For Dan Dennis, filling into his role as the head coach of the Hawkeye Wrestling Club means taking what he learned from his time as an athlete in the Iowa program and continuing to put that into practice. 

Dennis, a two-time All-American, NCAA finalist, and 2016 Olympian, was named to the helm of HWC on April 14 following a career at RTC South at UT-Chattanooga. Leaving the program that he called home since 2018 wasn’t easy, but for the Illinois native, both his immediate and his Hawkeye family played a huge part in the decision. 

“Ultimately, being around Tom and Terry [Brands] again [was an important factor],” Dennis told FloWrestling. “I’ve been back for around a month now but with COVID there’s not much that we can do, but just being around those guys and their mentality and their instincts. It’s a standard that’s impressive and I absolutely love being around it. It’s infectious.”

From his time as an athlete, Dennis was pushed in multiple ways to perform to his best every single time he went out on the mat. He went from being a backup and training partner in 2007-08 to overtaking the 133-pound spot for the next two years.

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Terry Brands had joined Iowa’s coaching staff right before Dennis’ first season in the lineup, and the knowledge both of the Brands brothers implemented into training sticks out to Dennis in a way that translates to the way he will coach. 

“[Tom and Terry] are mad scientists at getting the most out of their athletes . . . their standard is so high and their expectations of what you can do are so high,” Dennis said. “It’s a confidence thing. It builds you up.”

Now, fairly new to coaching in the international wrestling scene, Dennis relies on what he learned from Iowa during his time as an athlete, both collegiately and beyond, to build the basis on how he will run the Hawkeye Wrestling Club moving forward.

“Just getting to know our guys and building those relationships, the way that [Tom and Terry] did with me,” Dennis said. “I mean, I would go over to dinner at Terry’s house and we would do videos and just talk wrestling. How much you build and learn from just a really casual setting like that is – you can’t put a value on it.”

For Dennis, that means starting to build those relationships early on the mat so that they have the opportunity to grow through the analysis, work and confidence that comes off the mat. 

Workouts are the chance to use that fire energy that Tom and Terry use in their practices to push his athletes to be the best, just like was done with him as an athlete. 

“I think some of the most memorable moments I have in college in athletics were hard, hard workouts and being able to make it through them,” Dennis said. 

More of his experiences are also relevant in practices, besides pushing his athletes to their ultimate potential. He uses specific examples of heartbreak throughout his career in practice to make sure the same mistakes aren’t made by his athletes. 

Being in control, for one. Following his 2010 NCAA finals loss to Jayson Ness in which Dennis gave up a takedown in the waning seconds of the match, not giving up those types of points in big situations is one of the biggest things for him to harp on during practice. For freestyle, it’s all about moving on bottom and controlling every second. 

The mix of hard workouts and a trust built off the mat helps create those relationships on which Dennis’ coaching philosophy is built. From there, he hopes to see that success transfer onto the mat at the national level and to continue to raise the bar of the club as new athletes come in. 

“Wherever we’re at, [the goal is] to do better the next year, to do better this upcoming year,” Dennis said. “However many team members we had at the national level, on the national scene, keep building from it.”

The specifics of how to raise that bar, however, are tricky to line out. Things are just starting to creep back to normal on the COVID-19 front, but this offseason has also been riddled with athletes transferring away from the HWC.

Despite the changes made to the club over the past few months and a wide array of uncertainty going forward, there’s no question that Iowa City is where Dennis is meant to be.

“It’s a family here,” Dennis said. “Iowa City has the wrestling community. It’s a crazy strong family and just being able to help and to be involved in it it’s crazy exciting. I’m over the moon about it.”

Anna attended the University of Iowa, where she covered multiple sports from volleyball to football to wrestling. She went to Pittsburgh in March 2019 for the NCAA DI Wrestling Championships and did live coverage of the entire event and Spencer Lee’s second-straight NCAA title. Follow her on Twitter.