10 - The Michigan Daily - Friday, December 2, 2005

Identical twins deal with
experience of living apart

01

By Anne Uible
Daily Sports Writer
The X-Box is in Austin and the DVDs are in Ann
Arbor.
When identical twins Matt and Sean Patton signed to
swim for different schools, they knew going separate
ways would be tougher than just losing halt of their pos-
sessions.
With more than 1,300 miles between them, the two
freshmen have been forced to learn to live without their
other half.
"I took it for granted that Sean was always around,"
Matt said. "Now that he and I go to different schools, I
realized how much we really did together."
This weekend at the Texas Invitational in Austin, the
Patton boys will reunite for the first time since parting
ways for college this summer.
Growing up in Matthews, N.C., they both began swim-
ming at the age of five. When both showed interest and
ability in the backstroke, they were forced to race against
one another. But as they grew up, Matt became a better
long distance swimmer while Sean continued to excel in
the backstroke.
"We're really close," Patton said. "We've been besti
friends for our whole life and really fierce competitors
in the pool. But we know how to leave the competition in
the pool and still be friends."1
Being forced to share a room for 17 years made the two
inseparable both at home and elsewhere. Their favoritei

thing to do outside of swimming was play video games
such as Halo and Madden.
"We both are really competitive with video games,"
Matt said. "The ,occasional controllers are thrown and
then one of us will get mad and try and beat the other one
up. After one of us is done beating the other, it switches
and the other one gets mad and beat the other one up. It
could go on for hours."
And even though the two spent a lot of time competing,
they always had one thing in common - themselves.
"We shared the same clothes, friends and car," Matt
said. "Basically, anywhere he went, I went."
The brothers had originally planned to attend the
same college, but after a recruiting visit to Austin, Matt
didn't feel Texas would be a good fit to pursue his long
distance career.
"The recruiting process was difficult on my family
because my parents wanted my brother and I to stay
together," Matt said. "But I knew I had to come to Michi-
gan and that I belonged here. And they didn't want me to
choose somewhere I didn't want to go."
When Matt was first recruited by Michigan during his
senior year of high school, he informed Michigan coach
Bob Bowman that going to college with his brother was
important to him.
"We took a big risk when we recruited Matt because
we knew that he wanted to go to school with his brother,
but we only recruited Matt and not Sean," Bowman said.
"It made me a little nervous during the process because
it could have gone badly for us and Matt could have

JUSTIN BASS/Daily
Freshman Matt Patton split from his twin brother, Sean, to swim for the Wolverines this season

picked Texas."
But Matt knew he had to come to Michigan, and he
let his brother go his own direction. So, this summer the
brothers had to say goodbye for the first time.
"It was really sad to say goodbye because it happened
so fast," Matt said. "I woke up and said goodbye, and
then I went back to bed. I got up later and I was all alone.
It was weird."
Even with the distance between them, Matt and Sean
have managed to stay in close contact with one another.
They talk online every day and call each other two or
three times a week.

"We've already talked a lot about the meet this week-
end," Matt said. "We're swimming in two events against
each other, and one is mine and the other is his better
event, so it should be fun."
The Patton parents are planning on splitting time
between wearing each twin's colors.
Mrs. Patton will wear Matt's colors on the first night
of the meet and then she'll switch with Mr. Patton on the
next night. When the meet is over, Matt and Sean plan
on playing video games in Sean's dorm and doing some
catching up.
No fighting allowed.

I I

Harrington v. Garcia
The Tale of the Tape

_-A

Bly Endorsement

Masculinity | Musical Interest

Pro Bowls

'Punk'd' appearances'

Bashed by teammates

Jeff Garcia [ [ [ *
Joey Harrington

Reflecting the
complete disin-
tegration of the
Lions' organiza-
tion, Pro Bowl
corner Dre Bly
publicly bashed
Harrington after
coach Steve
Mariucci was
fired.

Tony
Siragusa
bashed Joey
for being a
'wine' kinda
guy, while
Garcia's
high voice
hardly
strikes fear
in his oppo-
nents.

Garcia has good
taste with U2,
but listening to
music can never
compare to actu-
ally being able to
play. Harrington
can always fall
back on playing
classical tunes
on his piano in
malls.

This one
is a no-
branier.
Garcia
has been
to Hawaii
three
times,
while
Joey's
stayed
home.

Garcia had the privi-
lege of being mocked
on Ashton Kutcher's
show. As of the date
of this publication,
Harrington has yet
to be made fun of on
national TV - with
the exception of
every football show
on ESPN.

Bly's bashing of Har-
rington paled in
comparison to the
fire Terrell Owens
spat at Garcia after
his tenure in San
Francisco. Owens
called into question
Garcia's sexuality.
Bly, meanwhile mere-
ly questioned Joey's
quarterback skills.

The
Verdict:

It's clear: Neither of these guys has what it takes to lead the Lions to the promised land. As such, the
Daily will officially endorse third-stringer Dan Orlovsky. The Connecticut star showed that he has the
ability to outshine the top-two quarterbacks when he finished the Thanksgiving game by fumbling.





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student, enraged that he didn get accepted into the University of Montreal
walked into a classroom, lined up the-women, and opened fire.
Since then, the week prior to December 6 has been a time of actism for men
working to end men's violence against women.
The White Ribbon Campaign has grown to be an international
organization and white ribbons are distributed throughout the world.
MAVAW began at UM-Ann Arbor in 1999 to challenge men to take
the pledge of nonviolence towards women by wearing a white ribbon.
Signing this pledge and wearing a white ribbon is a personal pledge
NEVER to commit, to condone, or to remain silent about
men's violence against women. Violence against women is
sexual assault, rape, stalking, sexual harassment, physical abuse,
dating and domestic violence and also emotional abuse, degrading
remarks, domineering behaviour, sexist jokes, sexist language, and any
action, attitude or language that degrades a woman's self.
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