(Editor's note: Information provided by UM Athletics.)
MISSOULA — Montana women's golf coach Kris Nord, who has been with the school in an official capacity since 1982, has announced his retirement.
Nord will call it a career in January after a successor has been hired and is in place to lead the women's golf team into the spring season and beyond.
Hired in 1982 to coach the women's tennis team and assist with the men, he took over both programs in 1986 and led them for more than two decades before one position was split into two full-time jobs.
He was named the Mountain West Athletic Conference women's tennis coach of the year in 1986, the Big Sky Conference men's tennis coach of the year in 2012 and '14.
In the early 1990s, he started the women's golf team and coached the program through its first three years. In the summer of 2017, Nord handed the men's tennis program off to Jason Brown and rejoined the women's golf team, which he coached for six and a half more seasons.
It wasn't until Steve Ascher was hired to coach the women's tennis team in 2008 that Nord was able to devote all his time and energy into one sport: men's tennis. Nord was hired to oversee the program on an interim basis for the 2017 fall season. He was named to the position permanently in January 2018.
"I feel like I've run my race and am at the finish line," Nord said. "My energy level isn't what it used to be. I didn't want to expect 100 percent from the kids if I didn't feel like I was able to do the same."
