Mack siblings bring family ties to Lehigh wrestling

Sophomore Seamus Mack and first-year Hattie Mack lead independent lives at Lehigh, but shared love for wrestling keeps their sibling ties strong. 

Growing up in Hempfield, Pennsylvania, the Mack siblings were constantly surrounded by athletics. 

Their father, Shane Mack, wrestled at the University of Maryland and went on to coach Division I wrestling at Maryland and UNC Greensboro, as well as at Hempfield High School.

Seamus Mack said he wanted to continue the longstanding family tradition of wrestling, starting at a young age. 

“Growing up my dad was always the high school coach, so I’d be in the room watching when I was two or three years old,” Seamus Mack said. “I’ve been doing it as long as I can remember.”

He said he loved having his dad as his high school coach because it helped to strengthen their father-son relationship. 

For wrestlers in particular, Seamus Mack said it’s common for fathers to be really hard on their children and hold them to high standards, leading to possible strains in their relationships.  

But he said even as his coach, his dad never made him feel that way. 

“He just cared about me giving 100% effort and doing my best, and as long as I did that, he wouldn’t get upset,” Seamus Mack said. 

Though Hattie Mack played many sports before starting to wrestle, including soccer, lacrosse and basketball, she was always surrounded by the wrestling world through her family. 

Since there was no women’s wrestling team at her high school until her junior year, she at first wasn’t able to compete. But because she grew up attending her brother’s tournaments, she said she had always wanted to give the sport a try. 

“I was always pretty aggressive in sports, so my junior year, when they finally added the program, I decided to try it out,” Hattie Mack said. 

After finding quick success, she’s now joined the first Division I women’s wrestling team at Lehigh. 

The program is also the first Division I women’s wrestling team in Pennsylvania and the sixth in the country. 

Julia Fongaro, another first-year wrestler, said she shares a similar perspective on the growth of women’s wrestling.

“My whole life, women’s wrestling has been growing, but we’ve always been fighting,” Fongaro said. “Now, it finally feels like we made it, like there’s nothing really left to fight for — now we can focus on winning national titles rather than fighting for equal opportunities.” 

When Hattie Mack first visited Lehigh, she said the team was still at the club level and there wasn’t a guarantee it would become a Division I sport. 

But she said she decided to trust the process and joined her brother as a Mountain Hawk. 

Seamus Mack said he was happy to hear he and his sister would be on campus together. 

Though they may not see each other very frequently, other than an accidentally scheduled overlapping class, he said the two continue to support one another. 

Both plan to attend each other’s competitions this season to support the men’s and women’s teams.