Building a team

As a former national women’s wrestling coach, Chun didn’t have any experience with NCAA compliance policies. All coaches and athletes need to be versed in NCAA rules and regulations, including required documentation and institutional compliance.

But that was something Burke expected.

“We have support that can help them understand compliance, and the recruiting pieces, and those types of things,” Burke said. “For me, it was important that we had someone that can really drive home the culture — what are we trying to develop here as a women’s wrestling program? In hiring coach Chun, she brought all the characteristics to the table.”

Chun had to work through a steep learning curve to switch her mindset from national team coaching to collegiate coaching. The first step she tackled was recruitment.

“There’s a lot of roles in recruiting,” Chun said. “Working with national teams, there’s competitions that determine who you work with, right, like world team trials or national Olympic trials. Whoever’s top three you work with, it’s not like you’re recruiting them to train.”

But Chun still succeeded in recruiting the first Power Five athlete just five days after she was officially announced as head coach.

Kylie Welker, who committed on Nov. 23, 2021, was the No. 1 pound-for-pound recruit at the time of her commitment and had worked with Chun before as a junior and senior world championship competitor.

“Being the first of the first program, it was honestly like an honor,” Welker said. “It was really exciting when coach Chun told me she wanted me to be the first signee … I think I chose Iowa mainly because when I came here, it just felt right. I love the atmosphere, and obviously, Iowa’s known for wrestling. So, what better place to wrestle than at the University of Iowa?”

Welker wasn’t planning to go to college before Chun offered her a spot on Iowa’s team — she wanted to go to a regional training center to pursue her Olympic dreams. But Welker thought Chun and Iowa women’s wrestling would give her the same Olympic opportunity while also helping her grow in different areas. 

“My main goal is the Olympics and the international scene,” Welker said. “I didn’t have exact academic goals, I would say, so I was just going to train and work toward my Olympic dreams. Then, Iowa came along and just seemed like a good fit; not only to grow me as a wrestler and as an athlete, but also as a person.”

While Chun was building her roster, she also had to find a coaching staff up to the task of pioneering a Power Five women’s wrestling team.

She first found Gary Mayabb, manager of USA Wrestling Greco-Roman programs from 2017-22 and a longtime USA Wrestling coach, in May 2022. Two months later, Chun added Tonya Verbeek, a former wrestler and coach for the Canadian National Team.

Neither Chun, Mayabb, or Verbeek had NCAA experience when they started at Iowa, but the three work through problems together.

“She’s very inclusive,” Mayabb said about Chun. “With her leadership style, she’s not worried about the fact that she has to be a leader, she knows she is. What she does is she takes in the best parts of everybody else’s leadership, including student-athletes. To help build the program, it’s been everybody. All hands-on deck, if you would. Everybody’s got a hand in it.”

The trio frequently call Dave Aspelmeier, Iowa’s director of compliance, to make sure what they’re doing is within NCAA rules — including if they can host a high school girls wrestling team at a practice.

And while they may not train with their athletes during strength and conditioning, Mayabb and Verbeek join Chun those three mornings a week in the Carver training room.

While the Hawkeye women’s wrestlers are helping build the team from the ground up, Welker said they’ve also hit some roadblocks, including shared mat space with the men’s team and a small locker room.

“At the beginning of the year, our coach used this analogy and put this picture of these construction workers literally building a plane as a plane is flying,” Welker said. “And I’m like, ‘That’s literally us because we’re building this program.’ But we’re also part of this program before it’s even like completely up and running. So, it’s definitely cool to see, and it’ll be cool to see how far this program gets and how much more we can build women’s wrestling.”

Iowa is currently building a wrestling training center to give more space to both its men’s and women’s programs. The Goschke Family Wrestling Training Center, which is located next to Carver-Hawkeye Arena, will open ahead of the 2024-25 season.

Iowa has 15 women’s wrestlers on its roster with plans to increase to 28 next season, Mayabb said. The Hawkeye women’s wrestlers are training in Iowa City and competing unattached before starting dual competition next season.

“It’s crazy good,” Mayabb said. “It’s special; we have really good young women. They’re driven. They know what they want. They operate extremely well together, and they have close-knit bonds.” 

The Iowa women’s wrestling program is the first team-like experience for Welker — she attended high school online while training individually at the U.S. Olympic Center in Colorado Springs and competing in junior and senior world championships.

So far, Welker is liking what a college team has to offer.

“The girls here, the connection we all have is like nothing like that I’ve ever had before,” Welker said. “We all get along super well. And we have each other’s backs through everything. So, it’s just cool to have that family with the entire team.”

The Hawkeye coaches host two practices a day, and the first is from 9:30-11:30 a.m. The nightly practice, which usually starts at 6:30 p.m., is optional for the wrestlers, and Chun said about 50 percent come in for individual work with the three coaches.

Between practices, Chun, Mayabb, and Verbeek have staff meetings, calls, and emails to fill their time. While it amounts to a 12-hour day every day, Chun said she wouldn’t have her coaching experience any other way.

“We could divide and conquer in the sense of, ‘Coach Mayabb, you take this day; Tonya, you take this day; and I take the night,’ or whatever, and rotate, but I don’t know, we just love what we do,” Chun said. “We enjoy being on the mat. Those moments, those evening individual moments are times that we really get to know the athlete.”