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Higher Learning at AU
American volleyball coach Barry Goldberg, center, expects big things out of the world's tallest twin sisters, Ann and Clair Recht.
(Katherine Frey - The Washington Post)
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"We just stand up and we're in the book," Ann agreed.
Since they were still growing, they waited until the following summer and were then measured three times in a single day, attempting to satisfy Guinness specifications.
An official at their high school publicized their ongoing attempt that fall. By that evening, two television crews had stopped by their school. CNN called at 5 a.m. the next day. Producers for Jay Leno and Oprah Winfrey, Larry King and Jimmy Kimmel checked in. The next weekend, the family flew to New York for CNN and CBS appearances.
The Rechts finally got their Guinness certificates in the summer of 2004. Soon after, a Japanese TV crew came to Oregon, proposing to outfit the twins with helmet cams, asking them to finish each others' sentences and paying for them to attend a twin convention in Twinsburg, Ohio, where they were asked to wear the same outfits.
"I would never go to another twins convention," Claire said. "It was so weird."
By this time, they had discovered volleyball. Like their siblings, they played soccer growing up, initially dominating because of their size but eventually falling behind shorter-but-quicker peers. They switched to basketball; family members tell of the twins situating themselves on either side of the hoop and lobbing the ball back and forth over the basket until it finally went in. But the Rechts complained of scratches on their arms and pinches on their back, and they didn't enjoy the contact with more aggressive players.
"They were thicker than us," Ann said.
"When we fell, it was just like a bag of bricks hitting the floor," Claire said.
"It's like, 'Tiiiimber,' " Ann said.
The Rechts had started playing volleyball at their tiny middle school, when getting the ball over the net was considered a major success. They didn't know anything about club volleyball, the offseason circuit that produces almost every college player. No one in their family had played the sport. When they arrived at high school tryouts, they wore baggy basketball shorts and running sneakers. They were asked what position they liked to play.
"I was like, 'Position?' " Ann remembered. "They were like, 'You're a middle blocker,' and I was like, 'Blocking?' "
The sisters told coaches they liked to play on the back row. Front-row players, they said, were too close to the net.
