(EDITOR’S NOTE: The Times News is running a series of stories on former area athletes and what they have been doing since graduating from high school. The subjects of today’s “Catching up With” are former Northern Lehigh High School multiple sport athletes Stevie, Ryan and Adam Hluschak.)

By TJ ENGLE

tengle@tnonline.com

Sibling rivalries can be a great motivator and provide plenty of incentive.

That was definitely the case for the Hluschak family.

Brothers Stevie, Ryan, and Adam Hluschak all had storybook athletic careers at Northern Lehigh High School.

The sons of longtime Northern Lehigh assistant football coach Steve Sr., and his wife Karen, the Hluschaks were dominant athletes on both the wrestling mat and football field for the Bulldogs.

“We were very competitive growing up,” said Stevie. “The old saying that boys will be boys was definitely true about us.”

Stevie laughed when thinking about some of the experiences he had growing up with his brothers.

“We definitely put my mom through quite a bit - and my father as well,” he said. “But none of us would have been able to do what we did without my parents. They were there to take us everywhere we wanted to go, and needed to go, to be successful.”

Successful is something all three Hluschaks definitely were during their high school days as they seemingly passed the baton from brother-to-brother during a remarkable stretch that lasted for over a decade.

Wrestling is where the Hluschaks probably put up their most impressive numbers. Starting with Stevie’s freshman season in 1996-97 and ending with Adam’s senior season in 2006-07, one of the Hluschaks competed in the PIAA Championships in Hershey for 11 straight seasons.

Those appearances (four each for Stevie and Adam, and three for Ryan) produced 10 state medals, including a gold medal for Ryan in his senior year in 2003. There was also a second-place finish for Adam and three third-place finishes - two of them from Stevie and one from Ryan. Ryan was also the 2003 Times News Wrestler of the Year.

Today, the Hluschak brothers still rank as the top three wrestlers on the Bulldog career win list. Adam (class of 2007) leads with 160, Ryan (class of 2003) is next with 149 and Stevie (class of 2000) follows with 147.

While the brothers’ prowess on the wrestling mat is legendary, their play on the football field was arguably just as impressive.

They combined for nine varsity letters, while competing during the glory age of Bulldog football. Their teams had a combined record of 93-28 over 10 consecutive seasons that produced six double digit win totals.

Ryan was a two-time Times News Football Player of the Year (2001, 2002) and Steve won the honor once (1999).

Stevie was also a PIAA All-State selection at wide receiver in ‘99. Ryan was an All-State selection as a running back in ’02.

What isn’t up for debate is that the brothers’ athletic and academic achievements at Northern Lehigh paved the way to successful post high school experiences as well.

STEVIE HLUSCHAK

Stevie capped his final year at Northern Lehigh High School as the Bulldogs’ Male Athlete of the Year.

Shortly afterward, he accepted a football scholarship to Lehigh University.

Playing flanker and receiver for the Mountain Hawks, Stevie accumulated four varsity letters. His time at Lehigh included being part of the Lambert Cup championship team in ’02, and a member of the Patriot League champs in ’01 and ’02.

Stevie graduated from Lehigh with honors in 2004.

Following graduation, he got started teaching in the Bangor School District where he also served as an assistant football and wrestling coach. Stops at Lehighton and William Allen followed. During that period he returned to his alma mater, taking over the reigns of the Northern Lehigh wrestling program in 2013.

Stevie relinquished his Bulldog coaching duties when he was named the interim athletic director at Stroudsburg High School in 2017.

But, after seeing time with his 6-year-old daughter Stella Meadow dwindle in the new position, Stevie stepped down as AD and got back in the classroom, taking a position in the Berks County area where he currently teaches social studies while also coaching both football and wrestling. But high school coaching isn’t the only athletic involvement for Stevie, whose daughter is ready to start participating in sports as well.

“We’re going to get her involved with gymnastics and soccer and hopefully, field hockey or baseball. Whatever she wants to do,” Stevie said. “I’m a big supporter of parents allowing their children to do what they want. I don’t want to push her into one particular sport and wear her out. You learn different skills and lifelong lessons in different sports.”

Sports isn’t the only place to learn lessons, however. Stevie said he has learned an important one from his daughter.

“I will tell you what; this is something I will always say because this is important to me, ‘No man knows what he has in his heart until he has a little girl. You think you know what love is, but you do not. When you have your own little girl, it opens up a level of love that you didn’t know you had.’ You loved your mom, you loved girlfriends, your brothers, your dad, your family in general.

“But having a little girl, you don’t know what you have in your heart until you have one. Because the love you have for your daughter is on a whole new level. I think that’s why, even if you think you wanted to have a boy, it’s blown away by the love you have for her - and you wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

RYAN HLUSCHAK

After high school, Ryan followed brother Stevie to Lehigh University to play football as a running back. But after spending a year at Lehigh, Ryan decided to switch schools and sports, transferring to Drexel University to wrestle for the Dragons.

“I originally had my college decision down to Drexel or Lehigh. It was either wrestling or football,” said Ryan, about making one of the biggest decisions of his life. “I went with football, but after my freshman year I backtracked a little bit. I’m glad I did, because for me going back to wrestling turned out to be the right move.

“As we get older, we look back, and think about some of those big decisions we made on our own. With me, that was probably the first big decision on my own. Somewhere along the line, you start trusting with instincts and your gut, whatever that logic is, and then you trace the dots going backward and not forward, and things start to connect.”

At Drexel, things went very well for Ryan. He wrestled at the 157-pound weight class for all four years, where he broke the school record for wins in a career, which at the time was 121.

Ryan was a three-time NCAA tourney qualifier, a one-time Division I All-American and a four-time National Wrestling Coaching Association Academic All-American. He also was the Colonial Athletic Association Rookie of the Year in ’05, and was the Virginia Duals Outstanding Wrestler in ‘06.

He currently stands second all-time in pins in a season at Drexel, as well as second all-time in near-fall points in a season.

Ryan explained that hard work and dedication to the sport were the things that allowed him to have the success he did in wrestling.

“My biggest thing is that you can never be satisfied,” he said. “The good ones that do good things are never satisfied.

“It’s sort of a double-edged sword. One edge of that sword is the fact that by never being satisfied and constantly dedicating yourself to getting better, you live with some regret for the things that you weren’t able to do. But the other edge of the sword is enjoying what you achieved by being so dedicated.”

Ryan graduated from Drexel University with a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration and a minor in marketing and economics in 2008.

After graduation, he accepted a job offer in Washington, DC. While in the nation’s capital, he worked for several companies, including CSC and Accenture, as a management consultant. Among the clients he worked for were the Department of Defense, Department of Agriculture, The inter-American Development Bank, and Boeing.

After 10 years, Ryan and his wife Maria made the decision to move back to Pennsylvania with one of their primary reasons being so their young daughters - 4-year-old Norah, and 3-year-old Hannah - could grow up with their cousins, uncles, and grandparents around.

Ryan now works as a principal architect within the Strategy and Business Architecture team for SAP America in Newtown Square.

Ryan has also managed to stay involved in wrestling - a sport that has played such a big role in his life. He will be a part-time coach at Boyertown High School, and also serves as a volunteer clinician at Boyertown Training Center, working with the Arsenal wrestling club.

ADAM HLUSCHAK

Like his brothers, Adam considered both Lehigh and Drexel as post high school destinations. But while Stevie and Ryan debated whether football or wrestling with be their collegiate sport, Adam knew wrestling was his ticket.

After weighing all his options, Adam decided he wouldn’t follow in either brothers’ college footsteps.

Instead, he decided to accept a scholarship to wrestle at East Stroudsburg University. At ESU, Adam majored in hotel, restaurant and tourism management with a focus on hotel management.

Adam redshirted his freshman year and ended up being academically ineligible for his sophomore year and losing his scholarship.

That stumble proved to be a wake-up call for Adam, however, He improved his grades and didn’t give up on wrestling.

Adam earned back his wrestling scholarship and went out and had an outstanding junior year (his sophomore season athletically) on the mat and in the classroom.

He placed second at the Super Regionals in the 141-pound weight class, upsetting the No. 4 and No. 3 seeds along the way. The finishes earned him a place at the NCAA Division 2 championships.

“I basically had two years when I didn’t wrestle, and was on the verge of not coming back,” Adam recalled. “But I did, and ended up making it out to Nationals and I was a match away from placing at Nationals. I lost in double overtime to get in to the top-8. That was a heartbreaker.

“But I had two years left and I realized I was in the Round of 12 despite a lot of time away from the sport.”

The following years, Adam was named the Warriors’ team captain for his junior and senior seasons.

Adam enjoyed plenty of success, piling up 81 career wins in just three seasons of wrestling - getting over 25 wins in each of his last two seasons, Despite that success, he never made it back to Nationals. He missed it by a match his junior year, finishing in sixth place at Regions. After beating Division 1 wrestlers from both Rutgers and Penn State early in his senior season, Adam had some injury problems late in the year and once again came up short of advancing to Nationals.

Following his graduation, Adam spent a few years as an employee for the Renaissance Hotel, attached to the PPL Center in Allentown. Currently, he is a front office manager at a Marriot Hotel on the outskirts of Philadelphia.

Adam still resides in Slatington with his girlfriend Sigrid. The couple’s first child, Aidan Joseph, was born earlier this week.

“My girlfriend has joked that he’s already a wrestler in training,” said Adam. “Sigrid loves wrestling. I’m working as an assistant coach for the Northampton High School wrestling team right now and she comes to all of our matches.”

With both of his older brothers having girls, Adam said he and his father are both happy to know that there could be another Hluschak to carry on the family success in football and wrestling some day.

If Adam’s son eventually does play football or wrestle, it will be quite the successful family tradition he will be following.