Kelsie Kruger’s bullheaded personality new to Aggie women’s basketball

Kelsie Kruger is the newest addition to the women’s basketball coaching staff, but she’s far from new to college basketball and has the grit needed to be a part of it all.

Since Kruger was a little girl, she has been around college basketball players due to the fact that her father, Kelly Kruger, has coached women’s basketball in the midwest for as long as she can remember.

“It’s a specific thing to a kid being the coach’s kid. You get that sisterhood, you’re immediately part of them,” said Kruger of her experience as a child while her father coached for 16 years at Southern Minnesota State University.

Kruger quickly picked up on playing the sport she was surrounded by. She also developed what her father calls a very bull-headed personality.

“She called the cops on her mother and me twice as a kid,” Kelly Kruger said. “She didn’t like something we told her she couldn’t do so she called the cops on us.”

That stubborn attitude of hers helped her develop a sense of perseverance that her father said has turned her into a go-getter.

After scoring more than 1,000 career points in high school ball, Kruger decided to play for her father at the Division II school he then coached at, Adams State University in Colorado, where her persistence was her biggest asset.

“I was never overly athletic or quick,” Kelsie Kruger said. “So I had to be a fundamental player to match people’s athleticism.”

Kelly Kruger said his experience coaching his daughter was a unique one because he tried to make sure she was treated equally.

Kelsie Kruger and her teammates made back-to-back NCAA Division II postseason appearances and she averaged 11.6 points and 7.2 rebounds per game as a senior, but, even with those numbers, her father said she didn’t get as much playing time as she deserved.

“I didn’t want anyone to think she got her playing time because she’s my daughter,” Kelly Kruger said. “In hindsight, I probably didn’t play her as much as I should have. She was really good.”

Kelsie Kruger persevered through that and was assigned as assistant director of the high school basketball summer camp she had helped at through college just one year after her senior season. She was working on her masters degree in educational policy studies from Iowa Lakes College as well as working there as an undergraduate instructor for volleyball and basketball at the time. She then returned for a year to work at Adams State as an assistant before she headed to work in that same position at Cal State East Bay.

After finishing at Cal, Kelsie Kruger was planning on going to work with her father at Ashford University.

Two days before the job would have started for her, Kruger’s father received a phone call notifying him that the basketball season would not happen due to the school shutting down. “Kelsie asked me ‘dad, why do things like this happen to us?’” Kelly Kruger said. “I just told her that I didn’t really know why, but that I knew God has a plan, and that everything would be okay.

“She was pretty discouraged, but two days later after South Dakota State had found out about the school shutting down, they called and offered her a job.”

Kelly Kruger said that is a lesson he has tried to teach his daughter and one that guides the way they do things in their family.

After working with South Dakota State as the director of basketball operations, Kelsie Kruger was recruited by Jerry Finkbeiner to join the Aggie women’s basketball staff.

“As coaches, we keep a list of names in the bottom drawer just in case,” Finkbeiner said. “I had met Kelsie on a recruiting trip about four years ago, I’ve always been impressed by her.”

Both Finkbeiner and Kelly Kruger are sure that Kelsie Kruger will strengthen the team with her tenacity and persistence the same way she has with each team in the past.