CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA (July 30, 2025) — Rosters are bursting with talent, seats are full at tournaments and the passion is palpable.
The surge in popularity of women's wrestling is primed to meet the rich tradition and elite athletic facilities at Coe College.
Coe College Director of Athletics and Recreation Steve Cook announced the addition of women's wrestling as an NCAA sport on July 30, and he is adamant Coe will be "all in" on building the program.
"With women's wrestling, there's a lot of momentum state and nationwide, and just seeing how much fire it's caught in Eastern Iowa — there's just a lot of excitement about the sport. The time is now to welcome it with open arms," Cook said.
Since 2013, the number of participants in women's wrestling has quintupled at the high-school level. It is a sponsored sport at the high school level in 46 states, and was announced as an emerging sport by the NCAA in 2020. The first official NCAA championship will occur in 2026, and the Coe team will begin competing in the next year for the 2026-27 season.
The women's program at Coe will be the college's 23rd NCAA sport, and its establishment opens the doors for new student-athletes to join a successful wrestling tradition.
The men's wrestling team is a perennial contender at the NCAA Division III national tournament and has crowned four individual NCAA champions with 99 wrestlers earning All-American status. The women's team will train in the J Barron Bremner Wrestling Room and the Joan Claassen Wallick ('52) and Wallace Ford ('52) Strength and Conditioning Room. Both facilities are among the newest and largest in the American Rivers Conference.
From within that winning tradition comes the women's first head coach: Kaleb Reeves ('23). As a Kohawk wrestler Reeves earned NCAA All-American status three times and graduated from Coe with an overall record of 103-22 in his five-year career. The Sigourney, Iowa native is the career falls leader for the Kohawk men.
"Coach Reeves will utilize his experiences on and off the mat to help establish the Kohawk women's-wrestling program as a national contender. A Coe wrestling champion in his own right, Kaleb was the obvious choice for us as we look forward to an exciting new chapter in Kohawk athletics. His legacy and leadership will undoubtedly inspire our athletes as we strive for excellence together," Cook said.
As a coach, Reeves will bring a diverse array of experiences to help his wrestlers expand their repertoire of moves. He has a wrestling background in folkstyle, freestyle and Greco wrestling, and was a five-time All-American at the Fargo Junior Nationals. He went on to qualify for the Senior World Team Trials and was a member of the Greco World team. Reeves was also a Bremner Outstanding Athlete Award winner and a superb student while at Coe, earning two NWCA Scholar All-America honors in his career. Most importantly, he understands the significance of helping his wrestlers develop as people.
"My goal is to create a women's program that's top notch," said Reeves. "The foundation for a winning culture is already started because Coe offers student athletes the opportunity to wrestle at the highest level and also have an education at the highest level."
Reeves has already begun recruiting future wrestlers, spearheading the efforts to build the program for a year before competition begins. For now, the frenzy that is women's wrestling has only started to explode on campus.
"Women's wrestling has arrived and now it's at Coe College. We're all in," said Cook.
Coe College offers superb academics and exciting extracurricular activities in a thriving city setting that promotes student growth and success. The college has the N° 8 Career Services and N° 22 Most Accessible Professors in the country, and is a Top 25 private school for internships across six of the last eight years according to The Princeton Review. It is consistently ranked as a top college by national publications and offers more than sixty areas of study for its 1,300 students. Post-graduation, nearly 100 percent of reporting graduates are employed or in grad school within nine months.
