Hawkeye offensive lineman Gennings Dunker: A Samson and a scholar

Mike Hlas
Aug. 12, 2023 12:48 pm, Updated: Aug. 12, 2023 1:42 PM
IOWA CITY — Gennings Dunker walked onto the Iowa football practice field for Friday’s Media Day interviews holding a sandwich, a bag of pretzel chips and a sport drink.
That’s not standard procedure, and it was something his offensive line mates found quite funny.
Dunker’s explanation: “I’m hungry.”
It was part of the offensive lineman’s story in one scene. He consumes food and drink on a near-constant basis in an effort to keep growing. His pounding of protein shakes is legendary within the Iowa complex. And, he makes his teammates laugh.
“He is probably the funniest kid I ever met,” said Iowa center Logan Jones. “He’s just awesome and he’s awesome for the (offensive line) room. He really brings the room together. I love the dude.”
Dunker has a large, detailed tattoo of biblical figure Samson on his left forearm. Jones compares Dunker to folk hero character Paul Bunyan.
Dunker could become a Hawkeye folk hero himself with his red hair, affable personality, 6-foot-5, 320-pound frame, and Samson-like strength. That was displayed last month when he won the hay bale toss at Solon Beef Days for the second-straight year.
“I hope he can be a folk hero as a player,” Iowa offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz said. “He’s a really, really talented guy. He’s a big, physical human being.”
Third-year sophomore Dunker is competing for a starting job at tackle after starting at guard in Iowa’s Music City Bowl win over Kentucky last year.
“He loves football, he loves the action,” Iowa offensive line coach George Barnett said. “He has a pace in his step. He has a look in his eye.
“He’s so darn smart and analytical that he’s got to be careful of not getting too over-detailed, and I think he’s starting to come out of that. Now it’s more rhythm and feel.”
Dunker is constantly teasing and joking with his teammates, but Ferentz said “There’s definitely a little more to Gennings than meets the eye, although there’s plenty that seems to meet the eye.”
This is a player who is convincing when he tells you he loves nothing more than competing in the weight room with his teammates. But he also is a health and human physiology major who already has made the dean’s list four times.
“I’m hoping to go like a premed route after football,” he said.
He said he chose his area of study to “just kind of entertain myself a little bit, see what I can do. I wanted to pick something hard. And I really liked it.”
Growing up in Lena, Dunker would get in trouble … for reading during other classes.
“He was a nerd in junior high, a bookworm,” said his high football coach Ric Arend. “He was in a reading club, and he would get more accelerated-reader points in a week than most kids get in a year.”
“I don’t have a TV,” Dunker said. “I don’t like to watch it. So I’ll just read books instead. You can learn a lot more from them than TV.”
Dunker is from Lena, Ill., a town of about 3,000 people 50 miles from Dubuque. But Iowa can claim him since he was born in Des Moines and his parents are from Muscatine.
He played for two of Arend’s six state-title teams at Lena-Winslow. Like a typical folk hero, Dunker didn’t originally ook the part.
“He was 6-2, 185 coming into high school,” said Arend, “not a great football player or athlete. He made himself. He dedicated himself to the weight room.
“By the end of the ‘18 season, he was a sophomore who ended up our highest-rated offensive lineman. By his junior year he was up to 265. He’d gotten taller.”
Now, Arend says, “he’s a specimen, that’s for sure. Even seeing him on the sideline with the others last year at Iowa, he’s big next to them.”
Naturally, Dunker’s introduction to the Iowa coaching staff was by accident, not reputation. Hawkeyes head coach Kirk Ferentz and assistant Seth Wallace were at Lena-Winslow to visit eventual Iowa commit Isaiah Bruce.
“Coach Wallace and Coach Ferentz were standing with me in an entryway at the school at lunch time,” Arend said. “Gennings was a sophomore. He came up and asked me a question.
“Coach Wallace looked at his feet and saw these bright-red, size-17 tennis shoes, and said ‘What is your name?’ He probably would have found out later.”
Oh, and about that great name. No, Dunker wasn’t a basketball player.
“My dad didn’t let me play basketball,” he said. “He told me it was so hard to watch me, and he made me wrestle instead. I’m kind of thankful for that.”
Oh, there are two more football Dunker brothers in Lena. Gage is a senior college football prospect who does play basketball as well. Gannon is a ninth-grader who is another weight room dominator. Are they future Hawkeyes?
“I sure hope so,” Dunker said. “I don’t know why they wouldn’t.”