Dino Kaliakmanis runs down the field at SHI Stadium like a runaway train.
The Rutgers special teamer’s full-speed sprints usually end without any action, but this time was different.
Three minutes remained in the second quarter of the Scarlet Knights’ season-opening game against Ohio on Aug. 28 when Jack Scullion blasted a kickoff down the middle of the field. Eamonn Dennis, Ohio’s return man, let the ball bounce off the turf.
When he caught it, he had no chance: Kaliakmanis planted him into the ground. As he was swarmed by celebrating teammates, he gestured toward the sky.
“What people view as routine was not to him,” his father, Alex, told NJ Advance Media. “To him, it was, ‘I’m making a big contribution to this team.’ His team looks at that and says this kid works his ass off. Look how happy he is to just do the most basic of things: a tackle.”
The path toward that tackle was anything but routine.
It took years of relentless focus and unorthodox training methods. Of countless tests to diagnose a nagging disability and regular trips to speech therapy to battle it. Of overcoming obstacles that kept coming before achieving his dream of playing college football.
“My journey has been very hard,” Dino Kaliakmanis said. “Everything just came together at that moment. My mentality is to go as hard as I can, to give every ounce I got, because I’m very grateful to be here.”
Dino Kaliakmanis did it all with his younger brother Athan always by his side. The “inseparable” duo, called “yin and yang” and compared to ‘The Odd Couple’ by those close to them, took the same winding journey from Antioch, Illinois, to the Big Ten together.
They went from small-town all-stars to college teammates, their careers starting in Minnesota before bringing them to their parents’ former home state. This Saturday, when they make their first trip to Minneapolis since transferring to Rutgers in 2024, their story will come full circle.
And the Kaliakmanises will play big — albeit different — roles for Rutgers.
As always, all eyes will be on Athan Kaliakmanis, one of the most prolific quarterbacks in the country this fall who is climbing up the Rutgers record books by the week. As he returns to his former home as a visitor and tries to lead the Scarlet Knights to a second consecutive win over the Golden Gophers, Dino Kaliakmanis will look to do the same by making his mark on special teams.
The brothers will look to lead Rutgers (3-1, 0-1) to a repeat of last year’s cathartic victory, which would put the Scarlet Knights back on pace to reach a third consecutive bowl game. It would also add another memorable chapter to their lifelong journey together.
“It is incredible to share this experience with him,” Athan Kaliakmanis said. “My brother shouldn’t be in the place that he’s in. … the stuff he has overcome and the fact he’s here today, it’s inspiring to me.”
Joined at the Hip
If Alex and Colleen Kaliakmanis ever wanted to find one of their oldest sons, they just needed to look for the other.
Athan and Dino were “joined at the hip” growing up. Often, they were running around outside their home in Antioch, a working-class village of 14,000 people sandwiched between Chicago and Milwaukee, where “everyone knows everyone,“ according to longtime mayor Larry Hanson.
The Kaliakmanis brothers were always doing something, from running routes to playing wiffle ball, from fishing at nearby Lake Antioch to diving into the ball pit in their basement.
One time, Alex Kaliakmanis got home from work and realized he had no space to park: “There was a skate park in my driveway,” he recalled. The brothers built it themselves out of plywood and other materials lying around the house.
There were “a lot of holes” in the walls and broken items around the house, including at least one television that got a football thrown through it. But their parents “really didn’t know who to blame.”
“Nobody would ever confess to it,” Alex Kaliakmanis said. “They were pretty good. They’re not ratting on each other.”
The unbreakable bond between the brothers was built through sports in part because “ball” was one of the few things Dino Kaliakmanis could say at an early age.
Born six weeks premature and severely underweight, doctors warned his parents that he could have developmental difficulties for the first decade of his life. When he had a six-word vocabulary through his first six years, doctors ordered a series of diagnostics.
There were “all types of tests,” Alex said, from brain to blood to genetic. Asperger’s and autism were ruled out, but no conclusion was reached until he was 6 years old, when he was diagnosed with Central Auditory Processing Disorder.
A neurological condition that affects the brain’s ability to process and interpret sounds, CAPD made it hard for Dino Kaliakmanis to understand what others were saying, and as a result, to communicate. Once a diagnosis was reached, an action plan was made.
His mother, Colleen, who has the “patience of a saint” according to her husband, shuttled him to sessions with speech pathologists and worked with his school to set up special education programs. More of a visual learner, Kaliakmanis was placed on an individualized education program (IEP), with an emphasis on having more time to take tests.
Progress came slowly, then all at once. By his 10th birthday, his parents saw him take major steps; once he reached high school, he saw himself “accelerating more toward overcoming it.”
“As a child, I didn’t understand it,” Dino Kaliakmanis said. “You’re just finding your way. Then as I got older, I started to really understand who I am and everything just came together. With that being said, I didn’t let it define me, but I embraced it and I enjoyed the journey.”
His family, from his parents to his three siblings, gave him plenty of support but never took it easy on him. The brothers were “super competitive,” so as Athan rose the recruiting ranks as a highly-touted quarterback prospect, he made sure his older brother kept pace.
“Dino has always had to work two, three times harder than the normal person,” Alex Kaliakmanis said. “It doesn’t come easy to him. You look at Athan and he’s an All-American talent. He’s got it. Whereas Dino’s talented, but he has to work three times harder. The nice thing is nobody really ever gave Dino any slack. His brother said, ‘You got to come up to the level and let’s go.’ So I think ultimately that helped him, having a competitive brother like that.”
‘Huge part of our team’
Alex Kaliakmanis needed to tell his son the truth.
As he coached Dino in youth football, he saw his immense talent being held back by perfectionism and an inability to accept coaching. Sitting at the dinner table, he had a “painful conversation” with his struggling eighth-grade son in hopes of unlocking his potential.
“It really broke my heart because I could see I disappointed him,” Alex said. “I went to bed that night and I cried as a father, because you never want to hurt your kid. But I gotta tell you, man, after that, he went to the stars.”
Dino Kaliakmanis took the message to heart, and a shift in his mentality came quickly. By the time he enrolled at Antioch Community High School as a sophomore, he was “a coach’s dream,” according to his high school coach Brian Glashagel.
“The kid will never miss a practice,” Glashagel said. “If you have a weightlifting session, he’s there, and he’s there early. He’s a stay-after-practice type guy. If he has a route, and he drops a dig route in practice, he’ll stay after practice and run like 40 digs in a row, catching all of them. He is absolutely obsessive compulsive when it comes to really anything, not just football.”
To complement his weightlifting, Dino Kaliakmanis picked up ballet following his sophomore season, going two or three times a week after falling in love with the sport in his first session. He read Herschel Walker’s Basic Training book from cover-to-cover countless times, incorporating the Heisman Trophy winner’s methods into his routine.
“He doesn’t really have an off switch,” Glashagel said. “The guy wakes up every day and is genuinely trying to get better in all aspects of what he’s doing, whether it was classroom, his training, catching footballs, his blocking. He’s absolutely a focused kid. People talk about grinding, but it’s impossible to do it every day. That kid does it every day. It’s really impressive.”
While Athan Kaliakmanis earned most of the attention during his standout career with the Sequoits, becoming the school’s first Gatorade Player of the Year as the star quarterback, he got plenty of help from his brother.
Dino Kaliakmanis was a special teams star, returning multiple kicks for touchdowns as his team’s best athlete. He racked up more than 500 receiving yards for three straight years, including his senior season when he was moved to fullback in Antioch’s “military-style” option offense. The brothers — co-captains of the football team — starred alongside each other in track, too, with Athan winning a state title in the long jump and Dino making his mark as a sprinter.
While their success was similar, their demeanor could not be more different. CAPD continued to make communication difficult for Dino, so he let his actions do the talking.
“I call them yin and yang,” Glashagel said. “Athan was very vocal, emotional, fist-pumping. You score a touchdown, he’s jumping up and head-butting players. He reminds me of a Brett Favre or a Jim McMahon. Whereas Dino is quiet, reserved, focused. He’s like a machine. We called him Ivan Drago from the Rocky IV movie, where he’s just locked in, doesn’t show a ton of emotion.
“There’s the difference in the two athletes. Each good in their own way, but completely different personalities.”
Still, they stuck together. Dino contemplated an offer from Air Force, but once the option of playing alongside his brother at Minnesota arose, there was no doubt he was joining him in the Twin Cities.
“He really did make a sacrifice, because I don’t know if Minnesota would have been his choice if it wasn’t to go with his brother,” Alex Kaliakmanis said. “But that’s how much he loves his brother. Where I’m gonna be with him, I want to go play with him.”
After three years in Minneapolis, where Athan served as the starting quarterback in 2023 as Dino played sporadically at wide receiver, the duo transferred to Rutgers, where they reunited with offensive coordinator Kirk Ciarrocca.
Through 17 games as Scarlet Knights, they have made their marks. Athan Kaliakmanis is on pace to finish in the top five of multiple career passing statistics at Rutgers, while Dino Kaliakmanis has earned a spot on special teams that he does not take for granted.
“Dino is a huge part of our team,” head coach Greg Schiano said. “I think you saw how excited everybody on the team was for Dino when he caught that touchdown. Everybody loves Dino. Certainly, being the quarterback’s brother could be difficult for some. Not for him. He loves his brother. He loves this team. He is all about Rutgers football, and I love coaching him.”
Beacon of Hope
Dino Kaliakmanis lined up just outside the left hash near the 14-yard line at SHI Stadium. There were roughly 1,000 fans left in the stands as Rutgers held a five-touchdown lead over Norfolk State on Sept. 13, but the senior receiver was about to make the biggest play of his college career.
When redshirt freshman AJ Surace took the snap, Kaliakmanis cut inside and created enough space for the quarterback to squeeze in a pass. Kaliakmanis corralled the ball for the first touchdown catch of his career, holding onto it as a defensive back tackled him to the ground. When he got up, he was surrounded by scarlet jerseys.
When he got to the sideline, Dino Kaliakmanis was greeted by his younger brother, who dapped him up with a big smile on his face.
The moment will not be remembered by many, but to Dino Kaliakmanis — who wants to be an inspiration to those growing up with disabilities — it is something he and his family will never forget.
“Every time we see him do great things, it’s very special to his mother and I,” Alex Kaliakmanis said. “We have always believed that Dino is able to accomplish great things, but we also understand that everybody’s got a different journey. Maybe his journey is different than everybody else’s, but we would always say, ‘listen, your time will come and when it comes, make the most of your opportunity.’ Dino has lived his life like that.”