ST. PAUL, Minn. – Longtime St. Olaf College Head Women’s Cross Country and Track and Field Coach and St. Olaf Athletic Hall of Fame inductee Chris Daymont will receive the Dorothy McIntyre Legacy Award as part of the 2025 National Girls & Women in Sports Day-Minnesota Celebration this coming February. Daymont, who coached well over […]
ST. PAUL, Minn. – Longtime St. Olaf College Head Women’s Cross Country and Track and Field Coach and St. Olaf Athletic Hall of Fame inductee Chris Daymont will receive the Dorothy McIntyre Legacy Award as part of the 2025 National Girls & Women in Sports Day-Minnesota Celebration this coming February.
Daymont, who coached well over 1,000 student-athletes during her 37-year coaching career at St. Olaf, will be recognized at the National Girls & Women in Sports Day-MN Celebration at noon on Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2025 at the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul. The Dorothy McIntyre Legacy Award is given to individuals who have dedicated themselves to a lifetime of groundbreaking results in their career, positively impacting the advancement of sports equity for girls and women in Minnesota.
“Chris’ impact on women’s athletics goes far beyond St. Olaf,” said St. Olaf Head Women’s Cross Country Coach Erica Maker ’04. “She was truly an advocate and champion for all women in sport, from promoting equal opportunity for women to form teams and compete, to fighting for more resources and recognition of female athletes. Chris’ own experiences as a young woman, with limited opportunities, fueled her desire to crusade for others so they could have what she and other young women of her generation could not: an opportunity, equal to those of me, to engage in all the benefits that sport and competition provide.”
After being hired to teach physical education methods and exercise physiology theory classes, coach women’s cross country and track and field, and serve as an assistant women’s basketball coach in 1976, Daymont impacted the lives of countless female students and student-athletes over a legendary coaching and teaching career. After having a cross country team of three runners and needing to convince the team manager and her friend to compete in order to score points at meets, Daymont quickly built the program into a national contender.
By her fourth and fifth seasons at St. Olaf, the Oles won the Midwest Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (MAIAW) state championships, placed in the top two at the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) Region VI Championships, and finished as the runners-up at the AIAW Division III National Championships. From 1986 until her retirement in 2018, Daymont’s cross country teams made 25 NCAA appearances, including 13 top-10 finishes, and won nine Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) titles among 26 top-three finishes in the conference.
“Chris was the first female coach I ever saw or competed for,” Maker added. “She made such an impact on how I viewed myself as a woman and an athlete. The lessons she taught us still resonate with me today; mainly, that we are powerful, strong, can do anything we put our minds to, and are equal to anyone.”
A two-time MIAC Coach of the Year, three-time NCAA Division III Central Region Coach of the year, 2014 U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) Hall of Fame honoree and 2013 St. Olaf Athletic Hall of Fame inductee, Daymont also coached track and field at St. Olaf until 2010. All told, her cross country and track and field student-athletes combined for a total of 81 All-America accolades, including two individual national championships.
Daymont also served as a distance and middle-distance clinician around the Midwest and was a meet director for MIAC and NCAA track and field championship events hosted by St. Olaf.
