her that there seems to be no information about. The lack of information on her career extends to what she does for a living.
She is, however, married to Karch Kiraly, the current head coach of the US women’s volleyball team and also one of the most successful ex-players of the game. Karch was introduced to the sport by his father at the very young age of six. Since then, the Olympic gold medalist has carved out a successful career in volleyball both as a player and as a coach.
Karch Kiraly attended Santa Barbara High School where he quickly became a valuable member of the Dons of Santa Barbara, his high school’s varsity volleyball team. His skills led them to two championship finals in his junior year. They faced San Clemente High School in the 1976 final before losing out on the ultimate prize.
That defeat clearly spurred Karch and other players on the team to get better in their next championship match which took place during his senior year in 1978, defeating Laguna Beach High School in the process. Records show that the Dons actually went undefeated that year and Karch was voted sectional player of the year.
Janna Kiraly’s Husband Went To UCLA
Following an impressive high school career, Janna’s husband, Karch was accepted into UCLA to major in biochemistry. By now his skills on the volleyball court were no longer in doubt which was why he didn’t find it hard to become part of the UCLA Bruins in his freshman year. 1979 ended with March as a championship winner having led the Bruins to the NCAA championship.
Before leaving college, he won the championship two more times in 1981 and 1982 and lost a final in 1980. This record means that Kiraly impressively got to the final of the NCAA championship all four years as a college student. He won the NCAA Volleyball Tournament MVP in 1981 and 1982, while also going undefeated with the Bruins in 1979 and 1982. His college match record reads 123-5 in favor of Karch Kiraly.
Karch Kiraly Is One of The Best Ever Players To Play Volleyball
Trying to explain how successful Kiraly has been both as a player and now as a coach will take up too much time and space. He played the sport for over 40 years and won multiple titles and medals, including a nice number of gold medals while representing the United States of America as a player and as a coach.
He won 24 out of 28 tournaments over a long and storied career on the beach volleyball ball circuit before retiring as a player in 2005. He has been a coach for more than a decade and was appointed to his current position following the London 2012 Olympics where he was the assistant coach.
As head coach, he has won one Women’s FIVB World Championship, 2014, one Bronze medal at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, too prize at the FIVB Volleyball Women’s Nations League before picking up the gold medal in the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics as head coach of the US Women’s Volleyball team on August 8, 2021. In doing so, he became only the second person to achieve the feat both as a player and as a coach.
