Purdue Northwest Athletics and Women's Basketball Head Coach Jesse Ford has named Mia Riese as the new Assistant Coach for the program.
"Mia has had some great experience working with collegiate and professional programs. She excels with her communication skills and has a major positive impact supporting our student-athletes," said Ford. "They'll continue to benefit from her energy and positive influence. We put in a lot of effort to recognize and recruit highly talented players with strong character from northwest Indiana, the Chicago-land area, and across the country. Mia is already very influential in helping grow PNW Women's Basketball, and we're lucky to have her sporting the black and gold!"
Riese joins the Pride after working with the NFL's Chicago Bears as a Community Relations Associate where she was heavily involved with community engagement, led volunteer programming and assisted with other major outreach initiatives for the organization. She also helped with executing Girls Flag Football initiatives and major community events, such as High School Jamboree, NAIA College Showcase, State Finals, and All-State Dinner and managed on-site player visits for hospital and school outreach initiatives as well as assisting with player meet and greet at weekly practices for social responsibility groups and Make A Wish Families to foster positive community connections.
Prior to her work with the Bears, she was a Graduate Assistant for Tulane University Athletics from 2021-2023 where she helped advise 35+ student-athletes on academics and leadership through weekly individual learning and group sessions, monitored and tracked student-athletes' completion of projects, training, and ability to progress in academic processes, and communicated with head coach, assistant coach, and senior academic advisors to guide 68 student-athletes through course registration process taking in consideration majors, interests, and university requirements.
As a coach, she helped with the Kenner Angels AAU team in 2022-23 and the Full Package AAU team in 2020-21. There, she helped guide 30 girls ages 9-18 basketball skills through weekly practices, workouts, and games, assisted in the planning, set up of weekly practices, and pickup games for the AAU organization, and conducted weekly discussions with basketball athletes ages 9-18 about their physical and mental development.
"I am extremely thankful for the opportunity to empower, encourage, and support student-athletes both on and off the court here at PNW," said Riese. "A heartfelt thank you to AD Rick Costello and Head Coach Jesse Ford for welcoming me to the Women's Basketball staff. Go Pride!!!"
Riese was a dual-sport student-athlete in the college ranks as she played both basketball and softball for Elmhurst University from 2017-21. She was a team captain for both sports for three seasons and earned 2021 Female Scholar Athlete of the Year at Elmhurst.
She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration and Sport Management from Elmhurst in 2021 and then went on to receive her Master of Science in Sports Studies from Tulane University in 2023.
