Following his introductory press conference on June 2, 2022,
Josh Berlo officially joined the University of Denver as its Vice Chancellor for Athletics and Ritchie Center Operations on July 15, 2022 and is currently in his third full season at Denver. Berlo came to the Mile High City with more than 20 years of experience in collegiate athletics, including as the athletic director at the University of Minnesota Duluth from 2013-22 (nine seasons).
Berlo most recently signed a contract extension through the 2028-29 athletic season.
2024-25 (YEAR IN REVIEW): Under Berlo’s leadership, Denver's athletic programs combined for eight NCAA Tournament appearances, four conference regular season titles and six conference tournament championships. Across DU's 18 programs, six coaches earned conference coach of the year honors.
The Pioneers finished 62nd in the Directors' Cup standings, finishing as the top I-AAA athletic department in the country for the 12th-straight year and the 16th time in the last 17 years. Denver finished fourth in the standings among schools outside the FBS and fifth among non-P4 programs.
DU's AJ Francois (men's soccer) and Boston Buckberger (hockey) were recipients of the Elite 90 Awards in 2024-25 for having the highest GPA of student-athletes at the national championship site (College Cup/Frozen Four). The Pioneers became the third institution to have at least three Elite 90 Award winners since January 1, 2024, joining Arizona State and Oklahoma State (Kent Anderson, 2024 hockey).
Denver's ticketing revenue surpassed $5.1 million in 2024-25, a new University of Denver Athletics record after last year's record of more than $4.3 million. DU hockey finished fourth in the country in total attendance (137,744), fifth in average attendance (6,559) and led the country in stadium capacity percentage, filling the venue to 108.85% on average this season.
DU's donors combined to raise over $9 million in 2024-25, nearly a 60% increase from the previous year, and the fourth-highest fundraising year in DU Athletics' history. Exempting outlier gifts to construct the Daniel L. Ritchie Center and Joy S. Burns’ estate, 2024-25 was the most successful fundraising year in DU Athletics history.
Berlo ended the academic year with the announcement that Denver Athletics would move to Under Armour, along with Game One, for UA to become the official athletic apparel supplier for the Pioneers.
The Pioneers' men’s soccer program got back to the College Cup for the first time since 2016, hosting three NCAA Tournament games en-route to Cary. Denver’s fans showed up to support the Pios in their run, including a new stadium record crowd of 2,361 in their national quarterfinal win over UMass. With men’s soccer’s national semifinal qualification, Denver became the seventh athletic department in the calendar year 2024 to have three different programs reach the national semifinal stage. The other six institutions are all from either the Big Ten, the ACC or the SEC.
In October, Denver was awarded the 2028 Frozen Four, which the Pioneers will host in Chicago's United Center, home of the Pioneers 2017 National Championship. DU was also awarded the NCAA Hockey Regional in 2027 in Loveland, Colorado, and the 2027 NCAA Women's Gymnastics Regional, which will be hosted in Magness Arena.
Fast forwarding to April, Denver hockey reached the Frozen Four for the third time in four years and the 20th time in the program's history, tying Denver Athletics for the fourth-most national semifinal trips in the country in the 12-month span, behind only UCLA, Stanford and Ohio State).
Denver Athletics finished with 104 home wins this season (104-39-4), the department's third-consecutive 100-win season in the Mile High City. Prior to 2022-23, Denver had just three 100-win home seasons total since turning Division I in 1998-99. The Pioneers also recorded 32 wins against Power-4 programs in the 2024-25 season, led by 13 from gymnastics, and five from both hockey and women's lacrosse.
Senior Sara Rask swept the women's alpine races at the 2025 NCAA Skiing Championships, earning Denver's 97th and 98th individual national championships, and became the 19th skier in program history to sweep NCAA titles in the same championship.
2023-24 (YEAR IN REVIEW): Year two with the Denver athletic department for Berlo was full of highlights, including the hockey program’s NCAA-record 10
th Division I men’s hockey national championship. While in Saint Paul, Minnesota, for the Frozen Four, Denver's presence could be felt with pop-up stores, pregame parties, billboards and rally towels. Most notably, Berlo used his previous Minnesota connections to arrange for a local high school pep band to support the Pios in the stands during the Frozen Four, a story that was picked up by
NBC Nightly News.
Denver’s fans brought the energy in 2023-24 en-route to a DU Athletics ticketing revenue record $4.3 million. The hockey championship team played in-front of 12 sellouts in Magness Arena, and the total attendance figures put Magness Arena at 102% capacity (6,130) throughout the course of the season, good for the eighth-highest average attendance in the country. The Pioneers broke their single-game attendance record twice, including 7,033 on March 9 against Colorado College. Denver finished 13
th in the country in attendance in-front of a DU record 4,712 per meet. Men’s lacrosse sold out four of its seven home games and produced four of the top six single-game attendances in its history before going on to finish sixth in the country in average attendance. In just its second year of selling tickets, women’s lacrosse finished 11
th nationally in average attendance and set its new program record of 1,153 fans at Denver’s clash with Maryland on March 2.
The hockey team’s national championship was the athletic department’s 35
th national title, taking Denver to 14
th in the all-time national rankings. The Pioneers’ programs were 109-22-8 at home in the campaign, the fourth time in the last eight years that Denver had racked up 100+ home wins.
Denver reclaimed the I-AAA Directors’ Cup despite the new scoring model and finished as the top non-football athletic department in the overall Directors’ Cup standings for the 15
th time in 16 years. Denver finished 46
th overall in the Directors’ Cup, DU’s highest ranking since finishing 35
th in 2016-17. The Pioneers continued to measure themselves against the best, going 46-23 in direct head-to-head matchups against Power-5 conference opponents.
In addition to the hockey title, triathlon’s Maira Carreau brought home a national title, winning the DI individual title. Under first-year head coach Matt Brown, Denver men’s lacrosse got back to Championship Weekend for the first time since 2017, beating Michigan at Peter Barton Lacrosse Stadium and Syracuse in Baltimore to punch their ticket. DU’s athletes combined for 105 all-conference honors and 26 All-America honors.
Berlo headed facilities projects that included a rebranding of the entire first floor, new playing surfaces at Peter Barton Lacrosse Stadium and inside Hamilton Gymnasium and entirely new seats in Magness Arena that went on to be installed in the Summer of 2024 in time for the 2024-25 Denver hockey and gymnastics seasons. Philanthropic support also played a key role in the facility refreshes of the Haefner Media Suite (media/team film room), the DU gymnastics practice facility, the DU golf practice facility, the triathlon spin studio and the DU Hockey Gold Club lobby that includes an upgraded Hall of Champions.
Denver Athletics’ donors and alums combined for give $5.73 million in 2023-24, the fifth-highest fundraising total in the department’s history and a 168% increase from the year before. Olympian, DU trustee and DU ski legend Otto Tschudi endowed the alpine skiing head coaching position, Denver’s fifth coaching endowment.
Berlo also led Denver’s branding campaign as Denver’s Home for College Sports, a campaign that has continued to run through the current athletic season. Following the hockey program's record-setting Championship, Berlo and the Pioneers were awarded the 2025 U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame game, which will see the Pioneers return downtown to Ball Arena on Thanksgiving Weekend to host former WCHA rival Minnesota.
Denver’s student-athletes combined for a 3.585 grade point average, a full tenth of a point higher than the overall undergraduate population at DU. The Pioneer programs combined for six Academic All-America honors from the College Sports Communicators.
2022-23 (YEAR IN REVIEW): In his first season with the Pioneers, Berlo focused on how the athletic department could improve its focus on two key areas; the student-athlete experience and the fan experience.
In partnership with the University of Denver’s newly acquired Kennedy Mountain Campus, DU’s student-athletes had the opportunity to immerse themselves in the holistic approach to education that DU has to offer in the 4D Experience. DU’s incoming freshmen visited KMC together ahead of their first academic year.
Both the student-athlete experience and the fan experience got a positive jolt from Berlo’s first big move in his new role, partnering with Ball Arena to move one of Denver Hockey’s two Battle for the Gold Pan home games vs. Colorado College downtown to Ball Arena, home of the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche. The game was played in-front of a capacity crowd of 17,952, the highest attended indoor NCAA hockey game in nearly five years.
In addition to the game at Ball, Denver’s fans came out in droves in 2022-23, with hockey finishing third in the country in home attendance and breaking 150,000 fans for the season for the first time in its history. Denver men’s lacrosse finished in the top-5 in the country in average attendance, Denver gymnastics finished 13
th, including breaking its single-meet record with a packed house of 6,473 in Magness Arena for a dual with defending national champion Oklahoma.
Denver added key positions to the student-athlete experience off the playing surface, bringing in another full-time academic advisor, adding a medical director to its in-house staff and providing additional resources to both Denver’s sports medicine and sports performance units, including mental wellness, concussion studies and nutrition.
Athletically, the Pioneers continued to excel on the national stage, finishing as the top I-AAA athletic program in the Learfield Directors’ Cup standings for the 10
th-straight year and the 14
th time in the last 15. Denver, who finished 63
rd overall in the Directors’ Cup, had seven programs earn NCAA Tournament bids: men’s soccer, skiing, gymnastics, hockey, women’s lacrosse, women’s golf and women’s tennis. Denver’s women’s lacrosse’s run to Championship Weekend for the first time in program history, and Denver Gymnastics’ NCAA Regional Championship in Magness Arena highlighted the Denver Athletics season.
Denver went 120-35-4 in home events, 10 more wins than in any Division I season in the athletic program’s history. Denver’s 18 varsity programs combined for a record of 438-281-11, 14 more wins than the season prior. DU’s student-athletes combined for 100 all-conference selections, 22 All-Americans, six conference tournament championships and five regular season championships.
Berlo provided a focus on expanding the athletic department’s reach in his first year with the University. Denver played on national linear television 18 times, was featured on ESPN+ 34 times and made appearances on Regional Sports Networks on 36 occasions. Denver’s focus on expanding its brand stretched to social media as well, as the athletic department accounts combined for 2.8 million interactions, more than double the previous year’s total.
Berlo’s first full summer with the athletic department was a busy one. With the announcement of Hall of Fame Head Coach Bill Tierney’s retirement, Berlo hired longtime Pioneer Matt Brown to take over the men’s lacrosse program in 2024. Berlo also hired women’s soccer head coach Julianne Sitch, volleyball head coach Megan Pendergast and men’s golf head coach Gary Bissell. With Sitch and Pendergast’s hiring, eight of Denver’s nine women’s programs were coached by women. Barbara Perkins was named the National Triathlon Coach of the Year, Denver’s second female head coach to win national honors (Melissa Kutcher-Rinehart – 2019). Berlo also hired former DU volleyball student-athlete Kacie Dorhmann from Northwestern to lead the athletic department’s fundraising efforts.
Berlo at Minnesota Duluth:
Berlo ushered in the most successful era in Minnesota Duluth’s history, a tenure that included two men’s hockey national championships, four-straight men’s Frozen Fours and seven-straight NCAA Regional Final appearances. In addition to the hockey success, Berlo’s programs won three individual national championships (track and field) and five different programs were in the top five of the national rankings in their respective sports (women’s volleyball, football, women’s cross country and men’s and women’s hockey).
In 2017-18, Berlo was named the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) Division II AD of the Year. At Duluth, Berlo headed UMD's deliberate focus on the student-athlete experience and strategic plan initiatives and led the fundraising efforts for the Bulldogs' sport programs. He also made fan experience and engagement a top priority to help expand the national profile of the UMD athletic department.
Academically, Berlo helped support the Bulldog student-athletes' rise to record GPA levels, reaching an all-time high average of 3.44 for UMD's nearly 400 student-athletes in 2021.
Berlo and the Bulldogs finished in the top 50 of the D-II Directors' Cup five times (of eight possible due to the COVID-19 pandemic). During his time at Duluth, the Bulldogs won the Division I men's hockey national championship in 2018 and 2019 and finished runner-up to the Pioneers in 2017. In women's hockey, the Bulldogs finished as the national runner-up to Ohio State in 2022. The two hockey programs combined for six Frozen Four appearances under Berlo's leadership. In his final season at Duluth (2021-22), for the first time in program history, all four basketball and hockey teams advanced to the NCAA Tournament and earned a combined three conference regular season and tournament titles. In total, 15 of UMD's 16 varsity programs advanced to NCAA postseason competition in Berlo’s tenure.
The Warren, Rhode Island, native helped spearhead many projects in the Bulldogs' athletic department, including the $10 million renovation of Romano Gymnasium (basketball and volleyball) and major upgrades to both James S. Malosky Stadium (football), the Ward Wells Fieldhouse (track) as well as the creation of purpose driven spaces for team meetings, video and injury rehabilitation. Berlo led the launch of Bulldog Productions (content creation and streaming), enhanced the regional and national TV footprint, signed an equipment apparel deal that more than doubled the value previous provided, oversaw the addition of new LED video boards in multiple facilities and saw the setting of all-time single-season and single-game attendance records in men's hockey and football.
In his final months at UMD, Berlo served as a co-chair of the search committee for new NCHC Commissioner Heather Weems following the departure of Josh Fenton to Denver’s primary affiliated conference, the Summit League.
Prior to Duluth:
Berlo served 13 years in various roles at Notre Dame, including the senior assistant director for guest relations and event marketing.
Berlo serves on the Executive Committee of the prestigious Sports Management Institute which was founded as a joint venture of athletic departments and business administration schools at the founding universities (USC, Notre Dame and North Carolina) to create a highly academic, graduate-level business program for athletic administrators. Since its founding, Michigan and Texas joined in 2000 and Georgia become a sponsoring institution in 2006.
Personal:
Berlo earned his bachelor's degree in sport management from the University of Massachusetts in 1999 before receiving his MBA in finance and communication from Notre Dame in 2004. He and his wife Meg have one son, Michael.
