It’s a Twins Thing

I recently read a really good story on Philly.com by staff writer Mike Jensen on twin brothers Marcus and Markieff Morris. Marcus is out of the playoffs due to playing for the Detroit Pistons, while his brother Markieff is playing for the Washington Wizards, the Atlanta Hawks’ current postseason opponent. The story got me to thinking about being a twin. Breaking news: I have a twin brother, Darryl, who lives in New York City and loves sports as much as I do but can’t write a lick. Being a twin may not necessarily be a “sports” topic but being a twin is as rare as a playoff buzzer-beater or game-winning home run or getting a seat on MARTA at 5 p.m. In other words, being a twin is special.

I wrote stories for this publication on two sets of twin female athletes — most recently on the Sipsey sisters, track athletes at Veterans High School, and on Jan. 28 on the Williams sisters, eighth grade varsity softball stars at the Westfield School — and got a chance to see and hear the twin dynamic at work. At 39 years of age, I can’t remember exactly how my brother and I got along while growing up. In all honesty, all I can recall is us physically fighting or arguing. Most of the time it was about sports, the one thing that bound us besides the whole having the same birth parents thing. The Sipsey and Williams sisters and Morris brothers are great examples of how sports can help normalize — for us twins and for non-twins that think being twins is odd — two people being from the womb, born at the same time.

Keith Pompey, the primary Philadelphia 76ers writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer, one of my favorite beat writers for one of my favorite newspapers, is also a twin. He and his sister, Kia, are fraternal like Darryl and me and growing up in a big city (The Pompeys: Philadelphia. Us: Brooklyn), he understands the complications and benefits that came with growing up having someone to look out for every day, all day.

“Growing up, we were tight,” said Pompey by phone. He and Kia live in Philly [No, not together]. “We still have that relationship,” says the married father. “They had to always put us in different classes [in elementary and middle school] because we were so protective of each other.” These days, the Pompey twins (Keith has a few set of twins in his family; I only have one other set, my cousin’s kids) still look out for one another but from an adult distance.

When asked if being twins of opposite sexes felt any different than when my twin brother was measured at 6’1” as a high school freshman (he’s now 6’5”) and I was barely 5’5” ( I am now 5’11” thank you very much), Pompey answered, “It was weird because my twin was a sister, but she was my best friend. We didn’t play sports together or anything, but we always had that connection.”

My brother and I rarely speak these days and I’m not sure why. Despite that lack of communication, there will always be that bond. What bond? The bond that the Sipsey twins, Williams twins, Pompey twins and all other twins have. The bond that led to the story Pompey shared of the time Kia first got pregnant and he swore he, too, was suffering from morning sickness. That kind of bond.

There was a picture circulating around Twitter before game one of the Hawks/Wizards series last week. In the photo, a smiling (more like beaming) Marcus Morris was wearing his twin brother Markieff’s jersey in support. One twin was playing the game, but it probably felt like they both were. It’s a special kind of bond, a twin thing. You probably wouldn’t understand.

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