(Tempe, AZ) For 10 years, Sun Devil Triathlon has shown what can happen when an individual sport is built around a team.
Led by Head Coach Cliff English throughout its entire run, the Sun Devils have set the standard for collegiate triathlon, both academically and athletically. The team has:
- Won seven national championships,
- earned two second-place finishes,
- produced 36 All-American honors; and
- developed two Bill Kajikawa Award winners.
English, meanwhile, is a four-time CTCA Division I Coach of the Year and Arizona State’s 2020 Linda Vollstedt Coach of the Year.
To add to the team’s resume, and to make it even more impressive in an era shaped by the transfer portal, the program has had only one student-athlete leave in its 10-year history.
“We’ve been very fortunate,” English said. “The joke is that when I started, I didn’t even have an office. I just had a broom closet with Wifi. So seeing the program expand has just been incredible, and we’ve had great kids on the team that want to be here, want to be a part of the team.”
That team-first identity is what makes Sun Devil Triathlon different.
“That’s what makes it special,” English said. “When they race for a national team, it’s individual. But when they race here, they’re part of this team, and they’re scoring as a team.”
That mindset was on full display in 2018 when the Sun Devils placed first through fifth at Nationals. Then sophomore Hannah Henry won her second national title, and as the Sun Devils crossed the finish line together, they collapsed together.
“They all had a hand on each other,” English said. “Like saying, ‘Good job, good job.’ It actually makes me a little emotional just thinking about it. That, to me, embodies everything we try to do.”
It showed up again at Nationals in 2019. But this time, adversity hit, and ASU still found a way to win. English remembers looking out on the course and reminding then-sophomore Kira Stanley that she was the team’s fifth scorer.
“You need to keep going hard for the team,” he told her.
Stanley finished in 16th place, helping the team win its fourth straight USA Triathlon Collegiate National Championship.
The sense of team is also what brings new recruits into the program.
Freshman Maja Brinkmann, from Namibia, Africa, grew up in a country where triathlon is largely an individual pursuit. Growing up, she trained mostly on her own, choosing when to run and bike, while swimming with a squad. The idea of doing all three disciplines alongside teammates is new.
“I’m really excited to join the team because training alone gets tiring,” she said. “I’m quite a social person, so I would much prefer to be with the team and have people by my side. Suffering together is better than suffering alone,” she joked.
The 2025-26 Sun Devil Triathlon team. Top row, left to right: Alex Campbell, Maja Brinkman, Britney Brown, Zoe Mari Adam, Sonja De Koning, Cara Macdonald, Kathrin Ritter, Tyler Kovak. Bottom row, left to right: Brooke Rousselle, Emma Rysavkova, Sidney Clement, Alice, Alessandri, Luna Sraka.
There’s no place like home
Turning Sun Devil Triathlon into a home for all its student-athletes is especially important given the number of international students on English’s roster. Of the team’s 44 all-time student-athletes, 20 of them are from outside of the United States.
English and his wife Jaryna, who also serves as assistant coach, regularly host team gatherings at their home. They cook for the athletes, making pasta, pizza, gnocchi and theme-night meals that reflect the cultures represented on the roster.
They help international athletes navigate life in a new country. Returners help newcomers get SIM cards, IDs and the small essentials that make an unfamiliar place feel manageable.
“We just try to bring them into the house and really make them feel comfortable,” English said. “We try to make them feel like they have a home here.”
And what home is complete without a dog? The English’s dog, Max, served as the team’s mascot for several years before his passing. Now, Ruby handles those duties.
“I have photos where there are seven women sitting on the beach before we start one race, and they all have a hand on Max. You could tell they’re nervous, but they have him. So yes, it’s a whole family affair,” English laughed.
For athletes coming from Namibia, South Africa, Canada, Austria, Mexico, the Netherlands, Italy and beyond, that means everything. It matters to parents, too.
“My Brooke is a big dog fan, and I think that’s the hardest separation for her,” said Lindsey Rouselle, mother of freshman Brooke Rouselle. “When we visited, she immediately went and cuddled his dog.”
“Oh yeah, I’m going to be there every week to walk Cliff’s dog,” Brooke added.
English knows he is asking families to trust him with their daughters. Some are a three-hour flight away. Others are on the other side of the world.
“I think that’s a big one,” English said. “If parents feel they can trust me, that’s huge. That’s all you have in this industry.”
English isn’t just saying that. Parents really do trust him.
“It just feels like this is where she should be,” said Lindsey. “She found where her passion can grow, so that makes me feel it’s a good choice.”
Photo – Sun Devil Athletics
When team becomes family
For Katy Arroyo (Clausen), who was on the team from 2019 to 2023, English is basically family at this point.
“He was at my wedding this past year, standing next to my grandparents,” she said. “I could have had nightmare coaches, but instead I got Cliff and Jaryna. They are the backbone of the program and just great people to have in my personal life.”
That is part of why the program feels different. ASU triathlon is demanding, but it is also deeply personal — and that’s why English succeeds as a coach.
Arroyo’s college career was not simple. Injuries and surgeries disrupted her athletic career, and at one point she considered retiring for medical reasons. But she came back, raced again and remembers the support she received as much as any result.
“I never thought I’d be on a start line again,” Arroyo said. “To see my family at a finish line was truly incredible.”
Even when she was not on ASU’s nationals roster, her teammates celebrated her return.
“Everyone there was equally pumped about my race as they were about the nationals race,” Arroyo said.
After graduating in 2024, Arroyo moved away, then returned to ASU for her master’s degree in counseling. She reached out to English to ask if she could help the team in any capacity, and became the program’s first graduate assistant.
“I missed that team environment,” Arroyo said. “If a girl says she needs to go to the grocery store, I’m driving to the grocery store. I’m happy to do that.”
Photo – Sun Devil Athletics
Cliff’s edge
English’s coaching style is very much focused on personal growth and development before athletic development, which is what has cultivated the team’s championship-winning culture since Day One.
“We’re making history here,” English told that first team. “I would love to see us known as the best of the best, doing it the right way. Being good people, good humans.”
English came to Tempe after coaching at the highest professional levels, including serving as the U.S. National Team Coach from 2005-08, and was coaching professional athletes when the ASU opportunity emerged. After returning from the Ironman World Championship in Hawai’i, he interviewed in Tempe at the behest of then-master’s student Nicole Welling. Soon after, ASU offered him the job.
“The rest is history,” English said.
“I would not be doing this sport if it wasn’t for him,” Arroyo said. “I would have just been like, ‘No, why? This is so hard.’ But Cliff cultivates this environment that’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen.”
Photo – Sun Devil Athletics
Remembering Hannah Henry
Any story about Sun Devil Triathlon’s first decade also has to include Hannah Henry, whose legacy remains part of the program she helped build.
A foundational figure in Sun Devil Triathlon history, Hannah Henry left an enduring legacy at Arizona State, capturing two individual national championships in 2017 and 2018 while helping lead ASU to four team national titles from 2017-21. She was a two-time All-American and the 2017 USA Triathlon Freshman of the Year, earned Academic All-America recognition, graduated summa cum laude with a BS in business entrepreneurship in 2021 and completed a master’s degree in global management in 2023.
Henry passed away in February 2026 at the age of 26 following a hit-and-run accident with an impaired driver, and was posthumously honored as an early inductee into the Sun Devil Hall of Fame in August, 2026.
“She was a tremendous athlete, and we were very lucky to have her as a teammate,” said Arroyo. “She was a phenomenal teammate and an even better person, and I just hope we get to keep celebrating every wonderful thing she did to get our team to this point because our program would not be the same without her.”
The Sun Devil Triathlon legacy continues
Women’s triathlon remains an emerging sport, and English hopes the field is close to meeting the requirements to make that leap to NCAA championship status.
He also has his eyes on the international stage. Recent graduate Naomi Ruff is pursuing the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, and English believes ASU could have multiple athletes in the Olympic conversation.
“I would love to see us known as the best of the best,” English said. “Doing it the right way. Being good people, good humans.”
That has always been the point.
The championships matter. At ASU, they always will.
The Sun Devils expect to compete for titles, and this year’s team is no different. Arroyo said the group has the closeness and belief required to make another run.
“This is a team that won’t be thrilled with anything less than the best,” Arroyo said. “We got second, and that is so awesome. But they want to be first.
In 10 short years, the Sun Devils helped prove what collegiate triathlon could be. They helped create a path for athletes who might otherwise have been pulled toward swimming or running alone. They showed that an individual sport could become a true team sport. They built a place where athletes stay, alumni return, and newcomers from across the world can find both ambition and belonging.
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