St. Charles North star wideout Keaton Reinke stays close to home, commits to Northwestern

From a young age, Keaton Reinke has always seen going to Northwestern as a sign of academic accomplishment.

Growing up an hour away from the college, the St. Charles North standout would go visit as a kid, primarily to watch Big Ten football. And with his parents always emphasizing the importance of academics, he knew that a spot in Evanston would set him up for life.

Pair that with his freakish abilities on the football field, it was more than enough for the Wildcats to offer him a full-ride offer back in January.

And on Monday, he made it official. Reinke, a 6-foot-3, 205-pound three-star recruit, announced his verbal commitment to his scholarship offer from Northwestern on X.

“He’s one of the top three players that I’ve coached in 25 years,” North Stars coach Rob Pomazak said. “From his height, length, projectability, explosive power, durability, and then his finite motor skills of catching and hand-eye coordination, he has it all. He is as he’s as good as we’ve had, and he has every capability of being a Big Ten starter, and then moving on after that.”

Reinke becomes the 11th player and second wideout from the Class of 2026 to join David Braun’s team in Evanston. Fellow three-star receiver Jaden McDuffie of Edgewater, Maryland, committed on May 22.

Reinke, who holds a 5.6 GPA on a 5.0 scale, said he held 13 NCAA Division I scholarship offers at the time of his commitment, which included the likes of Iowa, Minnesota and Stanford.

“The fact that Northwestern is able to give me Big Ten football, and then crazy good at academics, is all that I could ask for,” said Reinke, who plans to major in engineering. “And the coaching staff, they all have just kind of brought me into the program and made me feel welcome. I feel like they truly care about who I am as a person, and they’re going to be able to develop me to the best that I can be.”

The Wildcats went 4-8, including 2-7 in Big Ten play, in their second season under Braun. The Wildcats went 8-5 in their first season under him, which included a 14-7 win over Utah in the Las Vegas Bowl.

Reinke won’t be the first Tri-Cities athlete to don the purple and white in recent memory. Former Batavia quarterback Ryan Boe is entering his second season at Northwestern, while former North Stars defensive lineman Carmine Bastone is a captain entering his fifth year with the team.

“I didn’t really talk to Boe a whole lot, just shook his hands during visits,” Reinke said. “But Bastone gave me a ton of information about how everything was there.”

In his junior season, Reinke recorded 80 catches for 1,218 yards and 18 total touchdowns (16 passing, one kickoff return and one passing), all setting school records for the North Stars, who went 10-2 and were DuKane Conference champions.

He also set a record for most receiving yards in a game with 210 against Rolling Meadows in the first round of the IHSA Class 7A playoffs, and was named a Class 7A All-State honorable mention.

But Reinke said that Northwestern had reached out before his junior season happened, when he only had 134 receiving yards and two touchdowns to his name after missing most of his sophomore season with a broken collarbone.

“Originally, (assistant wide receivers) coach (Zac) Krause reached out before the season started to let me know that I was on their radar,” Reinke said. “And then once the season ended, they started to reach out, I went to a few games and they started pushing me until I got an official offer in January.

“It was like a constant back-and-forth conversation, which was also a big part of my decision as well. Northwestern’s communication was the best out of everyone, and it made me feel like they really cared and wanted what was best for me.”

Reinke, who’s also one of the top baseball recruits in the state as well, said that being a two-sport athlete in college isn’t completely off the table, as he confirmed that he has started talks with Wildcats head coach Ben Greenspan.

“This summer I’m going to do some summer ball stuff and see how that goes,” Reinke said. “For now, I’m fully focused on Northwestern football. But it’s not completely off of the table.”

But for now, his focus is on his final season of high school football, where the North Stars will have 18 returning starters. One of which will not be a quarterback, with four-year starter Ethan Plumb heading to Grand Valley State.

But with Reinke leading the offensive charge, there’s very little worry of how the offense will manage in 2025.

“Keaton’s an anchor point of the offense,” Pomazak said. “It’s a good starting point from the stance of allowing the quarterback to make some easy, high percentage throws, get the ball in their hands and let them run patch. That’s going to be kind of a bread and butter, and it’ll help us stretch the field vertically and horizontally.”