This is what's known as a wrestling family, and a very successful one at that. In the front row, from left, are Antonio Giorgio of Warwick, Mike Giorgio of Schuylkill Valley, Nate Giorgio of Schuylkill Valley and Giovanni Giorgio of Wilson. In the back row, from left, are Tony Giorgio (father of Antonio), Mike Giorgio (father of Mike and Nate) and Gio Giorgio (father of Giovanni). The younger Giorgios have combined for 417 career victories, and Antonio, Mike Jr. and Nate will compete in this week's PIAA Championships. Antonio has two state medals to his credit.
It is the American Narrative: Young man leaves his small, Old World village and journeys to the United States to make a new life.
It was a journey taken by Mike Giorgio. A journey that, this weekend, could be marked with this milepost: one, or more, of his grandsons winning a state wrestling championship.
Three of his grandsons, Antonio, Michael and Nate, are competing in the PIAA Championships at Hershey's Giant Center this weekend.
Antonio, a two-time state medalist and state runner-up for Warwick, is considered a favorite at 189 pounds in the Class AAA tournament.
Michael and Nate wrestle for Schuylkill Valley and will compete in the Class AA tournament at 135 and 112, respectively.
To grasp the golden grail Antonio will have to best the best: Springfield Delco's Andre Petroskie, the returning state bronze medalist at 189, and Council Rock North's Jamie Callender, the returning runnerup.
If the pairings hold, Petroskie and Giorgio would meet Friday in the quarterfinals, with Callender waiting in the championship finals.
Mike Giorgio emigrated from his hometown, Sant' Angelo di Brolo on the island of Sicily, in the winter of 1956. It was, as journeys go, an uneventful one.
Prompted by his son, Giovanni, Mike shared that on the ship's next trip, in April of that year, it sank off New York.
The family patriarch was fortunate to have missed the fatal final sailing of the Andrea Doria.
Landing in New York City, Giorgio made his way to the Reading area where he found employment in a chemical factory.
In time, he settled in the Berks County village of Rehrersburg, raising mushrooms and four sons: Frank, Antonio (Tony), Michael (Mike) and Giovanni.
"I can remember when I was little," Antonio Jr. recently recalled, "we'd be running, all the time, between the doubles where they grew the mushrooms."
The four Giorgio brothers graduated from Tulpehocken High School and set about raising their families. Families that soon would become synonymous with wrestling.
"Antonio came home from kindergarten one day, and he had this fluorescent colored paper," his father recalled.
It was a permission slip to take part in wrestling and Tony was skeptical.
"I told him, 'Hey, it's not what uncle Frank watches on the TV. It's different wrestling.' So I got him the movie 'Vision Quest.' He watched it and said, 'Dad, I want to do it.' "
Soon, his cousins were doing it too, as Mike's sons Michael and Nate and Gio's son Giovanni joined Antonio on the youth wrestling circuit.
They were by all accounts successful, to the point that other competitors would ask, "How many of you are there?"
As the young Giorgios grew, so did their fame as they added to their collection of medals and ribbons.
At one open tournament, Antonio made a connection that endures to this day.
"I was working at Hershey Chocolate at the time," said Tony.
"At an open tournament Antonio was wrestling young Kenny Courts. And then I saw his mother at work one day that same week.
"I said, 'Hey, your son beat my son at the tournament!' She said oh, yeah, her husband (Ken Courts Sr.) coaches the elementary program up there. We started coming up one day a week, that's how we grew up with (the) Central Dauphin (program)."
Circumstances took Tony to Lititz, where Antonio soon became the toast of Warwick wrestling.
He won 24 matches as a freshman, just missing a berth in the state tournament, then won 90 matches over the next two years, placing second in the state as a sophomore and fifth as a junior.
He's won three sectional titles and recently became the third wrestler in Warwick history to win three District Three/Southcentral Regional titles.
An early-season injury cut the heart out of Antonio's senior season, but with 24 victories this year he has become Warwick's career victory leader.
Meanwhile, Michael and Nate were making their mark in the powerful Schuylkill Valley program.
After going 14-14 his first two years, Michael won 41 matches as a junior and has 40 wins going into this weekend.
Were it not that he wrestled in the same weight class, same league, same district and same region as Nick Hodgkins of Wyomissing — who has beaten him in tournament finals three straight weekends — Michael might have collected several gold medals by now.
With 115 career wins, younger brother Nate has a collection of golds, two sectional titles and the District Three championship last year at 103.
Like his cousin Nate, Gio was a sectional champion in 2009, winning the 112-pound title for Wilson as a sophomore.
Like his cousin Antonio, an injury gutted his season this year, leaving him without enough time to prepare for the postseason.
Wrestling in a highly competitive 119-pound class (won by Garden Spot's Kyle Coblentz), Gio did not qualify for districts, but with 69 career wins and an entire off-season ahead of him, the future looks bright.
That future holds the possibility of even more Giorgios. Antonio's brother Dante has been a member of the Warwick junior high team for three years and will move up to the high school next year.
Mike and Nate have a brother Josh, a seventh-grader at Schuylkill Valley, who has shown much promise.
And, most intriguingly, Gio's little sister Francesca has been making a name for herself and anticipates bidding for a spot on the Bulldog varsity as a freshman next season.