Ceal Barry

Ceal Barry will undertake her fifth USA Basketball head coaching assignment, having previously led the 2004 USA Junior World Championship Qualifying Team to a gold medal, the 1992 USA Select Team to a 4-1 record, the 1988 USA R. Williams Jones Cup Team to a silver medal and the 1987 U.S. Olympic Festival East Team to a bronze medal finish.

As an assistant coach for the red, white and blue, she helped the 1996 U.S. Olympic Team and the 1994 USA Goodwill Games Team to gold medals, the 1994 USA World Championship Team to a bronze medal, a seventh-place finish with the 1993 USA Junior World Championship Team and a 2-2 record with the 1990 USA Junior National Team. Additionally, Barry served as the lead clinician during USA Basketball’s 2011 Women’s U16 National Team Trials in Colorado Springs in May.

Now in her 29th year overall at the University of Colorado, Barry currently oversees the sports of men's and women's basketball, women's golf, soccer and volleyball. She also supervises several Student Services arms of the athletic department including sports medicine, strength & conditioning, academics and student wellness.

She began her current position of Associate Athletics Director/Senior Woman Administrator at the University of Colorado on April 1, 2005, just one month after completing a storied 22-year CU coaching career (1983-84 to 2004-05). Barry retired having coached the most games, matches or tournaments (669) and the sixth most seasons of any sport in Colorado athletic history. Her 427 victories are also the most by any coach at the school.

Overall, she led CU to a 427-242 record for a sterling 63.8 winning percentage, 12 NCAA tournament appearances, including six times in the Sweet Sixteen and three times in the Elite Eight, 13 20-win seasons and four conference championships, earning assorted coach of the year honors in five different seasons along the way.

She became just the 24th coach in women's NCAA history to reach 500 career wins-hitting the plateau in February 2004-and her all-time record of 510-284 and 64.2 winning percentage remain among the all-time best.

Prior to the formation of the Big 12 Conference in 1996, Barry was the Big Eight Coach of the Year four times (1989, 1993, 1994 and 1995) and the District V Coach of the Year in 1993 and 1995. The 1995 squad posted a school record 30 wins and came within a whisper of advancing to the Final Four. She led her teams to four regular season Big Eight titles and five postseason tournament titles, the last in the inaugural Big 12 Tournament in 1997.

In her 13 seasons she was 184-96 when leading the Buffs against Big Eight foes. Barry won more regular-season games (118), league titles (4), tournament titles (4), coach of the year honors (4) and coached more newcomers of the year (4) than any other league coach, while tying for the most NCAA tournament appearances with seven.

Following her second consecutive Big Eight title in 1994, the United States Basketball Writers Association and Basketball Times Magazine named Barry National Coach of the Year, and she was inducted into the Colorado Sportswomen Hall of Fame the same year. Twice, Barry has had her name on the finalist list for the Naismith Award for Coaching, those honors coming in the last three seasons.

In 2003, she was presented with the CU Alumni Association's Robert Stearns Award in recognition of one's extraordinary contributions to the university.

In 1995, she was presented with one of the Women's Basketball Coaches Association's highest honors, the Carol Eckman Award, which is presented to a coach who exemplifies sportsmanship, commitment to the student-athlete, integrity, ethical behavior and dedication to the purpose.

Prior to Colorado, spent four seasons as the head coach at Cincinnati, where she compiled an 83-42 overall record.

She was inducted into the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame in 2006, the University of Colorado Athletic Hall of Fame in 2010 and in January 2011, she became the third recipient of the University of Kentucky's Susan B. Feamster Trailblazer Award. Barry, who earned her bachelor's degree in accounting from UK in 1977, was part of the school's first class of women's basketball players to receive an athletic scholarship, lettering four times. She also lettered three times in field hockey in addition to her accomplishments as a basketball player.