College of St. Scholastica Women's Basketball

Jason Schmitz enters his fifth season as Saints Head Women's Basketball Coach in 2025-26.  During the 2024-25 season, he led the Saints to a record of 12-13 and 9-9 in MIAC play, the Saints first .500 season in conference play since joining the league in 2021.  During his time at CSS, Schmitz had coached multiple All-MIAC players, including MIAC Rookie of the Year Lexi Imdieke in 2023.  Prior to CSS, Schmitz was the head women’s basketball coach at NCAA Division III Centenary College (La.). In three seasons at Centenary, he led the program to its most conference wins since the 1982-83 season and recruited the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) Newcomer of the Year. Prior to Centenary, Schmitz was an assistant on the women’s staff at his alma mater the University of Mary (N.D.) for four seasons. While at Mary, he recruited and coached five Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference (NSIC) All-Conference selections, one NSIC Freshman of the Year, one DII Bulletin All-Freshman Team selection and two WBCA All-American Honorable Mention selections. Schmitz graduated from Mary in 2008 with a degree in Social Behavioral Science Education. He went on to earn his Masters in Secondary Education at Worcester State College (Mass.).  

Jeff Cottrell begins his seventh season on the cross country staff for the 2025 season while entering his seventh season on the track & field staff. Cottrell volunteered for Saints track & field in 2017.   Cottrell, a Hermantown, Minnesota native, competed for the University of Minnesota from 2012-15. Prior to that time, he earned All-America accolades in the 4x400m and 800m run while competing for the Community Colleges of Spokane (Wash.).    In 2021, the Northwest Athletic Conference (NWAC) unveiled their All-Decade Team for the 2010's. The 4x400m relay that Cottrell was a part of was awarded First-Team honors. Cottrell earned a double major in Studies in Cinema and Media Culture and Communications Studies from the University of Minnesota in 2015.    In the summer of 2019, he graduated with his Masters Degree in Positive Coaching from the University of Missouri.   Prior to CSS, Cottrell spent time as Graduate Assistant at Gustavus Adolphus College and was a volunteer assistant at Gonzaga University.   At St. Scholastica, Cottrell works with the sprint and hurdle program (60m-800m races), as well as assists Chad Salmela's work with the cross country program and distance races on the track.   

Madisyn Rogan begins her first season as Saints women's basketball assistant coach for the 2025-26 season. Rogan, a former NAIA student-athlete and graduate assistant at Briar Cliff University, was part of three NAIA National Tournament teams as a player, including the 2022-23 team, which won the GPAC conference tournament and advanced to the round of sixteen on the national stage.  After her playing career wrapped up, Rogan transitioned to the Briar Cliff coaching staff as a graduate assistant and helped bring the Chargers to another level. This culminated in two very successful campaigns, with a final eight appearance in 2023-24 and a Fab 4 (NAIA version of Final Four) season in 2024-25. In addition to her work with the varsity squad, Rogan was tasked with leading the Chargers' reserve team, helping facilitate their development to the varsity level with an emphasis on defensive intensity to spur an up-tempo, fast break heavy offense.  Rogan's coaching experience extends beyond the college level as well. She worked as a youth basketball coach for Siouxland Sports Academy and Sioux City East Middle School where she maintained a player development focused approach to teach the game's fundamentals and facilitate good sportsmanship.

Calvin Boone brings a standout legacy of competitive excellence and academic achievement to his first year as assistant cross country coach at the College of St. Scholastica.   Collegiate Cross Country A three-time NCAA Division III national qualifier — only the third runner in Saints history and the first male to achieve this feat The College of St. Scholastica Athletics. A 2023 USTFCCCA All-America selection, recognizing his top-tier performance at the NCAA Championships   Track & Field Highlights 2025 – Qualified for the NCAA Indoor Championships in the mile, finished 11th at National Championships 2024 – Earned First-Team All-America honors as part of the Saints’ Distance Medley Relay team that placed 6th at the NCAA Indoor Championships (9:52.01). 2022 – Captured CSS’s first MIAC Indoor Championship title in the mile; qualified for NCAA Outdoor Championships in the 1,500 m. 2021 – Won UMAC Outdoor titles in the 1,500 m and 5,000 m; broke multiple school records (indoor 1,000 m, mile, 3,000 m; outdoor 1,500 m, 5,000 m). Multiple MIAC All-Conference selections and USTFCCCA All-Region awards. Academic Excellence Consistent Dean’s List student. USTFCCCA All-Academic in both cross country and track & field. Academic All-MIAC honoree.

Chad Salmela enters his 10th season as the head men’s and women’s cross country coach at St. Scholastica in 2025. Salmela had been the school’s first men’s and women’s Nordic ski head coach the previous 10 years prior to being named the cross country coach in 2016. He also assists with the men’s and women’s track & field programs as the distance coach.   Salmela led the Saints women in 2024 and men in 2023, to program-high third place finishes in the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletics Conference Cross Country Championships. The men’s finish earned him the MIAC Men’s Cross Country Coach of the Year for 2023, only the second Saints coach in program history to earn coach of the year honors since the Saints joined the MIAC in 2021. Salmela led Allison Hendrickson, Calvin Boone, and Lars Dewall, to the NCAA Cross Country Championships in 2023, with Senior, Lars Dewall, and junior, Calvin Boone earning All-American honors at the meet—the first two such honors in program history. It was the most Saints to qualify for an NCAA Cross Country Championships in a single season.   Before the MIAC era, Salmela led the women’s team to four consecutive UMAC Championships and guided the men’s team to the UMAC title in 2019. Salmela coached Casey Hovland to two NCAA Division III Championship appearances, including an All-America performance in 2016. Salmela is a three-time UMAC Women’s Cross Country Coach of the Year and 2019 UMAC Men’s Coach of the Year.   The Saints qualified runners to the NCAA Cross Country Championships for the past four straight seasons, the longest continuous run in program history. In his 10 seasons coaching St. Scholastica skiers, Salmela led both the men and the women to Central Collegiate Ski Association (CCSA) Championships in 2015, despite annually competing against scholarship programs Northern Michigan University, University of Alaska-Fairbanks and Michigan Tech University.  He coached Paul Schommer to the program's only All-America honors in 2014. In total, under his tutelage, the Saints had 12 NCAA qualifiers in his 10 seasons, including 10 since 2012. Schommer developed post-collegiately to be the ski program’s first Olympian alum, in 2022, in which Schommer competed in the Beijing Olympics in the sport of biathlon.   Salmela was an assistant under retired Coach Steve Pfingsten for the first two years at St. Scholastica and prior to that had coached boys and girls cross country at the Marshall School from 2002 to 2006.  Salmela has coached elite and master-elite marathoners and continues to consult aspiring Olympic skiers as part-time high performance manager for Team Birkie.   As a junior competitor, Salmela was one of the Midwest’s top junior cross country ski racers as well as an all-state cross country runner for Mountain Iron-Buhl-Virginia, then switched to the sport of biathlon after high school at age 19. After eight years of competing nationally and internationally as a member of the United States Biathlon Team, he moved directly into the assistant coach position for the U.S. Biathlon Team in 1998, while finishing his college degree at Middlebury College in Vermont. After graduation, Salmela built and coached a national junior development program for biathlon, managed the 2002 Olympic Games biathlon competitions in Salt Lake City, served as assistant coach and wax technician for the U.S. junior world championship biathlon team, served eight years as an athlete representative for the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, and announced ski events across the country and on television.   Salmela has served as NBC Sports expert and color analyst for cross country skiing and biathlon for 20 years, and commentates for FIS Cross Country World Cup and IBU Biathlon World Cup events as an English world feed commentator online.    Salmela was the biathlon color commentator for NBC's coverage of 2006 Torino Olympics and added cross country skiing and Nordic combined to his duties at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. To date, he has been NBC's color analyst for the past five Olympic Winter Games.  He is widely known in American popular culture for his exasperated “here comes Diggins!” call of Kikkan Randall and Jessie Diggins’ gold medal finish in the team sprint at the 2018 Pyeong Chang Olympics.  It has been hailed as one of the most iconic television calls in United States Olympic history.