The sky’s the limit for the Millers
STAFFORD
Colonial Forge identical twins Jerome and Jason Miller want to be doctors.
Maybe they should consider stand-up comedy first. The 16-year-old Maryland transfers have a penchant for entertaining the track team, even when they don’t make any sense.
“To pump everybody up, they’ll give a little speech…,” said senior Ryan Wallis. “[They say] …before I got here, the first thing I remember is ‘please put your trays in the upright position’ or something like that. Then all the sudden the other [Jerome] would say, ‘then, I ate a chicken nugget, and after that I just knew we were gonna win states.’ And everybody’s like, ‘do you understand what that’s supposed to mean?'”
“They are shy at first but they quickly opened up,” added Colonial Forge coach Tori Helmer. “They’re always telling jokes, always goofing off. They make up songs for everything and they’re performers . The guys will sit and watch them perform and I think that’s really helped [them] to get along with their teammates.”
Humor is not the only thing the Millers provide Colonial Forge. They also provide a great attitude and make the Eagles immediate Northwest Region contenders. Jerome is a 6-foot-8 high jumper who won the Class 4-A state title in Maryland last season at Springbrook High School in Silver Spring. Jason was also all-state in the high jump last season and he and Jerome are two of the area’s best triple jumpers.
Currently, Jerome is No. 1 in the area in high jump [at 6-8] and No. 2 in the state, including private schools. Jason is No.4 overall.
“They have a really positive attitude about everything,” Wallis said. “As soon as they got here, the first thing they said was ‘we’re winning state.’ Most of the time, you can’t understand what they’re saying, but the parts you do get out of them, you understand they mean business.”
“With Jason and Jerome, their personalities are one to not sit back,” Helmer said. “They’re going to make sure that things are getting done and so they have really stepped up and have been good leaders of that group.”
For the twins, adjusting to the school’s size wasn’t a problem and neither was making friends. After all, moving to Stafford County was their 14th move in their short lives. They started high school at Western Branch High School in Chesapeake when their father Jimmy, a lieutenant commander in the U.S Navy, was stationed in Norfolk. Then they moved to Springbrook when he got reassigned to the Pentagon.
The family then moved to Stafford County this October when their new house was completed. Jimmy is currently stationed in Connecticut and is getting ready for a two-year stint on a submarine. The twins are living with their mother, Melanie, their brother Jimmy (18), their sister Jetaime (11) and their cousin Lamar Juvennelliano, who plays basketball for the Eagles.
“It’s pretty good each time [we move] because we’ve been used to it since kindergarten,” said Jason, the self-proclaimed more outgoing twin.
“The twins have adjusted very well,” Melanie said. “They’ve been honor students, maintained their grades and they are very low key. They may have liked to stay somewhere a little longer, specifically at Western Branch, but they adjusted and they did well.”
The twins used to treat track as a way to get in shape for football. Now, they take the sport more seriously, even the team aspect.
“I think this is the right place for us,” Jason said. “We came into the track team and I looked ’em up and they had everything: sprinters, distance and the only thing that was really weak at the school was the jumps. So we came in and completed them.”
Perhaps nothing better exemplifies the brothers’ unselfish attitude than Jerome’s take on jumping in the state meet with Jason. Jerome has jumped 6-feet, 10 inches in practice and is shooting for a seven-foot jump by the outdoor season. Jason’s personal-best, meanwhile, is at 6-6. But Jerome said if Jason matches his PR of 6-8, he’d let his brother go for the state title.
“If he gets up to 6-8 and we’re alone, I’ll stop jumping,” Jerome said.
Helmer believes the sky is the limit for the Millers. They stand at just 5-11 but they make up for their lack of size with other things.
“They’ve got the technique down, they’ve got knowledge in the event and they get a good approach,” said Helmer. “And they got pretty good spring to them, too.”
After high school, the brothers want to jump in college. And of course, become doctors.
“One day I was eating some cookies, my dad said if I ate them, I had to do pre-med in college,” Jerome said. “I thought he was playing, then he said he was serious….The cookies were good.”
Huh?