St. Olaf College Athletics

Patti (Laufenberg) Bayer is in her third season as the head women's track and field coach at St. Olaf in 2025-26 after being hired as the seventh head coach in program history on June 16, 2022. She also serves as an assistant coach for St. Olaf's women's cross country program.

Bayer has led St. Olaf to top-four finishes at both the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) Indoor and Outdoor Track & Field Championships in each of her two seasons, including a runner-up finish indoors in 2025. In two seasons, St. Olaf has had three All-Americans, one MIAC Indoor Co-Women's Track Athlete of the Year, six MIAC individual champions (all outdoor), three MIAC champion relays (1 indoor, 2 outdoor), 20 individual All-MIAC performances (12 outdoor, 8 indoor), and 6 All-MIAC relays (3 outdoor, 3 indoor).

Bayer came to St. Olaf after spending the past six seasons at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, most recently serving as the associate head women’s track and field coach, working primarily with the sprints. She also was the coordinator for athletic communications and was the advisor for the Pioneer Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (PSAAC).
  
During Bayer's six seasons at UW-Platteville, the women’s program produced two national champions, eight All-Americans, 31 individual national qualifiers plus one national-qualifying relay, 14 conference champions, and 50 all-conference or honorable mention all-conference individuals/relays while competing in the highly-competitive Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. The Pioneers’ women’s program posted top-30 national finishes both indoors (t-27th) and outdoors (t-26th) in 2021-22 and was in the top 20 in both meets in 2016-17, including finishing 10th indoors that year.
 
In 2021-22, two student-athletes from Bayer's sprints group at UW-Platteville qualified for nationals. Gwen Orr qualified in two events (60-meter dash, 200-meter dash) indoors and two events (100-meter dash, 200-meter dash) outdoors, while Cade VanHout competed in the 60-meter dash indoors and the 100-meter dash and 200-meter dash outdoors. Orr holds six school records at UW-Platteville, while VanHout was an indoor All-American in the 60-meter dash (seventh) and the outdoor 100-meter dash (sixth).
  
A former NCAA Division III student-athlete at Carthage College, Bayer was a six-time College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin (CCIW) conference champion during her four-year career while competing in the sprints, relays (4x100, 4x400, DMR) and triple jump. She qualified for both the 2012 and 2013 NCAA Division III Outdoor Track & Field Championships before earning All-American honors (seventh indoors, sixth outdoors) in the 400-meter dash at both national meets as a senior in 2014. Bayer remains Carthage’s school-record holder in the outdoor 400-meter dash (55.82) and ran on the school-record-holding DMR (12:17.88).
 
Bayer graduated from Carthage in 2014 with a bachelor of arts in exercise and sports science and a minor in Spanish and went on to earn a master of arts in teaching in elementary education from Converse College in 2016. While at Converse, she was a graduate assistant for the track and field and cross country teams, working with the sprints, middle distance and distance, and jumps.
 
In June 2019, Bayer attended the NCAA Women Coaches Academy, sponsored by WeCOACH, which included topics on leadership, social media engagement, diversity and inclusion in sports, and the role of Title IX and gender bias in sport for female collegiate coaches across all sports and all divisions of the NCAA. She also completed U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) courses in strength and conditioning, sports psychology for the track and field coach, and sport science for speed/power events.