Staff Highlight Series: Head Cycling Coach Brad Perley

Staff Highlight Series: Head Cycling Coach Brad Perley
Posted: Sep 18, 2020

BREVARD, N.C. - Throughout the Fall, the Brevard College Department of Athletics will be highlighting its staff members in a tri-weekly Staff Highlight Series, giving members of the Athletic Administration and Coaching Staff the opportunity to introduce themselves to the BC community through a series of questions and biographical elements. 

Next up in BC's Staff Highlight Series is Brevard College Cycling Head Coach Brad Perley, a former cycling student-athlete at Lees-McRae College. 

bctornados.com: What has been your favorite professional memory? 

Coach Perley: Experiencing the joy and shock of our team winning the USA Cycling Collegiate DI Mountain Bike national title in 2016. 

bctornados.com: What makes Brevard College a special place?

Coach Perley: The people involved in all areas of campus that share the same vision and goal of the student experience.

bctornados.com: Who has been the biggest influence in your professional career?  

Coach Perley: Brian Sheedy, the former cycling head coach at Brevard College, had a massive impact as well as our student-athletes themselves. Everything we do it centered around the student experience.

bctornados.com: What is some advice you would give to young people looking to get into the profession?

Coach Perley: There are many opportunities to work/intern/volunteer in a coaching or mentor role. If you are willing to ask for help you can surely find opportunities to learn.

Perley racing the trails for Lees-McRae College. 

Brad Perley was named the head cycling coach at Brevard College in January of 2014 after serving as an assistant under Brian Sheedy for two seasons. In his tenure as head coach, Perley has continued to build upon Sheedy's success. The Tornados have won a Mountain Bike national championship, a Cyclocross national title, and have recorded two runner-up finishes in the Road discipline during Perley's time at the helm before moving to the Division I ranks prior to the 2015-2016 season. 
 
Perley skippers a program that has now won ten total national championships, becoming one of collegiate cycling's most dominant teams. The Tornados won three straight and five of six Mountain Bike national championships from 2009-2014 at the Division II level coupled with three consecutive Cyclocross victories beginning in 2013. Perley then led BC to the 2016 Division I Mountain Bike national championship followed by a 2017 Division I Cyclocross national title. 
 
Prior to being named head coach, Perley joined the Brevard College Cycling program in the fall of 2012 after graduating from Lees-McRae with a degree in Business Management, with a concentration in Marketing. He raced all cycling disciplines while at Lees-McRae, and his career achievements include nine individual Collegiate National Championship podiums between Mountain Bike and Cyclocross. Perley was also a member of two National Championship Collegiate Cyclocross teams with the Bobcats, as well as over 10 team podiums. 
 
In 2012, Perley won the US Marathon Mountain Bike National Champion for the 19-29 age group.  He won another national championship in 2019 with a USA Cycling Cyclocross national title for the Masters 30-34 age group.
 
Perley is originally from Kennebunk, Maine.

Career Record
 
2019-2020: USA Cycling Collegiate Division I Mountain Bike Third Place Team Omnium, USA Cycling Collegiate Division I Cyclocross National Runner-Up
2016-2017: USA Cycling Collegiate Division I Mountain Bike National Champions, USA Cycling Division I Cyclocross National Championship
2015-2016: USA Cycling Collegiate Division I Mountain Bike National Runner-Up
2014-2015: USA Cycling Collegiate Division II Cyclocross National Champions, USA Cycling Collegiate Division II Mountain Bike National Champions
 

Brevard College Collegiate Team National Championships ( 10)

 

Mountain Bike – 6 USA Cycling Collegiate Nationa l Championships

2016 – 1st (DI)                  Snowshoe  Mountain, W. Va.

2014 – 1st (DII)                 Beech Mo untain, N.C.

2013 – 1st (DII)                 Beech Mo untain, N.C.

2012 – 1st (DII)                 Angel Fire, N.M.

2010 – 1st (DII)                 Truckee, Calif.

2009 – 1st (DII)                 Truckee, Calif.

 

Cyclocross – 4 USA Cycling Collegiate Nationa l Championships

2017 – 1st (DI)                  Hartford , Conn.

2015 – 1st (DII)                 Austin, Texas

2014 – 1st (DII)                 Boulder, Colo.

2013 – 1st (DII)                 Verona, Wis.

 
Coach Perley with his Brevard College Cycling student-athletes. 

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-BC-