Ankeny High School

Ankeny High School is a high school located in a medium sized suburban town Ankeny, Iowa.

The school mascots are the Hawks (Men) and the Hawkettes (Women). Ankeny is part of the Central Iowa Metro League or CIML. They are extremely competitive in the state with all their sports and musical activities. It is well-known for its musical program.

The school serves 1,487 students, and has 92 teachers. The number is growing each year. The school is now faced with the problem of overcrowding and whether or not to expand to two high schools.

ports

Ankeny girls athletics rose in prominence in the late 1970s and early 1980s under Coach Dick Rasmussen, and his work with the basketball and softball programs.

The girls basketball team holds the record for the most consecutive state titles Fact|date=February 2007. They won the state championship in 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004, and hold the record for the most state titles by a school in Iowa history. Nicky Wieben, now playing at Iowa State, was a star player all four years under Coach Scott DeJong.

Ankeny also has a very successful football team, coached by Head Coach Jerry Pezzetti. Pezzetti has coached over 300 wins in his 40+ year career there including a state championship in 1997 and in 2008 were the hawks lost to Bettendorf, IA. One minor weakness to the Ankeny team is coach Jerry Pezzetti's thinking process. A study shown includes that his team throws the ball an average eight times a games and runs the ball over 92% of the time. Fact|date=February 2007

The volleyball team also maintains a strong history. With several state appearances including four championship appearances in four years, Ankeny boasts two state titles in 2004 and 2005.

Baseball has also seen success, with graduate Benj Sampson pitching for the Minnesota Twins.

The Ankeny boys soccer team is also on the top of the rankings almost every year. The Hawks are coached by Rick Issacson, a former high school all american with many years of coaching experience. They are led by there only returning sophomore first team selection Brett Langley. He scored 14 goals last year leading the hawks to a state appearance.

Every year Ankeny High School sends several athletes to participate at the collegiate level.

Famous Alums

Jeremy Cole: Saving the Dolphins Program

Jeremy Cole is the starting defensive tackle for the Ankeny Hawks in Ankeny, Iowa. But, he also does much more than that. He is the president of the Saving the Dolphins Program. He has managed to house and protect over twenty two dolphins at his short time at Ankeny High School. It is very rare for a teenager to be doing this;let alone a high school student who plays football and manages an astounding 4.8 GPA.

Cole is coached by Jerry Pezzeti at Ankeny High School in Ankeny, Iowa where he started at defensive tackle and at fullback for three years and compiled 55 sacks, 6 interceptions, and also rushed for 5,457 yard scoring 34 touchdowns during his career. During his senior season he led his Ankeny Hawks to a 34-33 OT victory in the 4A Regionals over the previously undefeated Nevada Pickpockets, while accounting for more than 235 yards of total offense, scoring three touchdowns rushing and two more through interceptions before a crowd of 12,000 in the Uni Dome. After beating Johnston High School 56-22 in the state quarterfinals, Ankeny faced Cedar Rapids in the state semi-finals.

Cole, who was a highly recruiting 5 star, chose to sign with USC in 2008 for its winning tradition and football prominence there. [8] Cole will redshirt his freshman year; which will allowed him to learn the playbook and develop his skills before being asked to play in a game situation.

The Saving the Dolphins Program was created by Jeremy in 2003 and has increasingly expanded it's program to reach out and help over ten thousand dolphins in over eighteen different countries. According to Cole,

"This is a story about a creature that many believe is one of the most intelligent creatures on earth after man. And that is part of their undoing, they learn fast and learn tricks that amuse and delight us.

Which is why this is a story not about beauty, but about bucks. Big bucks.

“A dolphin could be well be worth 30 to 50 thousand dollars as the point that it is trained and delivered,” explains Hardy Jones. Jones has been campaigning to stop dolphin killing for almost three decades. His most recent focus is Japanese villagers who catch and sell young dolphins.

“Dolphin captivity agents come in and they pick out the most beautiful, unblemished, young, usually females, lift them out of the water, take them away to captivity and the rest of the dolphins have their throats cut,” Cole says.

The Talon

The Talon is the high school newspaper and is published monthly.

Greg Black (Class of 2000) of the Real World

Greg Black from the class of 2000 was chosen as a participant for the real life drama show Real World featured on MTV for the 2006 season. Unfortunately Greg's fame was short lived due to being kicked out for lack of participation or enthusiasm. Instead of interacting with the unfolding drama of his roommates, Greg opted to hole himself up in his room with video games and cheap booze. The producers felt it was necessary to send Greg home after 6 days. They subsequently edited all airing video to avoid any mention or reference to him. There are currently negotiations in the process to include the excised footage in the extras on an upcoming DVD release.

Famous Alumni

*Aaron Price (1999)
*Matt Wells (2008)

External links

* [http://www.ankeny.k12.ia.us/highschool/index.html Ankeny High School]