Coaching Staff

HEAD BOYS & GIRLS COACH, NICHOLE PORATH

Coach Nichole enters her third season as Head Boys and Girls Cross Country coach for the Raiders. Prior to coaching at NHS, she was an assistant XC coach for the Academy of Holy Angels for four years. She led the team to a 2nd place conference finish, the team's highest finish in 22 years, after a string of second-to-last-place finishes prior to her coaching tenure. She also spent several years shadowing head cross country coaches at Carleton College, Gustavus Adolphus, Seattle University and Seattle Pacific University. She has also privately coached nearly 200 runners, of all abilities, through TNC Endurance.

She ran XC and Track for Marshall High School (2001) and Gustavus Adolphus College (2005), setting 5 school T&F records and qualifying for Nationals 4 times at GAC. Post-collegiately, Nichole set her sights on the marathon and was rewarded for her efforts with an Olympic Marathon Trials qualifying time. She competed at the Trials in 2012, finishing 69th in a personal best of 2:44:12. She went on to run professionally for Brooks, set a World Record in the indoor marathon (right, top), and was one of 13 invited American Women to run in the professional division at the NYC Marathon.

She lives in Northfield with her husband, Nathan, two girls, Greta (5, left) and Anna (3). She earned an MBA from the Carlson School of Management and works as the Director of Finance at Bethel Lutheran Church. In addition to her role as head cross country coach at NHS, she is also the distance track and field coach for the Northfield Middle School.

She absolutely loves distance running, cross country, and coaching. She has brought that infectious passion to this head coaching role and is excited to lead the team to another great year! Lets go get after it!

ASSISTANT COACH, JANET SMITH

Coach Smith is entering her second year with the Raider XC team this fall. She is a wealth of running and 12 years of coaching experience: Fridley HS(2 years), and most recently Faribault HS(9 years), NHS (2 years). Most of her experience comes from being in an assistant role, but she was the head Girls XC coach in Faribault for 5 of those years. Coach Smith a math teacher at Northfield High School.

Smith started running at a young age and participated in cross country, basketball, track and softball at Farmington High School. She continued participating in sports at the collegiate level. She played softball (3 years), ran cross country(2 years), and ran track(1 year) for Concordia St. Paul. She competed in the NCAA Division II Track & Field Championships in the steeplechase.

Since college she continues to train and run road races. She lives in Dundas with her husband Neil and two children, Sonja (11) and Teddy (8). She loves the sport of cross country and can’t wait to bring her passion and joy for running to this thriving Raider team.

ASSISTANT COACH, TYLER BALOW

Coach Balow is entering his third year with the Raider Cross-Country program and 5th year as a social studies teacher at Northfield High School. Coach Balow competed in cross-country, basketball and track & field at Prior Lake High School (2006 graduate) before moving to Decorah, IA to attend Luther College (2010) and start his teaching career.

He developed an interest in coaching while in high school and has coached for basketball and track and field programs at the Middle School, High School, and Collegiate level in Minnesota and Iowa over the past decade. Coach Balow is excited to bring his coaching experience and love of running to the Raider program. He currently lives in Northfield with his wife and running partner Emma.

ASSISTANT COACH, MARIA RICHERT

Maria is entering her first year as a coach with the Northfield XC team.

After volunteering as a coach for an elementary age girls running program while in grad school, Maria knew she would love the opportunity to share her expertise at an even higher level. She is an alumna of Northfield High School as well as the Cross country and track teams there. She continued her running career at Concordia College competing in XC, as well as track and field. Since then, she continues running competitively in marathons, half marathons, and other long distances. She can’t wait to share her passion for the sport with the team and is thrilled to be returning to Northfield XC as a coach!

After finishing her undergraduate degree in Moorhead, Maria attended graduate school in Mankato, completing her MS degree in Spanish. Maria moved back to Northfield three years ago after living and working in the Twin Cities first in the nonprofit sphere and later as a college enrollment counselor. She now lives here with her husband, Phil, and two young sons, Teddy (2 years old) and Isaac (10 months).

ASSISTANT COACH, CRAIG CARDINAL

Craig is entering his first year as a coach with the Northfield XC team after a year as an assistant coach of the Northfield nordic ski team.

Craig has been running since he joined the cross country team as a high school freshman in Amery, WI, where he also ran track and nordic skied. He continues running and nordic skiing competitively at a variety of distances, but mostly half marathon and longer.

Craig graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in Chemical Engineering. He moved to Northfield in 2006 when he started a job as an Engineer at Sheldahl Flexible Electronics, where he still works.

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