Gustavus Adolphus College

Laurie Kelly is in her 13th season as the head coach of the Gustavus women’s basketball team in 2024-25. 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 12 years at Gustavus. She has led the Gustavus program to 10 top-five MIAC finishes, including the program's first ever back-to-back MIAC Regular Season Championships in the last two seasons. In her most recent season, Kelly coached the Gusties to their third consecutive NCAA Tournament after claiming her program's third MIAC Playoff Championship in a row. Kelly has coached the Gusties to 42 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 2023-24 squad made 20 new contributions to the program record books, posting the best MIAC winning percentage in program history, as well as setting new season field goal percentage (47.9%) and team assists (502) records. Kelly has made five NCAA tournament runs with the Gusties, the most memorable in the 2017-18 season, when the team upset host UW-Whitewater to advance to the NCAA Sweet 16. Kelly has coached ten players to national and regional recognition, the most recent being Syd Hauger (All-America HM) and Emma Kniefel (All-Region) in 2023-24. Coach Kelly has also been named a finalist for WBCA National Coach of the Year in her last two 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 their two daughters, Morgan '25 and Madison '27.