Two decades after wrapping up her collegiate career, Molly (Engel) Christensen remains one of the most accomplished distance runners in the history of Concordia University, Nebraska. To this day, she’s the only women’s athlete in the GPAC era (2000-present) to win three consecutive individual cross country conference championships. Molly led the way for three separate Bulldog teams that finished as NAIA national runners up in the sport of cross country. In 2013, she took her place amongst the school’s elite athletes as a Concordia Athletics Hall of Famer.
An Exercise Science major during her time as a Bulldog, Molly has built off what she learned at Concordia while crafting a career as a Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP). The journey for Molly and her family (husband Evan and daughters Isabelle and Zoey) has included stops in Iowa, Minnesota and Florida. The impact of Molly’s Concordia Experience has not been lost on her along the way.
“It was really emotional as a senior because you knew you were almost done,” said Molly in an interview with Concordia Athletics during the summer of 2025. “It was a lot of fun. We were in the running to win it (a national title), especially our senior year. We got runner up. We were ranked No. 1 for part of the season. It was a lot of fun to win national runner up that senior year. It really meant a lot to savor in the moment together after putting in a lot of hard work. It’s an emotional experience as an athlete because they’re like a family to you – your coach and your team. You spend so much time together and talk about life and support each other.”
In recognition of her impeccable career, Molly was named the Lincoln Journal Star’s State College Women’s Athlete of the Year in 2005 prior to her own Concordia Hall of Fame induction in 2013 and the selection of the 2004 women’s cross country team for Hall of Fame inclusion in 2018. Due to her impact, Concordia Athletic Communications sought her commentary with interviews in 2018 and 2025 on topics such as her own running career, the astounding senior class of 2004-05 and her accomplished head coach, Kregg Einspahr.
Inevitably, whenever Molly’s name is mentioned to Einspahr, he immediately recalls the pork chops he was served by Molly’s mother on a recruiting visit. There was plenty of competition for Molly among local colleges. The Columbus, Neb., native was named the Scotus Central Catholic High School Female Athlete of the Year as a senior – on the heels of her winning the Nebraska Class C state cross country championship (she was later placed in her high school’s hall of fame). Back in 2005, Molly told the Lincoln Journal Star that she chose Concordia over UNO and Wayne State.
“I liked the fact he came to my house for a visit,” Molly said. “It put a personal touch on it to reach out that way. It speaks to a different level of recruitment. Another thing I remember was when I came to campus to visit, he invited me to run with the team during a practice. I went on a run with the varsity girls squad and they were all very welcoming. They talked to me during the run. They didn’t leave me in the dust. I fell in love with the environment and the Christian atmosphere and small campus feel. That all played a role in me going there for college … I also knew I wanted to major in the science field, and I had a good visit with the science department when I was on campus. Those were all the factors that led to me going there.”
Molly saw something special transpiring at Concordia under Einsphar’s direction. Molly joined a freshman cross country class for 2001-02 that included the likes of Jennifer Nikkila (Kearney, Neb.), Michelle Quinlan (Denver, Colo.) and Kelly Waterman (St. Louis, Mo.). The impressive group powered the Bulldogs to national championship contention as they placed as the NAIA national championship runners up to Cedarville in 2001, Northwest in 2002 and Simon Fraser in 2004.
At the top of the pack, Molly Engel was a force. Over four appearances at the NAIA Cross Country National Championships, Molly earned respective place finishes of 41st, 20th, 17th and ninth, while competing in Kenosha, Wis., as a freshman and sophomore and Louisville, Ky., as a junior and senior. Her final season, Molly ran the 5k at the national meet in 18:08.20 on her way to a top 10 placement. The vaunted ’04 team held down the top six placements at the GPAC Championships and even received the No. 1 ranking in the NAIA coaches’ poll following the conference meet.
Molly achieved at similar levels on the track. At the time she was placed in the Concordia Athletics Hall of Fame, she owned four school records, including the standard in the 1,500-meter run (4:33.98). She earned 10 total track All-America awards (six indoor and four outdoor), garnered 2005 GPAC Indoor Athlete of the Year accolades and was part of two Concordia teams that posted top 10 NAIA finishes. On the day of her graduation, Molly walked across the stage and then proceeded to win GPAC titles in the 800- and 1,500-meter runs before finishing second in the 5,000 meters and lastly joining the 4x400-meter relay.
Over four years of coaching her, Einspahr got to know Molly well as both a person and athlete. As Einspahr told the Journal Star in 2005, “She has natural ability, but she is driven to improve to compete and help others around her improve. She actually took care of the people around her on the cross country and track teams. People gravitate to her because she makes everybody around her better in practice and in competition.”
Molly used the word “neurotic” to describe the way she and her teammates approached their passion of distance running. On a weekly basis, the training could range from 45 to 75 miles. As she said, “You have to love to run.” For distance runners, the mileage is a form of shared suffering. At Concordia, Molly and her teammates did just about everything together, from running to spaghetti dinners to watching movies. Molly had everything she could have wanted in a college experience.
“I remember our senior year, (Coach Einspahr) told us we were the best recruiting class he ever had come in,” Molly said. “That was our final dinner. He was very emotional. We were like, ‘I’m sure you’ll have another good class.’ He’s like, ‘No, you don’t understand. I’ve been doing this for years. You’re the best class I’ll ever have come in.’ Several of us were state champions in high school in cross country. We had people from out of state. We just had a phenomenal class. Everyone just really got along well. We all supported each other and cheered each other on. We were in it together. I still look back and think, it was awesome to run on three national runner-up teams in cross country. The one year it didn’t happen we had some injuries and some runners that were off that season. Otherwise, I think it would have been a fourth year.”
Beyond athletics, Molly says that Einspahr inspired her in her career path. Her special memories of her head coach include the conversations that took place on road trips when Molly and Einspahr would discuss race strategy, school and life circumstances. As a professor himself, Einspahr always pushed his athletes to achieve high marks in the classroom.
In the early 2000s, the Walz Human Performance Complex (complete with the Fieldhouse) was years away from being introduced to Concordia’s campus. It didn’t matter to Molly and her teammates, who felt like they had what they needed to be successful. In Nebraska, cold, windy conditions must be battled by the distance runners. The weather was never an excuse.
“We didn’t know any different,” Molly said. “We just had to get our training done. We had three seasons. We were in-season pretty much all year round besides summer. We had like two weeks off between each season. We knew what meets we had to prepare for. Indoor season is typically when you hit the bad weather. If it was really icy, we would just keep looping around town to hit the mileage we needed. We just bundled up. We ran in snow and ice. We ran in whatever we had to run in. We bought safe weather gear. We had below-zero weather gear that kept us warm.”
Running remains a part of Molly’s life as she works with patients seeking help with mental health concerns. In her own professional bio, Molly states that “I enjoy long-distance running, mentoring, traveling and cooking with my family.” As a child, Molly was inspired by her father Tim, a former runner at Kearney State. As Molly told the Journal Star in ’05, “I played soccer for eight years and I played other sports, but I love running.”