Flip Side

The latest changes in college sports will benefit a ton of athletes. They'll also leave many others behind.

Since this newsletter has to do with water, Lewis Park in St. Louis, in my new neighborhood, makes its debut.

Hope everyone that has a long weekend is enjoying it. A quick PSA (which, as you’ll see in a second, is truly about public service): I recently started an Instagram account to post my work, try those videos everyone is doing, etc. If you’re into that kind of thing, you can find it here.

Otherwise, I have a story out for The Washington Post — and in the Sunday sports section, which does still print — that I wanted to share. It’s about two athletes, twin brothers, on the other side of the legal settlement that is reshaping college sports. A preview is below. Click these words to read the full story.

If you ask how this began — how, at some point, the Wanzers set their lives to the rhythms of competitive diving — they all agree on at least one cause. It is not, funny enough, that Cochise, the father, has run a pool services company for more than a decade. Sure, that made them pool people, if only because Cochise wore the chlorine smell home every night. But when the twins, Nick and Noah, were in kindergarten, their mother, Nancy, a longtime teacher in Northern Virginia, started managing a swim and tennis club in the summers. While she worked, her youngest boys, identical and inseparable, would waddle along behind her, watching the older kids splash around.

And that’s what did it. The Wanzers went from pool people to pool people, then from pool people to a diving family.

Nick took to diving first. When Noah followed, it turned out their twin thing worked in midair. They were excellent on their own, even better in synchronized competitions. The medals and trophies piled up so quickly that when Cochise asked where one was from, Nick or Noah would shrug and say he didn’t remember. The twins set their sights on college diving. They even mused about the Olympics at the dinner table. When it was time to pick schools, they considered committing to Alabama together. Instead, for the first time, they went their separate ways. Nick chose Virginia. Noah went with North Carolina State. They were freshmen this past year, quite literally getting their feet wet. As ever, diving was both their passion and their community, a way to grow and make friends, the most reliable thing they had.

Well, until it wasn’t anymore.

One more time, you can keep reading at this link. Have a great Sunday.