All in the family
For a pair of brothers, the family tradition goes generations back
By matt meltzer
Like most grandfathers would be, Charles Hitschler Jr. was thrilled the first time he saw one of his grandsons wrestle at the collegiate level.
But for Hitschler, seeing his grandsons Rob and Colin Hitschler put on Penn singlets for the first time was especially gratifiying.
Rob and Colin, a junior and a freshman respectively, are the third generation of Hitschlers to wrestle at Penn and the fifth generation to matriculate to the University.
The Hitschler family tree is littered with Penn graduates. Rob and Colin’s great-great-grandfather began the trend when he graduated from Penn’s medical school.
For the brothers, the decision to wrestle at Penn was not necessarily an easy one, but it was certainly made less difficult given their extensive family connections to the school. They had both been traveling to watch Penn wrestling from a very young age.
“We traveled around to watch when I was six or seven and every year since then, “Rob said.
The brothers learned to wrestle against each other under the tutelage of their father, who was also their high school coach. Charles Hitschler III, who graduated from Wharton in 1973, helped establish a connection for Rob and Colin to Penn wrestling. He is the wrestling coach at Philadelphia’s William Penn Charter, where both brothers went to high school. It is yet to be seen whether their youngest brother Patrick, a high school freshman, has the same bond to Penn and its wrestling program.
The boys’ father was both a wrestler and a sprint football player for the Quakers. However, as a child, he had no intention of wrestling.
According to Charles Hitschler Jr., his son only chose to wrestle after he knew he would be unable to make the middle school basketball team.
“There wouldn’t be a chance in the world of him making any basketball team, “Hitschler Jr. said. “Once he got into [wrestling], he really enjoyed it.”
Hitschler III distinguished himself on the freshman team at Penn, building an undefeated record. Unfortunately, he was never able to fully recover from a knee injury at the end of that year and eventually tried out for the sprint football team. He lettered on that team in both 1971 and 1972, simultaneously earning the prestigious Lt. Charles E. Schmucker award for the “Ideal Sprint Football Player.”
The Hitschler wrestling tradition began, however, with Charles Hitschler Jr. He wrestled in high school and had the fortune of attending Penn in the middle of World War II, entering college in June of 1943 through the Navy’s V-12 program.
He never served in the war but came eerily close, receiving his papers to report to Seattle, where he was to be sent to Japan. But thanks to the United States’ decision to drop the bomb, Hitschler never found his way over to Japan. Yet he certainly understood the perils of war –his brother-in-law was injured when a kamikaze bomber hit his ship stationed in Okinawa.
The time at Penn gave Hitschler the opportunity to earn his degree, wrestle and develop a meaningful relationship with his future wife.
“We hooked up on campus and had a great old time, “he said.
Rob and Colin rarely wrestle each other anymore, especially given that they are in different weight classes — Rob wrestles at 149 and Colin at 165.
When they do wrestle, things can sometimes get out of hand.
“We don’t get along that well when we wrestle — we usually get in a fight, “Rob said.
While the brothers are not likely to learn from each other on the mat, they enjoy their family history and the support from the sidelines. For Charles Hitschler Jr., watching his grandchildren on a Penn mat just makes him proud.
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