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If anybody was born to coach wrestling, it is King Head Coach Harlan Kistler. A 1978 Notre Dame-Riverside graduate, Coach Kistler has always been passionate about competing on the mat. A grappler from a young age, he topped off a brilliant high school career with a California State Championship and was a National Championship winner during his senior year. However, he was just getting started.

As a freshman at UCLA, he was the PAC-10 champion a national qualifier. His sophomore year he was an All-American, placing 6th at the NCAA Championships at age 19. When UCLA dropped wrestling, he made his way to Arizona State University where he once again was the Pac-10 Champion. Always looking for a bigger, tougher challenge, Kistler transferred to the University of Iowa to compete under the fabled coach and Olympian, Dan Gable. While at Iowa, he was the Big 10 Champion and he was third in the nation in his weight class. His team won their 6th consecutive national team title He would win the Western Regional of the 1980 Olympic trials and place third in the Central Region in 1984 but ultimately fell short of making the Olympic team.
Upon graduation, Kistler enrolled in Iowa College of Law and while working on becoming an attorney, he was a graduate assistant coach at Iowa from 1985 through 1988. He returned home to Riverside and worked for the law firm of Reid and Hellyer before opening up his own practice in 1996.

Kistler served as a volunteer assistant at various schools over that time but in 2003, landed a full time assistant coaching job at King High School. Three years later, he became the head coach. King wrestling has never been the same. Under Coach Kistler, the Wolves have placed third in Riverside County 8 times; in the top ten in the CIF 6 times; 3 times in the top ten at the Master’s and 3 top 30 state finishes. If these team statistics weren’t enough, consider the individual accomplishments of the Wolves who have been coached by him. A total of 114 wrestlers have qualified for CIF competition; 40 King wrestlers have placed in the top 6 in CIF Division 1 and 14 of those were CIF champions. It is by far, the best individual showing of any athletes in any sport here at King. Another 28 King athletes have qualified for the Master’s Meet and 14 of those went on to state competition.

He is generally considered as one of the finest wrestling minds in Southern California. He is a member of the Riverside Sports Hall of Fame and was inducted into that organization along with his brothers, Marty, Lindley and Jackson—all very accomplished wrestlers themselves-forming Riverside’s “First Family” of wrestling. Coach Kistler’s two sons, Harlan II and Nolan had exemplary careers at King and are carrying on the family tradition at Cal-Baptist University