Talking Points | Pottruck: The man behind the gym

Penn students might know David Pottruck for the fitness center that bears his name, but they probably don't know much else about the member of the College Class of 1970.

Pottruck was a two-sport athlete for the Quakers in football and wrestling. He was the CEO and president of discount brokerage Charles Schwab, a trustee of the University and has also been involved in a startup airline company and a sports retail network.

Recently, The Daily Pennsylvanian interviewed the former wrestling All-Ivy selection to discuss his Alumni Award of Merit, his namesake gym and the Penn wrestling coaching search.

Daily Pennsylvanian: How does it make you feel that people substitute "Pottruck" for "gym?"

David S. Pottruck: That's what happens when you do something that's very successful. My wife and I just endowed a chair at the Wharton School, a Professor of Change, Management and Leadership. I said I didn't want my only legacy at Penn to be a gym. But I think the popularity is going to overwhelm anything else I'm ever going to do. I'll always be known for giving the fitness center at Penn, and it probably doesn't matter what else I do. My family has donated a bunch of scholarships, but I think we'll forever be known as the people who gave the gym. It is what it is.

I guess in retrospect, it's not necessarily what I wanted my family's only legacy to be, that we were the gym guys, but the good news is that we built something that is used by a vast majority of the student body. It's wonderful that we built something that is so popular.

DP: Why did you decide to donate the money for the gym?

DSP: Obviously, a big part of my experience at Penn had to do with athletics. Playing two sports, I was intensely involved with athletics at Penn.

I donated money to the wrestling program over the years. I had built the wrestlers' room, the Pottruck Wrestling Complex down at Weightman Hall. Especially when my [second] daughter went to Penn, it was a time when the fitness craze was really getting strong. And Penn didn't have a great place for students to work out to do the kind of fitness stuff students want to do today: the weights, the training, the machines, the cardio. All those things just didn't exist on campus.

I wanted to make an important gift to the University, so I met with Judith Rodin, who was the President at the time, to talk about the different possibilities of what I can do. Of course there was the new Huntsman building was being built for the Wharton school, so we talked about I making a gift to Huntsman Hall. I did, although most people don't know that. One of larger lecture halls at Huntsman I donated. But we decided to divide the gift into the Huntsman building and the Pottruck fitness center.

We envisioned it as place where people would be there at six in the morning and there at two in the morning.

DP: What memories do you have of the football and wrestling teams?

DSP: When I was an undergrad, I played two sports, football and wrestling. Both of those for my entire career at Penn. I actually was the starting linebacker on the football team for three years. And starting wrestler for three years. Football was a lot of fun, but much less successful than the wrestling squad I was on.

While on the wrestling team, we had two Ivy League championship teams and were second to Princeton my senior year. My memories were largely around the teamwork and camaraderie we had as a team.

I learned a lot from my coaches. My two coaches on the wrestling team were Don Fry and Larry Lauchle. Larry and Don were people who I believed that hard work would make difference between success and failure. It was a lot less about talent than how hard you worked or who was better conditioned and better prepared. We didn't have any high school state champions on our wrestling team. But we outworked most of our opponents and came into each match with confidence in our preparation and conditioning.

DP: How often do you go back to Penn?

DSP: I had two daughters that went to Penn. The first one started in 1995 and graduated in 1999 and the second one graduated in 2005. So I had children at Penn for roughly 10 years. It was a big motivation to bring me back to campus since I was a trustee. So the combination of being a trustee and having children going to Penn had me back on campus three or four times a year. Now, it's more typically twice a year.

DP: How often do you go to a wrestling event or a Penn Athletics one in general?

DSP: My class, the Class of 1970 has a little football team reuion every year. There are about 25 guys who were on the team for almost the entire four-year period, so of those 25 guys, every year 15 people show up. And it's not always the same 15 ones that come all the time. I make it about 60 percent of the time.

Usually we get together for dinner Friday night before homecoming or whatever game we choose to go. This started about 10-15 years ago. It's a lot of fun seeing all these guys and catching up. Those Friday night dinners are one of my favorite events of the whole year.

In wrestling, we developed a similar tradition. A lot of us go out to the nationals and watch the NCAA championships, where ever they are in the country. They've been all over the place in the country, with a lot in the Midwest. The last couple of years they've been in St. Louis and Detroit. We have a big reception the last night of the NCAAs and there's usually over 100 people there, parents and alumni. from different teams, including my own. It's a great way to stay connected to the wrestling program at Penn.

DP: Talk about the Penn Alumni Award of Merit that you're receiving Oct. 31.

DSP: The Alumni Award of merit is selected by a committee. The Alumni Association has a nominating committee to select among our alumni a handful each year, usually around four, who have distinguished themselves in commitment to the University and their time and energy as part of the Penn community.

One of the things I never realized when I went to Penn was that I'd be involved with Penn for the rest of my life. It's a community of scholars, of extraordinary people, of strivers. I always think of Penn's personality as striving. It's a little cult in the world called Penn alumni. And you see them in business. You see them in fields of philanthropy, political activism, social activism. Everywhere you go, East Coast and West Coast you run into Penn people. Penn alumni do extraordinary things.

It's a wonderful community to be a part of, it's a privilege to be a part of the Penn community.

DP: What are your thoughts on wrestling coach Zeke Jones' resignation?

DSP: What a feather in Penn's cap that our wrestling coach was of the caliber to become the wrestling coach for the United States wrestling team. What a privilege to know that we were able to attract Zeke Jones and have him as our coach for several years. And he certainly was under the radar of the USA wrestling program, which I'm also very close to. They recruited him.

The good news is that he had built a wonderful wrestling program. And we had two other coaches here at Penn: our top assistant coach Rob Eiter - who I'm hopeful will become the permanent head coach as we go through a more formal process. We also have Josh Henson, a former wrestler here at Penn, who has been a terrific assistant.

Now Penn will have great a relationship with Team USA. Our kids will have a chance to train with the Olympic team from time to time. Those connections will be wonderful for our program. It's a real credit that to Penn and Penn wrestling that our coach has gone on to be the national coach of the USA wrestling team.