Back in 2003, when some of you first-years were just wee babes, Coors aired a legendary TV commercial titled "Love Song." The ad was subtle, the target audience was sophisticated and the lyrics (screamed by a pack of wild, beer-chugging dudes) went something like this:
"I love football on TV, shots of Gina Lee, hanging with my friends ... and twins. I love burritos at 4 a.m., parties that never end, dogs that love cats ... and twins. And I love you too!" [Coors Light logo comes up].
Like every other commercial, this one spun around in my head for a couple weeks and then burrowed deep into my brain never to be heard from again. At least not until I saw the recruiting video from heaven.
Rhamel and Shamel Bratton, both first-year midfielders on the Virginia lacrosse team, are twins. They are not blonde, they are not female and they do not endorse Coors Light. They may not even drink Coors Light.
Still, when I ran across the Brattons' highlight reel on Insidelacrosse.com, I fell in love with twins all over again (but in a very different way).
To begin with, the fact that the video is posted on a lacrosse Web site is somewhat misleading given the sheer number of sports being played in it. It's like a low-budget Nike commercial. At Huntington High School in Huntington Station, N.Y., the Brattons were each one part Mike Powell, one part Reggie Bush and one part Dwayne Wade (that's six parts if you're counting at home). These guys must have been at practice 25 hours a day, seven days a week and all through the summer.
Let's start with football. On the gridiron, it looks like they're playing against the worst team in the league every night. The medical bill for broken ankles must have been enormous. In one particularly devastating sequence, Shamel returns a kickoff 95 yards for a touchdown, juking the entire special teams unit out of their collective socks. That may have been one of the reasons why he earned first-team all-state and first-team Newsday All-Long Island football honors as a senior wide receiver. Rhamel earned the exact same awards as the team's other wideout.
Moving on to the basketball court, where both brothers lettered and Shamel earned all-conference honors. In one move that would make Mamadi Diane drool, Shamel is on the receiving end of an alley-oop throw-in from the baseline. You heard that right. Running in from the top of the key, he elevates over a crowd, snags the pass and dunks before the ball even touches the ground.
At the other end of the court a few plays later, Rhamel picks off a pass and sprints the length of the floor to throw down one of his own. Both the brothers are listed at a mere 6 feet, 1 inch tall. Eat your heart out, Dave Leitao.
Now to the main event: lacrosse. When Virginia coach Dom Starsia signed the top two high school recruits in the nation last spring, he didn't just get them from the same state. He got them from the same house.
Shamel, heavier than his brother by eight pounds, was rated the No. 1 recruit in the nation by Inside Lacrosse while Rhamel checked in at No. 2. You can just picture Starsia making a recruiting call to the Bratton house, asking to speak to whoever's home.
Maybe it's the video's poor quality or maybe it's the laws of physics, but for the life of me I can't see the ball in any of the Brattons' lacrosse highlights. In every clip, one of the twins cradles past the midfield line, gets a foot in the box, jukes out a defender or five and then rips a shot from 15 yards out. A millisecond later the net flutters, the hapless goalie slumps over and the crowd explodes. Just like that.
So today I've got the recipe for fixing a basketball team that looks stiffer than Hillary Clinton's helmet o' hair.
I've got the answer for a football team that left fans' jaws on the turf in Jacksonville.
I know what to do about a young lacrosse team that hasn't won a national title in (gasp!) two years.
The answer: twins.
Suit 'em up for every sport. Who knows? Maybe there's a highlight reel of the Brattons playing baseball that coach Brian O'Connor would like to take a look at. Maybe there's some footage of them playing some mean croquet.
I do know one thing, though. If Virginia wins some more lacrosse national championship hardware in the next four years (and I'd bet my left eyebrow that they will) at least one Bratton will have a hand in it.
So the folks at Coors had it right after all. I like football on TV. I like shots of Gina Lee. I like hanging with my friends. And man, do I love twins. And you should too.
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