June 17, 2021
Brenna Bray’s MPA athletics experience came full circle. A member of the class of 2002 and former Nordic ski and track and field and cross country athlete, Bray rejoined MPA athletics as a cross country running and Nordic skiing coach in 2012 and 2013.
She is one of very few former athletes whose favorite MPA athletics memory comes not from her time on the team but her time as a coach, ten years after her graduation. “Watching the boys cross country team sprint into the finish one by one at the state meet to earn second place as a team; witnessing the genuine joy and smile on the face of each individual runner upon learning what they had done together as a team,” Bray remembers about coaching the Panthers to a second place finish at the 2013 class A state meet. “I could not have been more proud to be a Panther!”
Bray’s MPA athletics career started 15 years before as a seventh grader on the Nordic ski and track and field teams. Over the next six years, she became one of MPA’s most successful endurance athletes. A four time Tri Metro all-conference selection and three time state qualifier, MPA’s first in girl’s Nordic skiing, Bray’s Nordic career was sensational. As a senior, she was the Tri-Metro Conference and section four champion. She earned all-state honors, finishing in the top 20 in both the classic and pursuit races.
On the track, Bray added two more Tri Metro all-conference awards. Her outstanding performances across several distance events landed her on four different MPA girl’s track and field top ten all-time lists.
Bray added cross country running as a junior and senior, recording the seventh best cross country performance in girls team history and earning a Tri Metro all-conference honorable mention award.
For all her accomplishments, as both a student and athlete, Bray was honored with the 2002 Mounds Park Academy Athena Award winner.
In the end, it was cross country running that Bray decided to pursue collegiately at St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN, bringing with her what she learned as an MPA athlete. “I learned the importance of sleep and rest. It was sometimes challenging in high school to manage a heavy academic and athletic load, but the experience was ultimately helpful for me,” says Bray. “When I was in college and had more control over my time, I was able to draw from my high school experiences to structure my time in a way that helped me perform well both athletically and academically.”
As an Ole, Bray recorded the 31st fastest 6K time in school history, and in 2002, she earned MIAC all-conference, all-region honorable mention, and a berth in the NCAA Division III women’s cross country championship.
Through a long career, Bray remembers the little moments. “The Nordic skiing state meet was at Giant’s Ridge, a two hour drive from MPA, but several of my classmates made the drive to watch me race. I remember seeing the face of one of my classmates and Kordo (Former MPA athletic director Joe Kordosky) at the starting line, and it made me feel really special and valued.”
Bray studied psychology and media studies at St. Olaf and wrote for the student newspaper The Manitou Messenger. She graduated with her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of South Dakota in 2018. She is now a post-doctoral research investigator at the National University of Natural Medicine in Boulder, CO.
