From intern to icon: Inside George Kittles humble rise and the part Iowa played in his All-Pro em -

Way back before he earned the moniker of the people’s tight end or started a national holiday for his position group, George Kittle worked as a summer intern with KCRG-TV9 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

The eastern Iowa ABC affiliate helped launch the television careers of Curt Menefee and Paul Burmeister, but none of Kittle’s responsibilities came on camera. Instead, he was working behind it.

That afternoon back in 2012 during Kittle’s first summer in college, sports director Scott Saville introduced the younger Kittle to everyone in the sports pod. At the time, The (Cedar Rapids) Gazette and KCRG were owned by the same company and the departments were merged. A handful of us Gazette scribes knew Kittle’s father, Bruce, a former Iowa player in the early 1980s whose intriguing career path included stints as a college football assistant coach, an attorney and a minister. We all knew of the younger Kittle because he was an Iowa football recruit and competed at Iowa City West High School until Bruce took a job coaching at Oklahoma.

Before returning to the Iowa City area, George took one college visit to FCS Weber State and considered one of the service academies before Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz called him on signing day and asked him to join The Swarm. It was their first conversation.

“I said, ‘Hey, why not?’” Kittle said later. “‘Let’s do it.’”

Kittle arrived at Iowa weighing about 200 pounds. He had a wide receiver build and a desire to compete at free safety but was slotted to play tight end. After redshirting, Kittle was No. 5 in his position group behind first-team All-Big Ten choice C.J. Fiedorowicz, Ray Hamilton, Jake Duzey and Henry Krieger-Coble, who is Kittle’s first cousin. Kittle was a mismatch for defenders because of his speed, but he was nowhere near the blocker of his more experienced teammates. So the Hawkeyes carved out a niche role for Kittle running wheel routes off the line of scrimmage.

In Iowa’s second game against Missouri State in 2013, the Hawkeyes unleashed Kittle on a wheel route against the Bears’ weakside linebacker. Kittle beat his defender for a 47-yard pass reception, his first catch at Iowa.

“I was looking over my shoulder for what it seemed like 10 seconds,” Kittle said in a hallway outside the Kinnick Stadium media room afterward. “It was probably like two, but it was a great play.”

Two weeks later as part of a 59-3 pasting of Western Michigan, Kittle was a blocker on Iowa’s punt return unit. He obstructed a defender to help teammate Kevonte Martin-Manley into the end zone on an 83-yard touchdown. Kittle helped Martin-Manley return another punt for a score later that same quarter.

Kittle totaled five catches for 108 yards in his redshirt freshman season. He had a 24-yard reception on a checkdown route that led to a touchdown at Ohio State. He added three catches for 37 yards against Purdue later that year.

Compared with Iowa’s other tight ends, Kittle’s snaps were the lowest. Fiedorowicz was sculpted like a Greek god at 6-foot-7 and 260 pounds. The other three tight ends weighed around 240 and could set the edge when locked up with defensive ends. Kittle wasn’t quite ready for that. But he was willing and learned on his first summer workout what coaches expected from Iowa tight ends.

“It was my first time playing tight end, and (strength coach) Chris Doyle said to me, ‘You’ll never be a tight end at Iowa or in the Big Ten if you can’t block,’” Kittle said. “I’m pretty sure he says it to every single tight end that walks through the doors that very first day. I’ll never forget it. It just kind of changed my mindset on the whole thing.”

As a third-year sophomore in 2014, Kittle remained the fourth tight end and caught just one pass for 25 yards that season. After his early success, opponents would shout “wheel-route guy” when Kittle entered the game. The openings weren’t there, and he still needed work on his blocking. But he didn’t get discouraged.

“The best thing when I first got there was C.J. and Ray,” Kittle said. “C.J. looks like an NFL tight end the second you see him. He looked like a 25-, 27-year-old guy out there and he was 21. But he (carried) himself like a professional, too. I was a freshman, and I still don’t know what I don’t know, but I knew less back then. I just tried to be a sponge and absorb whatever C.J. was doing. He took his work really seriously.

“He said, ‘Hey, I want to play as well because I want to get drafted high and I want to play in the NFL. That’s my goal, too, and I want to do whatever you can do.’ I learned a lot from C.J. I learned a lot from Duzey. I learned a lot from Ray. There was nobody really better for me than Hank (Krieger-Coble), because he’s my cousin. My first day there he put his arm around me and said, ‘Hey, I’m going to show you the ropes and take care of you the whole time,’ and that’s what he did for four years. It’s still the most fun I’ve had in football.”

Bruce Kittle was a co-captain on Iowa’s 1981 Big Ten championship squad, although he suffered a knee injury midseason that kept him off the field. George’s mother, Jan, was one of 10 daughters born to Bub and Lucky Krieger on a 160-acre farm near Mount Union, Iowa, which is located about 50 miles south of Iowa City. Jan was an All-American basketball player at Drake and also played softball.

Bub turned down a chance to sign with the Chicago Cardinals in 1941 to run the family’s century farm, but his grandchildren turned into some of Iowa’s greatest athletes. Brad Carlson holds the Hawkeyes’ career home run record with 45. Power forward Jess Settles was named the Big Ten Freshman of the Year in 1994-95 and scored 1,611 career points despite significant back issues. George’s older sister, Emma, played volleyball for both Iowa and Oklahoma. Krieger-Coble’s mother, Amy, played softball at Iowa.

Kittle and Krieger-Coble became the Hawkeyes’ tight end tandem in 2015 when Iowa went 12-0 during the regular season. Krieger-Coble was the primary inline tight end and received the most snaps. He paced the unit with 35 catches for 405 yards. He was lethal on third down, at one point turning nine straight catches into conversions. Kittle caught 20 passes for 290 yards and a team-high six touchdowns. If there was any negative about the duo, it’s that it wasn’t a trio. The uber-talented Duzey suffered a torn patella tendon in spring practice and played only sparingly late in the season before reinjuring his knee in Rose Bowl preparation.

“I came in as a freshman that June before the 2015 season, and I know I didn’t know anything,” said former Iowa tight end Nate Wieting, the team’s starter in 2019. “I was watching anybody and everybody. Once the season came around, you saw Henry Krieger-Coble making plays. You saw Jake Duzey making plays in practice. You saw George stepping up his game. From that point on, I’ve just tried to emulate the guys ahead of me.”

Kittle always was a receiving threat, but his run-blocking surged that season. In 2014, he hovered around 225 pounds and struggled to put on weight. He “figured some things out” that offseason and bulked up to 242 in 2015. His physical improvements showed up right away in Iowa’s season opener against Illinois State.

On the Hawkeyes’ sixth play from scrimmage, Kittle lined up at left end. Iowa pulled center Austin Blythe and left tackle Boone Myers outside, and Kittle was required to hold the edge. Kittle did that and more. He drove the Redbirds’ defensive end 9 yards down the field before flattening him. It was his first career pancake block, and the running play went for 27 yards.

Later that season, Kittle lined up on the right side in a goal-line play against Northwestern. In an outside zone run, Kittle turned his defender 180 degrees and drove him from the right hashmark to the sideline 5 yards behind the line of scrimmage before sending him to the ground. Kittle’s muscle memory and fundamentals finally matched his stronger and heavier frame. His physicality was impressive.

“If you have good technique, you can block at almost any weight in my opinion,” Kittle said. “But blocking a 280-pound defensive end at 225 versus 250 is a huge difference. When you have leverage at 250 and good footwork and good hands, it’s pretty easy. But 225, you’ve got to be perfect or you’re going to get tossed around like a rag doll. Being 250 definitely made my life a lot easier.

“Over the course of the five years that I was there, I learned so much about run blocking. The focus that we put on it, whether it was individual period, we would work on run blocking, we’d have nine-on-seven, blocks. It’s the emphasis on the run game. I would not be nearly as good of a run blocker as I am now without every single one of those reps.”

In practice, Kittle’s improvements came at the expense of his younger teammates on the scout team. Chauncey Golston, currently an Iowa senior defensive end, said, “I had to go against George, and I would try to go as hard as I possibly could. I could just feel my cleats like just sliding in the ground going back.

“I had George in blocks drills,” recalled Parker Hesse, a starting defensive end from 2015-18 and a tight end with the Tennessee Titans. “I had been playing on the scout team, not exactly fully competitive stuff. In three reps, he threw me down in at least two. Probably three. Just planted me on the sideline. I remember thinking like, ‘Holy cow. I might be a little bit further away than I thought.’”

Kittle was Iowa’s only experienced tight end in the 2016 season and grew to 253 pounds. He continued to pulverize defenders in the running game. Iowa’s struggling wide receiving corps hindered Kittle’s growth as a receiver, and he finished with only 22 catches for 314 yards and four scores. Even worse, he suffered a foot sprain at Purdue that robbed him of two-plus games and rendered him barely effective in three others. He was in street clothes for the Hawkeyes’ 14-13 upset of No. 2 Michigan and a 28-0 victory against Illinois. Despite hobbling with every step, Kittle demanded to play in the home finale against Nebraska. He caught two passes, and both went for touchdowns. In perhaps his final exclamation point, Kittle provided a devastating pancake block on the Hawkeyes’ final touchdown run in a 40-10 win.

Despite its success as a tight end institution, Iowa regularly uses graduate assistants as the position coach. Former Iowa quarterback David Raih, now the wide receivers coach with the Arizona Cardinals, was Kittle’s first coach. D.J. Hernandez was the second, followed by regular assistant LeVar Woods. Each of them handled Kittle differently, but the demand for excellence was the same.

“I think that’s from coach Ferentz on down,” Kittle said. “He definitely lets tight ends know that there’s a standard. It’s an unsaid fact.

“You need to read the defense. You need to know if he’s in this technique, he’s going to react this way. You just learn the defenses, you learn the game, you become more comfortable with it. You become more comfortable with the reads.”

Once Kittle’s foot healed, he left for pre-combine workouts. ESPN NFL Draft analyst Mel Kiper Jr. classified him as a fullback, and others ranked Kittle anywhere from No. 5 to No. 10 among tight ends. At the NFL combine, Kittle blew up. He ran the 40-yard dash in 4.52 seconds, finishing third among tight ends that year and tied for 13th-best all time at the position. He placed third in the broad jump at 11 feet and was sixth in the vertical jump at 35 inches.

A few teams took a closer look. The 49ers brass asked him to participate alongside quarterback C.J. Beathard in a private workout. They were impressed enough to fly him out for a visit. The Lions and Cardinals also needed a tight end and met privately with Kittle. For the draft, Kittle decided to stay with his parents in Iowa City. I joined the family to document his draft day journey. Kittle is close to his parents. His father wrote him letters before every game. Each time Kittle stepped off the team bus in front of Kinnick Stadium, he would walk straight for his parents. He’d give them both a kiss and then enter the stadium. It was his way of relaxing before the game.

On the second night of the 2017 NFL Draft, a massive thunderstorm pounded the area. Excitement and nervousness filled the Kittle home. Bruce grilled steaks on a covered deck as the second round began. George considered himself a Chicago Bears fan as a youth but all of his preferences were discarded once a future paycheck was involved.

Three tight ends were selected in the first round, and the second round seemed a possibility for Kittle. The Rams drafted tight end Gerald Everett with the 44th pick, and the Bears were up next. Chicago opted for a tight end, but it was Adam Shaheen of Division II Ashland. Let’s just say the Kittle household was surprised with Bears’ selection.

The rest of that night went in similar fashion. Twice, Bruce wanted to shake up some luck and poured Tequila shots for everyone in the room. I tried to decline the offer but was unsuccessful. Tennessee drafted the only other tight end that night, Jonnu Smith. When the third round concluded, George just looked over and said, “Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

If Friday night was disappointing, the final day had the feel of inevitability. A few former Iowa teammates joined the party as did Claire Till (now Kittle), an Iowa women’s basketball player and now Kittle’s wife. Claire’s parents, Shelly and Marty, were there along with her younger brother, Riley, currently an Iowa men’s basketball player. Other Kittle family members, including Emma, also lent support.

The 49ers drafted Beathard late that Friday night near the end of the third round. As the draft ticked away, Kittle exchanged texts with other players waiting for calls. In the fourth round, the Vikings drafted Iowa defensive tackle Jaleel Johnson, and everyone cheered. Kittle played video games when he wasn’t fidgeting.

The Lions had the 20th selection in the fourth round, and the room was tense. They selected Toledo tight end Michael Roberts, which was a gut punch to the room. The waiting was toughest on Jan, who uttered, “You’re killing me.” Kittle knew the 49ers also liked him, and he noticed San Francisco had the second pick in the fifth round.

Denver drafted Michigan’s Jake Butt, who suffered a torn knee ligament in the previous Orange Bowl, one pick before the 49ers. Then Kittle’s phone rang, and the room hushed. Barely a minute later he hung up and yelled, “I’m going to the Niners, baby!” The room erupted. Jan hugged George first followed by Bruce. They watched his name get announced and toasted the momentous occasion. An hour later, they bought every piece of 49ers apparel at the local mall. Within a week, he left for San Francisco and rookie camp. He was the ninth tight end drafted that year.

(Scott Dochterman / The Athletic)

Today, Kittle unquestionably is one of the nation’s most popular professional athletes. He’s also one of the best. He earned Pro Football Focus’ top ranking of any NFL player this year and was a first-team All-Pro. In 2018, he set the tight end single-season yardage record (1,377). He surpassed 1,000 yards again this year (1,053). Along with his receiving prowess, Kittle also is considered the league’s best blocking tight end.

Settles, now a BTN college basketball analyst who previously was the family’s most recognized member, said Kittle was “the life of the party” five years ago. It remains true today. Despite his worldwide popularity, Kittle stays in touch with those who were with him during his formative years. He emceed the Hawkeyes’ 2019 hype video and took in a football game at Kinnick during San Francisco’s bye week. He regularly comments on tweets and Instagram posts from reporters who covered him at Iowa.

As Kittle prepares for the most important game of his NFL career, I can’t help but think of that afternoon in Cedar Rapids nearly eight years ago. After Kittle walked away with Saville, he also left a good first impression. He was funny, engaging, unpretentious and brimming with personality. Nobody knew what kind of a player he would become, and it didn’t matter that afternoon. He was polite then and remains so today. I feel confident in saying he will be the same way Monday, no matter the result.

(Top photo: Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)

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