Evan Perkins, an outstanding teacher who has coached eight NCAA national champions and 81 NCAA All-Americans will be entering his seventh season coaching field events at Winona State in 2018-19.
Perkins began his coaching career at his alma mater, the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. Perkins helped lead the men’s team to back-to-back NCAA Division III National Championship in 1987 and 1988. He also coached the individual national champion in the triple jump in both 1986 and 1987. While in La Crosse he recruited and coached Bill Schroeder who, after completing a standout career at UW-La Crosse, went on to spend 11 years in the NFL, playing for the Green Bay Packers.
He followed his tenure in La Crosse at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh where he was an assistant track and field coach and director of strength and conditioning from 1990-97. During that time he helped lead the Titans to seven NCAA Division III National Championships. At UW-Oshkosh Perkins tutored 44 WIAC individual event champions and three USTFCCCA Division III Athletes of the Year.
Perkins coached All-American and national champion Melissa Mueller who went on to set the American indoor record in the pole vault and compete for the United States at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia.
An outstanding athlete during his collegiate career at Wisconsin-La Crosse, Perkins was a two-time NCAA Division III champion in the triple jump. He was inducted into the Wisconsin-La Crosse Wall of Fame in 1999. He holds a degree in physical education from Wisconsin-La Crosse and also completed his master’s degree in Exercise Sports Science at UW-L.
