Iowa State women’s wrestling head coach Alli St. John has made her first assistant coach hire.
Jake Kadel will be heading to Ames to be the program’s first assistant coach. He has served as the head coach of William Penn’s women’s wrestling program since the 2023-24 season. In three years as head coach, he guided the Statesmen to three top-four finishes at the NAIA Championships, including ending as a runner-up in the 2026 NAIA Championships. In the year prior to Kadel’s arrival, William Penn took 33rd at the 2023 NAIA Championships.
Kadel has coached nine NAIA champions and 18 NAIA All-Americans, including four champions and seven All-Americans this past season.
“I am excited to have Jake join our program as an assistant coach,” St. John said in a release. “He brings a wealth of wrestling knowledge, experience building a women’s program and recruiting acumen with him to Ames, and he was one of the first people I had in mind when I started to build out my staff. What he was able to build at William Penn was amazing and his athletes saw great success on the mat and in the classroom.”
Part of Kadel’s success came from his ability to recruit. Two Olympians from the 2024 cycle were on the Statesmen’s 2025-26 roster, as well as four Senior World Championships qualifiers, a 2023 U17 World champion and one of the top 2025 recruiting classes.
Kadel was the head coach for both the men’s and women’s programs at Iowa Wesleyan in 2022-23 before the university closed. He wrestled in high school at New London and was a four-time state medalist. He had a 28-20 record as an Iowa Hawkeye wrestler from 2011-16.
In St. John’s introductory press conference, she stated the desire to hire two or three assistants to complete her staff. While the staff remains incomplete, Kadel is quite the start to rounding out her leadership crew in Ames before official competition begins for the Iowa State women’s wrestling program in 2027-28.
“I am incredibly excited for the opportunity to work alongside coach Alli St. John and the rest of the staff at Iowa State University,” Kadel said in a release. “I’ve been fortunate to follow her career as an athlete, and I have tremendous respect for what she brings to the sport.”
“I look forward to investing in the student-athletes and building on the already strong wrestling tradition at Iowa State. I’d also like to thank the Iowa State administration for their continued investment in women’s wrestling, and Coach St. John for her belief in me.”
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: Iowa State women’s wrestling hires Jake Kadel as assistant coach
Reporting by Eli McKown, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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