Jake Dickert's Wife: Meet Candice Dickert, the Wake Forest Coach's College Sweetheart

Jake Dickert's wife is Candice Dickert, his college sweetheart whom he married in June 2012 after the two met as student-athletes at the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point. While Dickert has climbed from Division III assistant to Power Four head coach, first at Washington State and now at Wake Forest, Candice has managed every relocation, every new school and every season alongside him. Together they are raising three children — daughter Rylee and sons Jett and Jace — and the family is now settling into life in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where the coach is coming off a nine-win debut season with the Demon Deacons.

Who Is Candice Dickert?

Candice Dickert grew up in Stoughton, Wisconsin, a small city outside Madison, and was a soccer player before she ever crossed paths with a football coach. Like her husband, she attended the University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point, where she played soccer while Jake was a wide receiver on the football team. The two were juniors when they first met in a college apartment building, and the story of that first encounter has become a favorite piece of Dickert family lore.

As Candice explained in an interview with Cougsfan, cited by 247Sports, the couple's meeting was pure logistics:

"We met in college (at Wisconsin Stevens-Point). We were both juniors and I was moving in with a group of girlfriends (in a duplex) upstairs and Jake was moving in with a group of friends and football players downstairs."

The upstairs-downstairs setup did the rest. More than a decade later, Jake calls his years at Stevens Point "the best time of my life," a stretch in which he played and coached for the Pointers and, as he recalled in a Cupola Post alumni feature, began "starting a life with Candice."

How Long Have Jake Dickert and Candice Been Married?

Jake and Candice Dickert have been married since June 2012, meaning the couple has now been together for more than 13 years. Jake marked their 13th anniversary with a public message to his wife on X:

"Happy Anniversary to my beautiful bride of 13 years. Been an amazing journey and, as always, can't wait for another amazing adventure."

The quote, highlighted by EssentiallySports in a profile of Candice, captures the tone the couple has kept through a marriage lived largely on the college football treadmill. Candice has been more than a supportive spouse from the sideline, too. During Jake's Washington State days, she hopped over a rail and joined fans rushing the field after the Cougars' Apple Cup rout of Washington — the kind of moment that made her a fan favorite in Pullman.

Meet the Dickert Kids: Rylee, Jett and Jace

The Dickerts have three children: daughter Rylee, the oldest, and sons Jett and Jace. Rylee was born in 2011, when Jake was coaching at South Dakota, and per The Athletic, the children were 11, 8 and 5 in the summer of 2022 — meaning the family's youngest are now grade-schoolers and the oldest is a teenager. In June 2025, Jake celebrated Rylee's 14th birthday on X, writing, "Time sure does go fast! Love you," and praised her for finishing the eighth grade with straight A's.

The kids have grown up around football facilities and moving trucks. According to AP News, Dickert can "rattle off making 11 moves in 17 years" chasing his coaching dream, and he readily acknowledges what a big ask that pace placed on his wife and children. The family documented the lighter side of that life too — Jake posted in the summer of 2025 that "the boys dominated Wet-n-Wild in Greensboro" during a North Carolina getaway.

Candice's Role in Jake's Coaching Journey

Dickert's coaching résumé — North Dakota State, South Dakota, Southeast Missouri State, Augustana, Minnesota State, South Dakota State, Wyoming, Washington State and now Wake Forest — reads like a geography lesson, and Candice has been the constant through all of it. A 2022 profile by 247Sports described her as the person who keeps the "home fires burning" and the "laughs flowing" in the Dickert household, the steady anchor during seasons when a head coach's schedule rarely slows down.

Jake himself has framed family as the foundation of how he runs a program. "This is a place for family," he told Washington State Magazine in 2022. "The best experience our players will have is because of each other. That's what can really unite a football team." That philosophy carried to Winston-Salem, where Wake Forest leaders made a point of welcoming the whole family — President Susan Wente singled out "Jake, his wife Candice, and their children Rylee, Jett and Jace" in the school's hiring announcement.

From Pullman to Winston-Salem

When Wake Forest hired Dickert on Dec. 18, 2024, as the 33rd head coach in program history, the transition split the family for a few months. While Dickert got to work in Winston-Salem, Candice and the kids stayed behind in Pullman to finish the school year, a gap the coach admitted was difficult given the three-hour time difference. In a Q&A with the Winston-Salem Journal, he said the small daily window to catch up was tough because "it's 3,000 miles away and it's real," but promised his family was "fired up to be here."

They arrived in spring 2025, and the first full year in the new city could hardly have gone better on the field. Wake Forest finished Dickert's debut season 9–4, capping it with a 43–29 win over Mississippi State in the Duke's Mayo Bowl, per the school's official athletics site. The run included Top-25 wins over SMU and No. 12 Virginia and a sold-out rivalry victory over North Carolina — the kind of start that made the whole family's move feel worth it.

What's Next for the Dickert Family?

After 11 moves and stops at every level of college football, the Dickerts finally appear to have found a place to put down roots. Wake Forest's tight-knit campus, the talent-rich recruiting territory along the East Coast and the family's visible comfort in the Triad all point toward a long stay. As Dickert put it in a message to Demon Deacons fans in November 2026, "Candice and I have such a high level of appreciation for everyone involved at Wake Forest that believes in us and the future of our football program."

For a coach who has spent nearly two decades moving his family up the ladder, that kind of public gratitude says plenty. Candice Dickert has been the steady presence behind Jake's rise at every stop — the college sweetheart who became the household anchor — and in Winston-Salem she finally gets to cheer for a program, and a community, the entire family calls home.

About the Author: A FizzFilms contributor covering college football, the ACC and the coaching carousel, with a focus on the people behind the sidelines.