Iowa Native Caleb Rathjen Is Ready To Join The Hawkeye Family

Iowa Native Caleb Rathjen Is Ready To Join The Hawkeye Family

Ankeny High School's Caleb Rathjen knew he wanted to be an Iowa Hawkeye since attending football games as a youth.

Sep 8, 2020 by Anna Kayser
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Like so many other kids in the state of Iowa, Ankeny senior Caleb Rathjen grew up a Hawkeye fan. His family had season tickets to football games in the fall, and they would brave the hour-and-a-half drive across I-80 in grueling Iowa winters to at least one dual meet a season.

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Like so many other kids in the state of Iowa, Ankeny senior Caleb Rathjen grew up a Hawkeye fan. His family had season tickets to football games in the fall, and they would brave the hour-and-a-half drive across I-80 in grueling Iowa winters to at least one dual meet a season.

When he got call after call from schools across the country, he tried to keep his mind clear and his feelings about Iowa in check. In the end, though, the family feeling he had growing up with Iowa was exactly what led him to commit to wearing the black singlet in November 2019.

“On my visit, what really stood out to me was just… whatever we were doing as recruits, everybody on the team was doing with us,” Rathjen said. “Whether that was going to the football game, it wasn’t just our host, per say, that was going with us, it was the whole team. Whether it was going out to a meal… everything they did they did together, and you really got that family feel and how tight-knit not only the team but also the coaches.”

Rathjen, a two-time Iowa state 138-pound champion who was ranked No. 10 in the nation during his 2019-20 campaign, considers his recruitment process pretty standard. He was contacted by a good number of schools on and following the first day he was officially recruitment eligible and narrowed it down from there.

He visited a number of schools: South Dakota State, Purdue, Iowa State, University of Northern Iowa, North Carolina and Iowa. But in the end, it all went back to that feeling of really belonging as part of the team, just not the name of a recruit on a piece of paper. 

At the end of the day, I just felt like it was the right fit for me. I felt like that’s where I was going to be able to be my best, and I build a really good relationship with Morningstar and all the coaches, and the team is awesome. I just loved everybody around that program.

Rathjen will be part of the group that replaces Iowa’s top-of-the-nation lineup following the graduations of Spencer Lee, Austin DeSanto, Jaydin Eierman, Kaleb Young, Alex Marinelli and Michael Kemerer, an all-important stepping stone towards Iowa continuing to be the best in the nation even after the 2021 NCAA Championships in St. Louis.

“That’s something I’m really excited for too,” Rathjen said. “And that was another big reason, the success that they had this year and the team that they’re returning next year is super exciting. Penn State had kind of been on top for a while and Iowa, we’re bringing it back right now. To be able to hopefully keep carrying that ‘Hawkeyes on top’, I think that’s going to be super cool.”

Being a part of that family was supposed to start this summer. After committing to Iowa in November 2019, the plan was to spend 2020 training with the Hawkeye Wrestling Club in between his high school seasons. With the shutdown of sports and access to Carver-Hawkeye Arena for practices due to the novel coronavirus outbreak, those plans changed.

Now, however, as he trains toward his goal of winning a third straight state title, he’ll also be training toward his future career in Iowa City.

Perez Perez, whose brother-in-law is the quarterback for Ankeny, will be joining the wrestling team this winter to help coach not only Rathjen, but the whole team, and to train with the future Iowa wrestler as he gears up for his Hawkeye career.

And once he finishes his high school career, Iowa will be on his mind in no time.

“[Training with the Hawkeye Wrestling Club] is something next spring, next summer, that’s something that I’m going to be really excited to do,” Rathjen said. “Just being able to get up to Iowa City and start working out, that’s going to be super fun.”