Published: 13 Feb 2020
Two days later it was time for the closing ceremonies. There was a vote asking all the USA team members to choose our flag bearer, the person who carried our country’s flag at the head of our contingent as we all marched around the outer oval of the big stadium with all the other countries represented by their teams, all marching in alphabetical order of their country’s name.
We had seen a few, very few of other sports competitors on the American team and mostly on the closed circuit TV in our room or in the cafeterias we usually ate in. We thought about it, and talked about it and finally we handed in our votes for Coach Morgan. We couldn’t think of a better role model, with the exception of our four dads, or Greg. The afternoon before the closing games it was announced that two people had been voted to carry our flag, and that both of their names had been written on each ballot for them, and because of this there would be two flag bearers for the USA this time, and to our utter surprise, Coach came to our dorm and announced in the meeting room that he had received 6 votes himself, but over sixty percent of all the athletes had voted for Josh and Max.
We had won between us five gold and three silver medals and we were asked to wear our medals as we carried the flags around the stadium. There were plenty of other gold, silver, and bronze medals won by other members of the entire team USA, but when it came time for us to enter the stadium and enter to do our march around, for some reason the others tucked their medals into the warm up jackets we all wore, so it looked like we had been set up to attract all the camera men in the whole place. Again there were a lot of chants of “Josh and Max, Josh and Max” which came from all areas of the huge stadium. It was a very emotional experience for us. When we were asked to pose for full team pictures Josh and I insisted that all the others with medals untuck them and let them hang over the front of their warm up jackets.
We had an exhibition to perform for the Olympic committee, and Josh and I were not the only members of swim teams that wanted the committee to consider new dives in the future games. Coach told us that he had been told that five of the diving judges had rated our two favorite entwined dives as tens, or at least 9.9s the two times we were allowed to perform them before our portion of the presentation was over. The next morning the aquatics participants for the USA team were flown home, and I’m afraid that Josh and I slept for almost all the flight. We were still kind of groggy when Greg and Johnny helped us get our next flight to Connecticut’s Bradley Airport, which was only a one hour and forty-five minute drive from home. Once the plane finally landed it was close to midnight, but by now we were wide awake and there in the baggage claim area were Ron and Ian waiting for us.
They explained that we’d see the others when we woke in the morning, but since we had asked if Josh could spend one more night sleeping with me, they relented and I sat next to Ian in the front seat and Josh sat next to his father in the back seat of the estate’s sedan. We all sure had a lot of catching up to do and we had a good hour and a half to get a lot of it done with this set of fathers, the other two and our brothers we would fill in the next day. It had certainly been an experience for Josh and me, it had provided a lifetime of memories and new friends for us, and our family. We had elaborated on our previous medical conditions in several international and national interviews, which we hoped would lead to others getting the right help for whatever their condition was, that in itself was one of our greatest achievements throughout all this.
As I said earlier, we just didn’t know if we ever wanted to do something like this again. We’d be different physically, we’d have to make some changes in our dives because of that and then diving wouldn’t be as much fun for us. Greg had quit when he was ahead, and had carved out a very nice life for himself. He had time for all the charity work he did, he made time for his spouse, and he was happy, which Josh and I would have to figure out how to do for ourselves, this was not going to be a future designed around our diving, it was going to be a future that was fulfilling and rewarding for the two of us, plus we still had to get through three more years of high school yet, or did we?
EPILOGUE
After we had a chance to get some real undisturbed sleep, in a bed we were very used to, we woke to realize we had an audience right in our bedroom. Our three brothers were sitting on the bench over by my closet, watching quietly as we had slept. Once we began to wake they were right there by the side of the bed, all lined up, still quiet, but as we moaned and groaned ourselves awake they began to climb up on our shared bed (when did they get big enough to do that?) and we soon had three giggling nine year olds in a tickle match. They had asked if we were big guys now, they had seen us on TV and seen our pictures in the newspaper almost every day since we had left for training camp and we were gone all summer. I reminded them we were the same guys we were before we had to go to training camp, and Josh reminded them we had seen them lots of times while we were all in Japan, but they were worried we’d never go riding with them again, or come home to be with them ever again. We held them close and told them we were home for good now and we assured them that until we left for college, we’d be home from now on.
Within an hour we were riding with Billy, Justin, and Brian. They were treating us a bit differently, showing us around like it was our first time on the trails, but in a short time all was as it had been and after two hours we five were just about back to normal after our almost three month separation, even counting the time together in Japan, which was only for meals and some few events to watch together.
That afternoon our dads had more news for us. They had been contacted by one of the guidance counselors at our high school and it seems our final grades were so good in our AP classes (accelerated studies to earn college credits while in high school) that the school wanted us to have the option to skip sophomore year and go right to being juniors when school started at the end of the month, There were a lot of discussions about this over the next couple of days, even contacting the counselor who had called our dads and inviting her out for a couple of hours of trail riding and a chance for Josh and I to talk one on one (on one) with her. The day she was available we told Terry and Jason to come over later than they had been planning, to give us some time with Mrs. Foster to work out whether we wanted to advance a whole year.
Once we got her on one of the trail riding horses we began out on one of the longer trails and she gushed just a bit about our medals, but got right down to why we should take this opportunity we had essentially earned ourselves, and that from all our school records she felt we were capable of handling the change well, if not excel at. She asked us to just keep up our good study habits, not let our new fame go to our heads, and knuckle down and in no time we might not even have to apply to colleges, we just might have colleges begging us to attend their schools, diving or not.
Well, Mrs. Foster was right. By the time our Junior year was only a month old both Josh and I had been sent letters from 8 different colleges in 8 different states inquiring if we’d be interested in attending their schools. But before that there was Labor Day to get through. Ian had always loved a parade and so did the rest of us, and our small town had one at the drop of a hat, usually funded by grants set up by Noah Major and Dr. Chris. The week we returned from Japan Noah had invited our two families out to their place for a cookout with their extended family to welcome us back. During the cookout Noah encouraged Ian and Wayne to sponsor a float in the parade, promoting the Wheeler Estate and our riding trails. He said we could count on increased riders for years by doing this, especially if they got Josh and me involved.
So that is how Josh and I got suckered into being in our town’s holiday parade. Our farm wagon held two of our dads with the three younger boys there in the back with them and they tossed candy to the kids on the roadsides as the dads in back handed out fliers for the hayrides and trail riding as two of the dads sat in front and handled the two rented draft horses. Josh and I rode on horseback alongside the wagon in our western hats with mini Olympic medals surrounding the crowns of the Stetsons. Terry and Jason rode on horseback so two horses and two riders were on each side of the hay ride wagon and we all had a lot of fun as we got to see a lot of students from the high school, where our friends were starting as freshmen that school year.
I guess for some people our deciding not to rejoin the high school diving squad seemed kind of snobbish, but what we felt like was that some judges just might be unfair in scoring us in the next couple of years, either being lenient, or too harsh, and that just wasn’t fair to subject our home team to that, so with everyone’s blessings, Josh and I became the diving squad’s trainers. There was no rule against that, after all we were volunteering to do this, we were not getting paid for this, we were not participating in the actual diving, only as advisers and mentors to the divers.
Our team did win two more state championships while we were still in high school. We did get offers for endorsement deals and we took three of them just to augment our college funds (which we then used to provide scholarships to other students, we already had plenty of funds from my birth father’s estate). We had a lot of discussions with our dads, Mrs. Foster, and plenty of phone, email, and Skype talks with Greg, and we decided on the University of Massachusetts for our college of choice, and after a month of sending in our application we were accepted on our scholastic ability, but we did receive a call from the diving coach who begged us to participate in any way we wanted, as divers, or as advisers/mentors, This arrangement meant we could still live at home, splitting our time between both houses.
We dove for three years for our college team, only being away from home for weekend meets in other states, and we did spur our team on to three national championships during our sophomore, junior, and senior years. After receiving our masters in education we were hired as middle school teachers in our home town.
When a movie was made about our friendship and our diving years in middle school and high school, we both became celebrities again and somewhat wealthier because of the movie. We wanted a quiet life out in the country, so we retained our jobs and kept our celebrity apart from our everyday lives. That was with the exception of our wedding during the Christmas holiday season during our first year of teaching and coaching our dive squad on the swimming team at the middle school.
Our wedding would be the first performed at the estate and as a wedding gift our parents had purchased a prefab craftsman style home for us and they had it installed to the left of the entry gate, but set pretty far off the road to ensure us plenty of privacy. It wasn’t exactly a small quiet wedding, but we were surrounded by friends and a lot of folks who had influenced our lives. The Major family was fully represented, and Dr. Ingram attended, and Greg and Johnny along with Coach Morgan. Our friends, Terry and Jason were our best men and we had invited about fifty friends from both high school and college and we had sent out invitations to our fellow Olympic divers and all accepted, many bringing spouses or dates. Pedro and Chuck arrived sporting their own matching wedding bands.
It was a wonderful three day party filled with a lot of love and appreciation for each other, and for our family and friends. We moved into our new home the weekend after our wedding and just as Josh and I had settled in to watch a movie before bed, our house phone rang and I answered, and after listening for a few minutes I said, “Are you sure Helen, you know our application was just approved two days ago, yes, we can get there in just under an hour, yes, well we’ll meet you there then, and thanks for having so much confidence in us, Yup, just under an hour, thanks again. See you soon” When I turned to tell Josh about the call he already had our coats in his hand and that same look on his face I had seen years before as we accepted our first gold medals around our necks, but this time it wasn’t gold we were after, it was two platinum haired 3 year old boys we were being awarded with.
THE END
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