Michael Kemerer started Iowa wrestling's resurgence. It nearly fell apart until Tom Brands' visit
Cody GoodwinIOWA CITY, Ia. — An eager Michael Kemerer boarded a plane bound for Iowa in the fall of 2014.
Then a senior at Franklin Regional High School in western Pennsylvania, he had grown into one of the most coveted wrestling recruits in the country. He grew up a huge Iowa fan, too, modeling his own style after Hawkeye greats Brent Metcalf and Dan Dennis.
And this plane took Kemerer to Iowa City for his official visit with the Iowa wrestling program, one step closer to realizing a childhood dream.
But his stay in Iowa City left him with more questions than confidence.
Kemerer met with the coaches and wrestlers. He toured the facilities, campus, Iowa City. The Hawkeyes followed their three-straight NCAA team titles from 2008 to 2010 with four-straight years of third- and fourth-place finishes — still among college wrestling’s elite, sure, but something felt … off.
“I just saw stuff off the mat that made me question things,” Kemerer says now. “I wasn’t sure how well I fit in here after seeing the culture.
“I left thinking, ‘Man, I don’t know.’”
An uneasy feeling followed Kemerer back home.
He had other offers — from Cornell and Stanford and Lehigh. He felt better about those opportunities and the cultures already in place. Even Jody Strittmatter, a former Iowa wrestler who coached Kemerer at Young Guns wrestling club, thought Lehigh was the favorite to land Kemerer’s services.
If that had happened, this year’s Iowa wrestling team may have looked a lot different.
The Hawkeyes are back on top Division I wrestling, the unanimous No. 1 team in the country. The roster features talent in every direction, but a heavy Pennsylvania presence sticks out. Six Hawkeyes are originally from the Keystone State, and five are regular starters: Spencer Lee, Austin DeSanto, Max Murin, Kaleb Young and, of course, Kemerer. (Gavin Teasdale is the other.)
Kemerer was the first of them to join the program, a key step in the construction of this year's lineup. He’s become a household name in wrestling circles, winner of 68 career matches, including all eight this season, and a two-time All-American. He’s ranked No. 2 nationally at 174 pounds, and is one of the leaders of an Iowa team that's favored to win its first national championship since that 2010 season.
“He’s been very crucial,” Iowa coach Tom Brands says. “He signed the letter-of-intent and was in Iowa City first. You talk about a pipeline, and maybe he started that.”
The addition of Kemerer helped Iowa build its current lineup, arguably the best collection of talent under Brands. All 10 starters are currently ranked in the top eight at their respective weights by Trackwrestling, and six are among the top three. The momentum that's followed has the Hawkeyes positioned to stay in contention in the years ahead.
But that thought was far from Kemerer's mind as he traveled back home from that visit in 2014. Signing day was about a month away, so he was going to think on it for a few days. He wanted to make sure he was making the right decision.
The next day, Kemerer was about to sit down for dinner with his parents when his doorbell rang.
It was Brands.
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'This just doesn't add up to me'
Brands took over the Hawkeyes ahead of the 2006-07 season and instilled a high-scoring mentality in his wrestlers. In his second year in charge, Iowa scored 117.5 points and won the NCAA Championships, the program’s first since 2000.
The next year, when Kemerer was a sixth-grader, he went to Penn State’s Rec Hall and watched the top-ranked Hawkeyes crush the Nittany Lions, 31-6. Iowa featured another loaded lineup that season. On that day, Phil Keddy won by technical fall and Chad Beatty and Metcalf both recorded pins.
“I was at that meet wearing Iowa gear,” Kemerer recalls. “Iowa was the first college team that I really became a big fan of and really cheered for, so it was really cool to watch that one in person.”
The Hawkeyes’ dominance captured Kemerer’s attention. He was drawn to Metcalf’s relentlessness, Dennis’ fun personality, Ryan Morningstar’s mental toughness. Later that year, he designed an entire school project around the Iowa wrestling program, showing off its many national champions who went on to win world and Olympic gold.
Kemerer’s love for the black and gold influenced his own style. He came up through Young Guns, an elite Pennsylvania wrestling club, alongside Lee, Murin, Young, Penn State stars Vincenzo Joseph and Jason Nolf, and many more. The competition in the room fueled their success outside of it. As many as nine Young Guns wrestlers were ranked third in the nation or better at their weights as high-schoolers.
Strittmatter ran the club, a successful second act after becoming a two-time All-American for Iowa in 2000-01. He often shared stories from his own Hawkeye days, and coached his wrestlers with the same techniques he learned while wrestling under Jim Zalesky, who won three NCAA titles under Dan Gable in the 1980s and coached Iowa from 1997 to 2006.
“We were raised on those principles in that program,” Kemerer says, “so naturally, you’re going to gravitate toward it.”
When he arrived Franklin Regional, Kemerer continued to train alongside Division I talent. The Panthers' 2015 state championship team featured Kemerer and Lee, as well as Devin Brown, who went to West Virginia; Dominic Giannangeli, who went to Penn State; and Josh Maruca and Josh Shields, who are both now at Arizona State.
He reached the Pennsylvania state finals all four years, and won a title as a senior. He was a two-time Junior freestyle All-American, and collected gold medals from some of the nation’s toughest high-school tournaments. He was considered the No. 9 overall prospect in the 2015 class, according to Flowrestling.
“He has the uncanny ability to get to the legs,” Strittmatter says, “and he’s very, very good at finishing. Some kids might struggle on their feet, but he was amazing at finding ways to get to the legs. He wrestles his own unique style and it really works for him.
“He was a quiet, hard-worker, and not much has changed, really. He’s the kind of kid you hope your son grows up to be, the kind that’ll make dads say, ‘Man, I hope my daughter marries a guy like him.’ He’s just amazing, both on and off the mat.”
Schools came calling, including the Hawkeyes. He scheduled a visit for the fall of his senior year, just a few weeks after Young, then a high school junior, committed to Iowa. He was excited about the opportunity.
“You blow it up in your head so much,” Kemerer says and laughs. “When I was that age, that’s it, you know? That’s all we wanted to do.”
The visit, though, was revealing.
He connected with Brands, but not with some other members of the team. It left a bad taste. The Hawkeyes were in contention to win a national title that year, but finished a disappointing second behind Ohio State.
“I wanted to see Iowa wrestling and the academics and stuff like that,” Kemerer says now, “and I felt like, for some of the guys, it was like, ‘Yeah, come here, we have such a great time,’ and they were talking about the nightlife and stuff like that.
“I saw it firsthand and was like, ‘Yeah, that’s cool, but I’m here for what Iowa wrestling is.’ I know they hadn’t won in a couple of years, but this just doesn’t add up to me. Something’s off.”
Brands learned of Kemerer’s reaction and responded immediately. He hopped in his truck and drove 700 miles to Kemerer’s home the next morning, a 10-and-a-half hour drive from Carver-Hawkeye Arena. He knocked on the door and opened with an apology, then answered all of Kemerer’s lingering questions.
“When you screw up, you own it,” Brands says. “You don’t bring your assistant coach with you as backup. You go sit in front of the firing squad.”
Brands turned around and drove right back to Iowa City, but the episode made an impact. He made it clear he not only wanted Kemerer, but needed him. Kemerer felt like a priority, and a few days later, he announced he was going to be a Hawkeye.
“He was on the same page as me, I just don’t think I knew it as much,” Kemerer says. “We were talking, and he was like, ‘I’m about good culture and doing the right things.’
“For him to do that in person, that’s a serious commitment to your athlete. It meant a lot to me.”
'We're going to get Iowa back on top'
The rest, of course, is history.
Since arriving at Iowa, Kemerer is 68-6 overall with 44 bonus-point wins. He was a large part of Iowa's bonus-point fueled third-place finish at the 2018 NCAA Championships. He's on pace to become a four-time All-American, something only 20 Hawkeye wrestlers all-time have ever done. After missing last year with an injury, he’s 8-0 this season with wins over three others ranked in the top-8 at 174.
But his biggest impact may have been helping Iowa recruit other top-notch wrestlers.
Alex Marinelli and Young came in 2016, followed by the all-important 2017 class that featured Lee, Murin and Jacob Warner. Tony Cassioppi joined in 2018 and Abe Assad came this year. Add in DeSanto and Pat Lugo via transfer, and it's easy to point to Kemerer's signing as the first step toward creating this high-powered lineup.
“If I were to tell you that (Kemerer coming to Iowa) didn’t affect my decision, I would be lying,” says Lee, Iowa’s two-time national champion who chose Iowa over Penn State. “He and Kaleb Young helped changed the atmosphere of this program.”
This season is what Kemerer envisioned when he signed with Iowa as a high school senior. The images of Metcalf and Matt McDonough winning titles and lifting the golden NCAA team trophy are what led him to fall in love with the Hawkeyes, and he dreamed of doing it himself one day.
“I remember talking to guys when we were still in high school — you know, ‘We’re going to get Iowa back on top,’” Kemerer recalls. “That’s just a bunch of fired-up high school kids, but we’ve put in the work and have put ourselves in position.
“It’s exciting because we’ve been talking about this for a long time. We’re just embracing it.”
It’s been a decade since Iowa’s last team title, a drought that has fans antsy and the wrestlers and coaches hungry. The last time the Hawkeyes truly contended was 2014-15. Brands and his staff have worked tirelessly to position the program to avoid a similar drought over the next 10 years.
If Iowa rattles off multiple titles over the next few seasons, Brands’ 700-mile drive from Iowa City to western Pennsylvania will be a story told for years. Even now, he does not shy away from how big that was for the program.
“That's legend and lore now,” Brands says. “Who knows what would’ve happened there if I would’ve tried to talk him into it on the phone.
“Our fans expect a lot. Our administration expects a lot. This coaching staff expects a lot. When we recruit, their families expect us to deliver.”
The program’s upward momentum has continued in ways big and small. The Hawkeyes’ incoming recruiting class is loaded with big-time talent, and they’re already hard at work on their 2021 haul. They recently announced plans to build a new state-of-the-art wrestling facility, too, another strong recruiting tool that'll help keep Iowa at the top.
All of this came because recruits and donors believe in Brands’ long-term vision for the program. Because the Hawkeyes have every intention of contending for years to come. Because Iowa's current lineup has the potential to be one of the best in program history.
All of this came because Brands drove across the country for a recruit he knew he needed — because he convinced Kemerer that Iowa is the place his childhood dreams can become real.
“I can’t imagine not coming here,” Kemerer says. “I love it.”
Cody Goodwin covers wrestling and high school sports for the Des Moines Register. Follow him on Twitter at @codygoodwin.
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