Marlynne Deede goes from championship-level Hawkeye wrestler to championship-level coach

CORALVILLE — Marlynne Deede took the same stage she took a year ago when she won a national championship for Iowa women’s wrestling.

She was, of course, wearing her signature pink — “that’s my trademark” — but there was one key difference. Rather than wrestling with a Hawkeye singlet with pink hair ties, she was in the coach’s corner with a pink blazer.

The National Collegiate Women’s Wrestling Championships earlier this month in Coralville capped the Iowa alum’s first season as an assistant coach at Grand Valley State.

“I love building a program and helping the young women see all the unique traits that they have, and how they can bring it to the program and bring it to the mat,” Deede said. “Then also when I was a student-athlete, it’s really hard to see all of the little victories. And as a coach, those bring me so much joy.”

The impact Deede is trying to make at Grand Valley State is somewhat emblematic of the impact Iowa associate head coach Gary Mayabb had on her a year earlier in Iowa City.

“He helped me kind of see all the great things about myself and how that adds to a program,” Deede said of Mayabb.

Now, Mayabb sees coaching as a “perfect fit” for Deede — one of the six individual national champions in Iowa’s 2023-24 inaugural season.

“You want a Sherpa that’s been up the mountain,” Mayabb said. “She’s been up the mountain a couple of times. She knows what the path looks like, so she gets it.”

But for as natural of a fit as coaching appears to be for the former Hawkeye, Deede said the choice to pursuing coaching “wasn’t something I knew right away.” After her senior season, Deede took some time in Europe and then went back home to Utah before making her decision.

“I needed a place that was, one, going to help kind of align my career outside of wrestling, and then also being able to make money so I can live obviously and train,” said Deede, who wants to make a world team in the next two years.

Deede’s initial trepidation about coaching should not be confused for a lack of passion, however. After Grand Valley State’s Sage Mortimer won the 110-pound national title, Mortimer and Deede had a heartfelt embrace.

“The low moments when I was an athlete were not as low as the low moments as a coach,” Deede said. “The heartbreak as a coach, seeing athletes not succeed or having high goals and not achieve them. … And then I think the high moments — those are so much more joyous than when I won a national title.”

As Deede coaches and trains at Grand Valley State — a Division II university about 10-15 miles east of Grand Rapids, Mich. — she is working alongside a familiar face. Jake Short, the head coach at Grand Valley State, was Deede’s coach at Augsburg University (before they both left in 2023).

“I always call it triangular learning when you’re learning from three sources,” Mayabb said. “And then at the end, we tell our women you have to make it your own. You have to take ownership of it. And she did that, and I think that’s what we’re seeing now.”

Deede has helped Grand Valley State achieve an impressive set of feats in its inaugural season. The Lakers finished fourth in the team race at nationals, trailing only Iowa, North Central College and McKendree University.

“We threw a lot at them, and we’re still learning, and I’m still learning always,” Deede said. “It’s been cool to see them progress in the role that they’re in. … I think next year we’re going to be already so much stronger than we were this year.”

Grand Valley State also had two individual national champions. The only school with more? Her alma mater, Iowa.

“We’re always talking that success is the fourth thing on the ladder — survival, stability, security, success,” Mayabb said. “(Deede) had success, but that fifth one, the real success story is significance — when you are significant to another person. And that’s what she is to her athletes right now.”

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