The hallway slowly empties, teachers walking with an eagerness out the doors and athletes lumbering to their cars after practice. Just as Alita checks her watch, she looks up to see her sister walking toward her in the distance from swim practice, her long wet hair dripping as she approaches. Alita pulls her keys out of her bag, relieved to finally go home. As twins, seniors Alita and Kayla Fischer share many things, such as their car. What they do not share are the sports they play.
As children, the twins were given the opportunity to explore many different sports together. They both swam and they both played soccer. As they grew older, they separated from each other into the sports they individually enjoyed.
“I just really found love for being in the water, so I really liked swimming,” Kayla said. “I didn’t really enjoy running or anything. I did play soccer for a while, which that’s running, but I didn’t like basketball because there was too much rough contact, and that’s why I didn’t like other sports. So I liked it when I didn’t have to run into people.”
Unlike Kayla, rough contact and team cooperation was what Alita liked the most in sports.
“I enjoyed my sports more because there was more movement,” Alita said. “Swimming is a no contact sport, and I like contact. I guess I like the fact that a lot of the team is on the field at once, so if you score you can celebrate with your team and it’s not just you.”
Even though swimming is a more individual sport, team support is just as important to Kayla as it is to her sister.
“In order to win our meets, everyone on the team has to be a part of it,” Kayla said. “It’s not just one individual person who does well in their event and you win the meet. Even the people who are not swimming in the meet and are just cheering in the sidelines are very important because swim meets can be stressful and so they’re there to just calm you down and cheer really loud for you while you’re swimming and help you go faster and achieve your goals. Everyone on the team is super important and has a job and a role to play in order to help us be successful at our meets.”
Not only do the twins feel the support from their teammates, but they also have the support of each other.
“On weeknights, most of the time, we can’t go to each other’s, but if we have games on the weekend, we go and support each other and cheer each other on,” Kayla said.
Despite being very close, participating in different sports has allowed the sisters to grow in different ways.
“I think it’d be fun to play with my sibling,” Kayla said. “It would create a fun environment and I’m close with her so it would be exciting to be with her a lot. But it’s also nice to not because we’re kind of taking our own paths and being our own person.”
Although the twins enjoy participating in their respective sports, it has proved a challenge trying to balance their complex practice and meet schedule between them, both for them and their parents.
“We share a car, so it’s kind of hard because she has morning and afternoon practice, and so normally my parents will drive her in the mornings,” Alita said. “In the afternoons, my practices are at the elementary school, so I take the car over there. If our practices end at the same time, then I go pick her up, but if not, then either she takes the car and I get a ride to the field or I take the car and she gets a ride home.”
Regardless of its challenges, the twins’ parents try their best to support both Alita and Kayla equally.
“They definitely try to go to as many events as they can,” Kayla said. “But if they do overlap, one will go to one and one will go to the other and they’ll trade the next time. But if they don’t overlap, they always are at all of our events and love supporting us.”
