Harvard University

Sam Benzing became The Paul J. Finnegan Family Head Coach for Harvard Nordic Skiing in June 2023 and enters her second season as the leader of the Crimson in the 2024-25 academic year.
 
In her first season at Harvard in 2023-24, Benzing coached Rémi Drolet ’24 to an appearance in the 2024 NCAA Championships with Drolet placing fourth in the men’s 20k classic. Benzing helped the Crimson host the Harvard Carnival for the third time in five seasons from 2020-24 and led the team to an eighth-place finish at the EISA Championships.
 
Benzing arrived at Harvard after two years (2021-23) as an assistant coach at the College of Saint Scholastica in Duluth, Minnesota, where she helped guide the Saints to a record-breaking season in 2023. St. Scholastica had individual winners on both the men’s and women’s side at the NCAA Central Region Championship, with the men's team winning the team competition. St. Scholastica sent four competitors to the 2023 NCAA Skiing Championships in Lake Placid, New York.
 
A native of Boise, Idaho, Benzing has amassed impressive experience at the collegiate and national levels, serving on staff with the U.S. Ski Team at the Falun and Lahti World Cup Ski races in March 2023 and was a coach at the 2022 U.S. U16 National Camp. Benzing was selected as a participant at the 52nd class of the NCAA Women Coaches Academy in May 2023 and served as a Women's Sports Foundation (WSF) Tara VanDerveer Fellow, awarded to 10 collegiate assistant coaches annually in all sports and all divisions of college athletics.
 
Benzing was a four-year varsity athlete on the nordic ski team at Saint Scholastica, where she served as captain in 2020-21 and earned CCSA All-Conference and All-Region honors. She earned a master’s degree in Psychological Sciences at the University of Minnesota-Duluth in May 2023.