Once a trailblazer for girls’ wrestling in Iowa, Cassy Herkelman now coaches the Denver girls’ team

DENVER, Ia. — During the first month of the 2019-20 high school season, coach Cassy Jakoubek met with the Denver girls’ wrestling team for the first time. She introduced herself, listed some goals and shared her excitement for the year ahead.

Then she opened the floor for the wrestlers to speak. A few of them had the same question: They had heard good things about their new coach, but Google searches provided no help.

Jakoubek laughed and suggested they use her maiden name.

“Cassy Herkelman.”

Out came the phones.

First girl to win a match at the Iowa state tournament.

Cadet national champ and two-time Junior national finalist.

Two-time All-American at McKendree.

“You could see the lights go on,” Jakoubek said with a laugh. “They were like, ‘Oh, OK,’”

Jakoubek was a trailblazer for girls’ wrestling in Iowa. In 2011, she became the first girl to win a match at the Iowa state tournament and is one of two girls to ever qualify, alongside Megan Black.

Now she’s the first-year coach of the Denver girls’ wrestling team, giving back to the sport that built her and a movement she helped start.

“It’s exciting to be able to give back to a sport that gave me a lot,” Jakoubek said. “I never realized that it could grow this fast. When I was in school, if you wanted to wrestle, you wrestled the guys. That’s just how it was.

“Then I saw Waverly-Shell Rock and Denver and so many other schools (add girls' teams and promote the sport) last year, and now they’ve taken it to a new level this year. It’s so cool to see.”

Jakoubek will lead Denver at this weekend’s girls’ state wrestling tournament, hosted again by the Iowa Wrestling Coaches and Officials Association. It is set for Friday and Saturday at Waverly-Shell Rock High School. As many as 366 girls are expected to compete, another example of the growing movement in Iowa.

Statewide, 554 girls were registered and eligible to compete this season, according to Trackwrestling. Last year, only 188 were registered and only 87 competed at the state tournament.

Back in 2013-14, Jakoubek's senior season, the total was just 38.

The numbers have popped thanks to already-established tournaments adding girls divisions. More opportunities are also opening up at higher levels as five Iowa colleges now offer women’s wrestling: Waldorf, Grand View, Iowa Wesleyan, William Penn and Indian Hills.

“We're opening up so much to girls," Charlotte Bailey, the women’s director for Iowa USA Wrestling, said earlier this year. “We’re saying, ‘It’s OK to never wrestle a boy. It’s now officially OK to go out for the team, to compete only against girls if that’s what you choose.’

“It’s really fantastic progress we’ve made over the last few years.”

Nationally, participation has more than tripled, from 6,025 in 2008-09 to 21,124 last year, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. What's more, 21 states have made girls’ wrestling an official sport. Iowa is not one of them, but its 554 girls would’ve been the eighth-most by a single state last season (out of 42 that reported).

Jakoubek smiles at all of this progress. In many ways, her efforts opened the doors to Iowa’s current girls’ wrestling movement.

She began wrestling in second grade, kind of on a whim. During Christmas, her grandmother jokingly suggested the idea after Jakoubek rough-housed in the living room.

“I looked at my dad and said, ‘Let’s do it,’” Jakoubek said. “He had four girls, and was like, ‘OK, let’s try it.’ I started it the next year, and the rest is history.”

As a freshman at Cedar Falls, she qualified for the 2011 Class 3A state tournament at 113 pounds, along with Ottumwa’s Megan Black. In the 93 years the Iowa High School Athletic Association has hosted the state wrestling championships, no girl had ever qualified before them, and none have qualified since.

That same year, Jakoubek became the first girl to win a match at the state tournament after Linn-Mar’s Joel Northrup forfeited their first-round match. He cited religious beliefs, a decision that garnered national attention. She was then eliminated after back-to-back losses.

“It was really cool,” Jakoubek says now. “I made it to state. That was my goal at the time. But honestly, I was just another wrestler. I didn’t see it as anything else. I practiced with the boys. I competed with them every Thursday and Saturday. It didn’t bother me.”

The next year, Black became the first girl to medal at state, finishing in eighth place at 106 pounds in Class 1A for Eddyville-Blakesburg-Fremont. Both went on to become national champions in women’s freestyle.

Other Iowa girls have carried the torch since Jakoubek and Black. Ballard’s Rachel Watters has made five age-level world teams. South Winneshiek’s Felicity Taylor became the first Iowa girl to win 100 career matches. AGWSR’s Ali Gerbracht joined Taylor earlier this year and was the first champion crowned at least year’s IWCOA girls’ state tournament.

Three Iowa girls also earned All-American honors at the 16U national championships last summer: Bettendorf’s Ella Schmit, Glenwood’s Abby McIntyre, and Iowa Valley’s Millie Peach. That matched the 2011 output (to which Jakoubek contributed with a fourth-place finish at 112 pounds) for the most ever by Team Iowa in a single year.

After high school, Jakoubek continued wrestling at McKendree, now a powerhouse for women’s wrestling, but she kept one eye on the girls’ wrestling movement back home. After graduating, she became a Waterloo police officer.

Before the 2019-20 season, newly-minted Denver coach Jared Pickett sought out Jakoubek to help coach, but couldn't initially find her because he searched Herkelman instead. He contacted Bailey, who reached out to Jakoubek’s mom, who passed the message along.

“We met up and talked,” Jakoubek said, “and as soon as we got done, he was like, ‘So when are we starting?’”

Denver is one of 15 schools in the state this year to field a double-digit team of girls wrestlers with 12. Nine are expected to wrestle this weekend. Six are currently ranked at their respective weights by IAWrestle, including senior Brittany Shover, who’s No. 1 at 145 pounds.

Consider: None were ranked ahead of last year's state tournament when Denver finished with five medalists and placed fifth as a team. The field is much larger this year, but Jakoubek is excited to see how her team competes.

She has always kept the bigger picture in mind when she thinks about the impact she wants to leave.

“This sport isn’t about winning or losing matches,” Jakoubek said. “That’s part of it, sure, but it’s more about creating the person you are. I expect a lot out of these girls. They show up to practice at 6 a.m. They come and give everything they have. Some have other things going on in their lives. Some are multi-sport athletes. Some have tons of homework every day.

“But the responsibility and character that wrestling teaches will go with them when they’re done wrestling.”

On a recent Wednesday morning, Jakoubek guided her team through a quick front headlock drill, showing them both how to score from it and how to defend it. She tells them that fine-tuning this technique will help this weekend. It will lead to easy points.

One girl struggled and called for Jakoubek, who broke it down step-by-step. The girl nodded and performed the technique to perfection.

“See?” Jakoubek said. “You’ve got this.”

The girl smiled and looked up, where a motivational quote is painted on the wall.

“When you want what you have never had,” it reads, “you must do what you have never done.”

Cody Goodwin covers wrestling and high school sports for the Des Moines Register. Follow him on Twitter at @codygoodwin.

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