University of Denver Athletics

Barbara Perkins is entering her sixth season as the University of Denver's first women's triathlon head coach in fall 2025. She was named to the position on July 1, 2020.
 
Perkins has guided the Pioneers to top-five finishes at each of the four Collegiate National Championships. In 2023, Denver placed fourth as a squad (lost third-place tiebreaker) while freshman Maira Carreau won the program’s first-ever individual national title and 128th such championship in Denver Athletics history. Carreau repeated as a first-team All-American in 2024 as the team rallied after the swim portion to finish fifth at the collegiate nationals.

In her five years at the helm of the program, Perkins has coached student-athletes to 26 individual podium finishes, 11 All-American awards and 28 Academic All-American honors. As a program, the Pioneers have won the team event in a triathlon four times.
 
DU recorded the best finish by an women’s individual program in school history in 2022 as the Pioneers placed on the podium in third place, and Perkins was named the 2022 Collegiate Triathlon Coaches Association Division-I Coach of the Year. Overall, Denver recorded podium team finishes in each of the six regular-season races, including placing first or second in five of them.
 
Perkins also organized the first-ever triathlon-type race on the DU campus on Sept. 25, 2022 with the inaugural Mile High Relays, which featured Denver competing against Arizona State, San Francisco and South Dakota in an aquathlon super sprint. Denver hosted a second event on campus on Sept. 2, 2023 with a team duel against Colorado Mesa University.
 
In the team’s first full campaign in 2021, Perkins led the Pioneers to first-place finishes at both the Oktoberfest Sprint in Longmont, Colorado, on Sept. 19, 2021 and Eastern Regional National Qualifier at Smith Mountain Lake, Virginia, on Oct. 16, 2021. The program placed fourth at its first national championships on Nov. 13, 2021 in Tempe, Arizona.
 
During the squad’s the inaugural and COVID-shortened 2020-21 campaign, Perkins guided three DU finishers into the top 10 in the Pioneers’ only collegiate races at the Clermont Challenge in Florida in March 2021.
 
Perkins first joined the University of Denver as an assistant coach for the men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams in November 2019 and served two seasons full-time in that position. Her role as the triathlon head coach was converted to a full-time position on July 21, 2021.
 
Perkins herself is a long-distance triathlete. She is a two-time Kona Ironman World Championship finisher (2017 and 2019), a nine-time Ironman 70.3 World Championship qualifier (2015-2023) and has also represented the U.S. National Team in Olympic Distance Triathlons (2015, 2017).
 
Perkins came to Denver after spending the 2018-19 season as an assistant coach for the U.S. Air Force Academy’s swim and dive teams. She also previously served as the head swim coach at Kean University (July 2017-August 2018) and as an assistant at Montclair State University (2016-17), Greenwich Academy (2016-17) and Indiana University (2014-2016).
 
The Carson City, Nevada, native graduated from Saint Mary’s College of California in 2011 with a bachelor’s degree in liberal and civic studies as a Dean’s List honoree and a two-time Water Polo team captain. She is presently working on her master's degree in business administration from DU.
 
Perkins is active with the Collegiate Triathlon Coaches Association and was voted Vice President in August 2025 after spending the previous three seasons as the CTCA’s Division-I representative (2022-2025).