Jared and Jacob Houghton could be poster boys for the exploding popularity of lacrosse in Colorado. But if the proud mother of the identical twins had her way, they would be wearing their recently awarded Eagle Scout uniforms in the picture.
“Competition is a good thing, but character is more important in my mind,” Tamara Houghton said.
Three-sport athletes all four years at Rocky Mountain High School in Fort Collins, the Houghtons are big and athletic and probably could have played Division I football had they wanted. Instead, they will be two of seven Colorado high school athletes to join the nationally ranked University of Denver lacrosse team, a class Pioneers coach Jamie Munro calls his best ever.
The Houghtons have won numerous honors in football, basketball and lacrosse, and both are excellent students. With the Houghtons standing 6-feet-3 and each weighing more than 210 pounds, DU may want to consider a future game program with these two standing back to back, sporting tough glares.
It is no surprise the brothers chose to attend the same university. Seems they always have wanted to be around each other.
When the boys were not yet 2 years old, their cribs were positioned against facing walls on a hardwood floor in the family home. Staring at each other from across the room was not good enough for Jared and Jacob. The toddlers shimmied their cribs to the middle of the room and had a baby-talk powwow.
“They would stand up and shake their cribs until they could be together, and they would be talking to each other,” Tamara Houghton said. “Once they figured out how to do it, it was every day. Luckily, we took them out of the cribs before they got to the climbing stage.”
Neither the Colorado High School Activities Association nor the National Federation of State High School Associations keep track of how many of the estimated 7 million high school athletes play three sports, but the numbers seem to be declining because of demand to specialize. Rarities of rarities, these twins have gone from sport to sport to sport for as long as they can remember.
There was a time the Houghtons’ competitive fires were not limited to practice sessions.
“We had discussions coming into our house about how one son did something to the other, so we finally had to go to the coaches and say, ‘Could you please not have them guard each other in practice?’ That way we didn’t have to relive it at home at the dinner table,” said the twins’ dad, Michael Houghton.
Who could blame the coaches? There weren’t many 12-year-old kids in Fort Collins big enough to cover Jared or Jacob – except Jacob and Jared.
“Jake always gives me a hard time because he’s always had an inch and 10 pounds on me,” Jared said. “There is nothing I can do about that.”
Passion of lacrosse
Like many young athletes across the state today, the Houghtons quickly found themselves immersed in lacrosse. Prep participation jumped from 2,141 male and female athletes when the CHSAA first sanctioned the sport in 1999 to 3,427 athletes in 2005, a 60 percent increase.
Jacob described lacrosse as a combination of basketball and football, and more fun than those sports combined. It was more than just a way to stay in shape for the other seasons, but that didn’t mean lacrosse would take over their sporting lives.
“Football starts in the fall and basketball starts right up when that ends,” Jacob said. “Christmas break is a welcome two weeks, that’s for sure. … And then right after basketball we go into lacrosse. It’s continual activity. I don’t know what I would do if I wasn’t playing sports.”
Making the grade
Judging from their grades, probably studying, though Jacob said he would be sleeping. Both have grade-point averages around 3.5 and have earned academic honors. In their final high school season, the Houghtons are trying to push the Fort Collins Unified Vipers, a combined team of schools along the northern Front Range, into the top tier of prep programs. The Vipers are 5-1, and Jared Houghton leads the team with 15 goals.
A deep playoff run would be fun, but the brothers already are looking forward to playing for DU. Neither can wait to play with, rather than against, players such as East’s Dillon Roy, an all-state defender.
“We just played Dillon, and now I follow him more,” Jared said. “It will be sweet to play on the same team with him.”
The Houghtons’ parents are just as excited that their boys chose to stay in-state at DU.
“We are ecstatic that they are staying close,” Michael Houghton said.
