ST. JOSEPH, Minn. -- Meghan Orgeman is grateful for the role models she had - both during her time as an athlete at the College of Saint Benedict and as she began her own coaching career in the years that followed.
 
That's why the head girls track and field coach at Alexandria High School has dedicated so much time toward filling that role for others.
 
"My motto has always been if you see her, you can be her," said Orgeman, a 2005 graduate who held the CSB school record in the heptathlon for 12 years until it was broken in 2017.
 
"I got to Saint Ben's, and for the first time, I had a woman as my track and field coach (in Robin Balder-Lanoue). I was lucky enough to be around (longtime former athletic director) Carol Howe-Veenstra, who was a true trailblazer in women's athletics. I kept running into all these women I really wanted to be and that inspired me," said Orgeman.
 

It is why, in 2019, Orgeman co-founded Women4Women - an organization of track and field coaches in Minnesota, Wisconsin and North Dakota which (working through the Minnesota State Track and Field Coaches Association) is developing an ongoing support network for women in the coaching profession.
 
Orgeman herself served as MSTFCA president in 2022 and remains a board member of both the MSTFCA and the Minnesota State High School League Track and Field Advisory Council.
 
Such efforts are a big part of why she was selected as one of 11 individuals to be honored as part of National Girls and Women in Sports Day-Minnesota festivities held Wednesday at the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul.
 
Orgeman received one three special merit awards.
 
"I'm so excited to see her honored in this way," Balder-Lanoue said. "She's done so much for the community in Alexandria, and for women in the coaching profession. When you look at the impact she's had from the time she was in college through today, this recognition is so well-deserved."
 
After graduating in 2005, Orgeman earned a master's degree in school counseling at St. Cloud State (years later, she  would earn another degree in positive coaching at the University of Missouri). She then spent a year as a teacher and track and field coach in Micronesia through the WorldTeach organization.
 
One of the athletes she coached went on to compete in the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.
 
"When she was there, she reached out to us to ask if we could send over our old tennis shoes because they didn't have shoes to compete in," Balder-Lanoue recalls. "So we sent our old shoes over. That really personifies Megan. She tries to provide girls with opportunities wherever she goes."
 
In 2009, Orgeman became a school counselor at Alexandria. She was named head girls track and field coach at the school in 2013 and her teams have gone on to win 11-straight Section 8-2A championships and 10-straight Central Lakes Conference titles.
 
The Cardinals also captured Class 2A state titles in 2016 and again last year. In both those seasons, Orgeman was selected as Minnesota coach of the year and as the state's top coach by the United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association. She has also been named Section 8-2A coach of the year six times.
 
"It's been a genuinely perfect storm here at Alexandria," said Orgeman. "It's such an incredible school. I couldn't ask for a more supportive community, and I'm so proud to be part of it. I'm also very lucky to have the support of Mike Empting, the head boys (track and field and football) coach here. He and I work really closely together. We run the weight room and we're the head strength coaches for every team."
 

"We also have what I believe are truly the best assistant coaches in the state," said Orgeman. "We wouldn't have been able to accomplish anything close to what we have without them. It takes a full group of people working together to make that happen."
 
Orgeman said her passion for coaching took root at CSB, where she was able to serve as a volunteer coach under Balder-Lanoue for a year following her graduation.

She added she cannot overstate how important a role Balder-Lanoue played in her life. 
 
"Meeting Robin was a gift," she said. "She became a true mentor to me. She was invested not just in how we were performing, but in how we were as people. And we had a special, talented group of athletes. It's a group that I'm still connected with now."
 
Orgeman sees her current work as building on the foundation established by the pioneers who came before her in women's athletics. It's why, in 2022, she helped organize a 50th-anniversary celebration of the first girls state track and field meet at which coaches and athletes from the 1970s were honored.
 
"We wouldn't be where we are now without the trailblazers who came before us, and it's important that today's athletes know that some of their parents and grandparents didn't have these same opportunities," she said. "They won't know that unless we keep talking about it, and keep growing what those athletes and coaches started."