Gustavus Adolphus College

Laurie Kelly is in her 14th season as the head coach of the Gustavus women’s basketball team in 2025-26. Kelly, a 1993 graduate of the University of St. Thomas with a degree in speech communications, came to Gustavus from Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, where she directed the Division I Lumberjacks for nine seasons. 

Kelly has coached the Gusties to several record breaking seasons in her 13 years at Gustavus. She has led the Gustavus program to 11 top-five MIAC finishes, including the program's first ever back-to-back-to-back MIAC Regular Season Championships in the last three seasons. In her most recent season, Kelly coaches the Gusties to their first Elite Eight appearance in the NCAA Tournament and fourth NCAA Tournament in a row after claiming her program's fourth MIAC Playoff Championship in a row. Kelly has coached the Gusties to 46 total MIAC post-season accolades, and set a record in 2024 as the first team to have all five starters selected as All-Conference. Kelly's 2024-25 squad made new contributions to the program record books, posting the most wins in program history. Kelly has made six NCAA tournament runs with the Gusties, the most memorable in the 2024-25 season, when the team hosted the NCAA First and Second Round and advanced to the Elite Eight for the first time in program history. Kelly has coached ten players to national and regional recognition, the most recent being Emma Kniefel (All-American) in 2024-25. Coach Kelly has also been named a finalist for WBCA National Coach of the Year in her last three seasons.

A Rochester, Minnesota native, Kelly made a quick ascent through the Division II and I coaching ranks after a record setting Division III playing career at the University of St. Thomas in the early '90s. In nine years at Northern Arizona, she compiled the most wins in the program’s history (117), while also directing the team to its first-ever Big Sky Conference tournament title and NCAA tournament bid in the 2005-06 season.  During Kelly’s tenure, the Lumberjacks advanced to the Big Sky tournament six times with two appearances in the championship game (2006, 2007), and her teams registered two of the three 20-win seasons in the program’s history.

Prior to her position at Northern Arizona, Kelly coached at Binghamton University in New York and built the Bearcats into one of the top Division II programs in the country before helping the institution transition to a Division I program in 2001-02. During her five years at Binghamton, Kelly compiled a record of 94-22, including a mark of 75-13 in the program’s final three years at the Division II level, and her squads won New England Collegiate Conference (NECC) titles in 1999 and 2000 and Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference (ECAC) titles in 2000 and 2001. Kelly started her collegiate coaching career as the graduate assistant coach at Minnesota State University, Mankato from 1996 to 1998. While she was at MSU-Mankato she earned a master’s degree in physical education with an emphasis in sports administration.

Before her success in the coaching ranks, Laurie Trow Kelly was a standout player at the University of St. Thomas from 1989 to 1993 and is recognized by many as one of the greatest players in NCAA Division III history. A gifted athlete, the 6-1 Kelly scored 2,607 points and pulled down 1,204 rebounds in four years, earning Kodak All-America honors three consecutive seasons. In her senior season (1992-93), Kelly was voted National Player of the Year by the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association after averaging more than 26 points per game. She set 22 conference and 24 school records, was conference MVP three times and was also named Midwest Sports Channel NCAA Division III Women’s Athlete of the Year. In January of 2006, Kelly was one of five players selected to the NCAA Division III 25th Anniversary Team. She was named to the St. Thomas Hall of Fame in 1998.

Kelly lives in Saint Peter with and her husband, Matt, and has two daughters, Morgan '25 and Madison '27.