AMES − Before becoming a volunteer assistant coach at Iowa State nine years ago, Brent Metcalf packed the car and headed out on a trip to Colorado with his wife Kristen.
They were set to begin a new life in the Rocky Mountains until Kevin Dresser made a call to Metcalf asking him to swing by. The rest is history.
“We took a bit of a detour,” Metcalf said. “We came and visited Iowa State and we never left. I’ve said this many times and I’ll repeat it again today, that was the greatest choice I ever made in my entire life.”
After nine years as an assistant coach, Metcalf, 39, will now be the lead man of the Iowa State men’s wrestling program. His mentor Dresser won’t be leaving his side anytime soon however, becoming Iowa State’ director of men’s and women’s wrestling. The moves were announced on the same day the school added women’s wrestling as the 18th varsity sport in Ames.
The leadership shakeup immediately raises many questions. What changes now with the Cyclones men’s program? As Dresser jokingly asked athletics director Jamie Pollard when the plan unfolded, “What the hell does a director of wrestling operations do?” What plans does Metcalf have for Iowa State?
Here’s a rundown of how it all looks in the immediate future.
Dresser to embrace CEO role, a place where he has thrived
Dresser is known for his prowess in fundraising, engaging fans and rebuilding programs from the ground up in his time as a head coach.
Pollard was candid about where the program was prior to Dresser’s arrival in 2017. He described the men’s wrestling program as being on “Iife support” and non-existent even at the regional level, let alone from the national heights the program had been many times in its history.
From taking 57th in 2017 prior to his arrival, the Cyclones went from 45th place at NCAAs in 2018 to as high as fourth in 2024 in Dresser’s tenure. The past two years had high hopes, but poor injury luck derailed promising lineups at the NCAA Championships in 2025 and 2026.
The key to that success? Dresser’s role as CEO of the program. Fundraising, fan interest and winning all increased under Dresser since 2017. The program went from placing curtains in the upper deck of the Hilton Coliseum before Dresser arrived to packing arenas. Elite talents like David Carr said yes to the program even in its down days, helping spark the fourth-place finish in his senior season. Above all, Dresser was a master with donors and got fans back into a program that had fallen from its heights.
In this role, he’ll be doing just that with the men’s and women’s programs. He’ll be an asset to lean on for Brent Metcalf and Iowa State women’s head coach Alli St. John as a former head coach, but will continue to be as active as ever at fundraising events to help advance the men’s program and jumpstart the women’s program. Dresser’s first major task will be to help fundraise for and repurpose Beyer Hall, where the women’s program will practice.
Pollard said he brought this idea to Dresser shortly after the men’s basketball program was eliminated from the NCAA Tournament. As someone who is similarly in twilight years of his career, Pollard saw Dresser light up at the chance to lead in this new role.
“I saw a person that had energy, he was revived by the thought of, number one, being able to help us launch a women’s wrestling. Number two, continuing to be an amazing mentor not only to Brent (Metcalf) and to Derek (St. John) and the other staff, but to Alli. Number three, is to continue to be a huge part of what we’re doing from a fundraising standpoint for the wrestling programs.”
Dresser’s head coaching tenure comes to an end as a result, with Dresser adding they’ll have him in this new role for the next three years. In his time as head coach, he owned a dual record of 265-86 combined at Virginia Tech and Iowa State. With the Cyclones, he was 105-35 and fourth in dual wins all-time at Iowa State. That included a dual victory over rival Iowa in his final season, the first in 21 years for the program. In 20 years as a college head coach, he coached Carr to two national titles, produced 37 NCAA All-American honors and 39 individual conference titles.
It’s the end of a tremendous run for Dresser, but much will still be the same as he fundraises for wrestling at Iowa State and lends a helping hand.
“I’m just going to be there and be available when needed,” Dresser said. “I’m excited to let these guys make their mark.”
Brent Metcalf becoming head coach is a dream realized
Metcalf has always wanted to be a head coach, he says. He didn’t know if it would be at Iowa State or somewhere else, but the appreciation he had for his coaches while as an athlete made that dream become a desire for his future.
That dream became reality on April 16. The former Hawkeye standout was a two-time NCAA champion, a three-time finalist with a 108-3 all-time record. He won the Dan Hodge Trophy in 2008 and was a main figure in Iowa’s NCAA team titles from 2008-2010. He was a four-time Michigan high school state champion with an unbeaten 228-0 record at Davison High School, too. Those efforts stood out to those even adjacent to his wrestling career, as Pollard used the words, “fierce,” “determined” and “assassin” to describe how he saw Metcalf in his time as a competitor.
For the last nine, he’s been the understudy to Dresser. With all of his experience, he’s always been able to teach wrestling from a technical standpoint, but quickly saw how important those fundraising, hand-shaking and public-facing parts are important.
“I can teach you a lot of moves, I could sell you how to be tough, how to dream big and all these things, but being a great head coach is a lot more than that,” Metcalf said. ”That’s what I learned when I came here.”
For Metcalf as head coach, he says it is the same message, but a different package from what Dresser brought. He doesn’t envision a ton of changes from the day-to-day side of things, the goals they have or the staff construction.
Alongside him, Derek St. John will be elevated to associate head coach. Derek St. John, the husband of new women’s wrestling head coach Alli St. John, has been an assistant alongside Dresser and Metcalf for the last nine years as well. A wrestler with Metcalf at Iowa, Metcalf joked they used the get into heated scraps in the room to the point where he thought St. John may have hated him. Since, they’ve worked hand-in-hand as assistants at Iowa State. They found out they complement one another’s coaching styles very well.
Metcalf said they’ll look to fill his assistant coaching role on staff at some point, but emphasized they didn’t expect many changes and liked the core of the staff they had.
His biggest task at hand currently will be putting together a roster. While many wrestlers from last season will return and showed out at the press conference in support, graduating wrestlers like Yonger Bastida and transfer portal entries like Anthony Echemendia and Christian Castillo leave holes in the lineup for 2026-27.
The transfer portal will have to be a big piece of what Iowa State does next season, and perhaps in spots down the line, but high school recruiting will be the center of what Iowa State does, Metcalf said.
“It’s a dicey thing,” Metcalf said of the portal. “Because it seems really great, but how much do you want to rely on that? It might be short-term fix and it might be things where you’ll fill in some holes. But in the future, my vision is that we are out there recruiting kids out of high school to come to Iowa State that want to be here, want to be Cyclones, buy into what we are about and stay here the entire time. That would be my vision, and not that we have to go out and continue to recycle this roster over, over and over again.”
Whether Metcalf will be successful isn’t a question for Dresser, as he expressed supreme confidence in his former assistant to lead the way. After seeing his drive as a competitor and coach, he knows he’ll strive to top what has been accomplished in Ames.
Metcalf’s prowess as a technical coach to help Carr to win national titles and helping the Frost twins to reach NCAA All-American status has been well-documented in recent years. With Dresser continuing to help as a general manager-like figure and to be someone to lend an ear for advice, it’s a partnership that has the potential to elevate Iowa State to the next level it’s been building toward since Dresser arrived.
“Kevin has set the bar, we must now raise it,” Metcalf said. “My desire is to bring Ames, Iowa, back to a breeding ground of great champions.”
Eli McKown covers high school sports and wrestling for the Des Moines Register. Contact him at Emckown@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @EMcKown23
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: How the Brent Metcalf era will look for Iowa State wrestling
Reporting by Eli McKown, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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