Freshmen Mitchell and Dylan Lewis are unmistakable identical twins. The twins are often referred to as “twin” or “Lewi,” a term derived from the plural of Lewis.

The twins both stand at six and a half feet tall and have light brown hair. One of the only noticeable differences between the two is a darker brown patch of hair on the back of Mitchell’s head, which is not visible under a football helmet.

“When we were born one of my toenails was painted red to keep us straight,” Mitchell said. “For all I know our parents could have confused us and I could be Dylan.”

The mixups never get old for the twins. Mitchell and Dylan are notorious for sneaking to the bathroom to swap clothing, causing confusion among their friends, babysitters, substitutes, sports opponents and teachers.

“We’re bad,” Dylan laughed. “Its kind of funny and really easy to confuse people. Sometimes I have full conversations with people who think that I’m my brother and I just don’t even correct them.”

The confusion and double-takes surrounding the twins have continued since their arrival at Linfield four weeks ago for football. The twins recalled their first week on campus, when they felt as if there wasn’t a single person who didn’t give them a second glance.

“Even the guys on the football team were a little surprised about how close we are,” Mitchell said. “I think they get it now that we consider ourselves a package deal.”

Playing football without each other in college was never even an option for the Lewi. In fact, the twins never even considered going to different colleges. When asked what it would have been like to play football with out each other, they answered in unison that they wouldn’t be playing if that were the case.

“Choosing a college was a group decision for us,” Mitchell said. “We visited University of Oregon and Western Oregon University, but we didn’t feel like they were schools we wanted to spend the next four years at together. ”

The Lewis brothers felt good vibes from the football coaching staff and players at Linfield.

“We liked Linfield because the team is close and feels like a family,” Dylan said. “The community felt similar to Sheldon High School, where we just graduated from.”

In addition to their identical looks and shared interest of football, they have identical academic goals and hobbies. They are both majoring in business, have the same class schedule, work on homework together and even share a room on the third floor of Mahaffey. In high school, despite taking different classes, the twins had the exact same grade point average, down to the thousandth.

Their free time is spent together of course, playing baseball, Mario Party with their older sister Amanda who goes to Oregon State University, shooting targets, hunting birds, squirrels and deer and fishing for salmon and trout in the Willamette River behind their house.

You would think that spending every waking moment with someone that looks and thinks the exact same way as you, would get annoying; however this is not the case for the Lewi.

“It’s weird when we tell people that we never want space from each other,” Mitchell said. “Most siblings can’t stand to be around each other all the time, but for us its more weird when the other twin isn’t around.”

The longest the boys have spent apart is one week, which was during this past summer when Dylan participated in the Les Schwab Bowl for football.

“Mitch didn’t go, and it was terrible,” Dylan said. “He sent me a text as soon as I left the driveway.  A couple days after I left Mitch texted me that whenever he saw a picture of me around the house, he told me that he felt like he was trying to forget about me or like I had died or something.”

On rare occasions, the twins are apart. Mitch has a girlfriend, which often forces Dylan to be a third wheel while they hang out. Also, the twins’ parents separated when they were 2 years old, forcing them to spend half of their time with their mom and half with their dad, sometimes splitting up for nights at a time.

“If we do split up it’s only for one night because thats all we can handle being away from each other,” Mitchell said. “We have been extremely fortunate in the sense because they still live close to each other, we still have family dinners and they still come to our scrimmages together, which makes it as easy as possible on us.”

According to the twins, there is absolutely nothing they don’t agree on. As freshman on the football team this year the Lewi want to be coachable, accept their roles on and off the field and practice hard all the time.

Mitchell will be wearing jersey number one from the safety position and Dylan will be number 13 from the corner position. The boys have been playing football since the first grade, and have been on the same team ever since. The Lewi brothers love playing on the field at the same time, big surprise.

“People always ask me what its like to be a twin,” Mitchell said. “And I’m like what is it like to not be a twin?”

“People are like, “You guys are weirdly attached to each other,” Dylan said. “And I’m always just like “Yep, you don’t really get it.”

Sarah Mason / Copy Editor

Sarah Mason can be reached at [email protected]

Photo by Sarah Mason