If you wanted to find Hammond senior twins Justin and Jeremy Nelson, the last place you might look is at home. A better place would be on the football field or wrestling mats, where they are county championship contenders this winter. But the most likely place would be at the Savage firehouse, only a five-minute walk from their house.
It's where they have spent a large amount of time since they were young, always dreaming of one day becoming firemen.
"We knew a few people over there and one of our best friend's father was a Howard County fireman," said Justin. "Ever since we were eight years old we've been telling those guys we'll be there when we turn 16. So when we turned 16, we actually applied and got in."
For Bill Smith, who has taught at Hammond for 32 years and led the wrestling team to multiple state championships during his first stint as head coach from 1991 to 1998, one of the reasons he decided to come back and coach the Golden Bears for a second time — starting before the 2013 season — was to coach the Nelson brothers.
"I always said that we build champions that wrestle. The most important thing was that we're going to build people that were going to be successful and have good character," Smith said. "They're a prime example of that. ... The firefighting thing to me is incredible, because I know the amount of time they put in here. Often times they go straight from here to there."
To the soft-spoken twins, what they do on and off the mats doesn't seem too remarkable, even when one notes the sacrifices they made to take Firefighter I — a required class every fireman must pass.
The class coincided with the same week their family goes on vacation to the Outer Banks.
"Justin told us 'this is what I want to pursue, I'm really interested in it, and I want to go through Firefighter I training,'" their father Brant Nelson said. "Jeremy learned more about it from him and decided he wanted to do the same thing. So they missed the vacation, and I think that process went on for a good month or so. ... Now they can do everything other firemen can do."
As for wrestling, their father told them entering high school that they must do it for at least one year because it will help them become better linemen for football, which is a sport they had been playing in some capacity since fifth grade.
"He forced us to wrestle the first year, and then after that I loved it," Jeremy said. "When you're wrestling, you have to learn how to move the people around. When you're playing offensive and defensive line, you have to learn how to maneuver people so they don't get by you. Wrestling has helped with that type of stuff."
Neither had any experience, but because of a lack of numbers on Hammond's team both ended up wrestling the entire regular season on varsity as freshmen.
Justin weighed 205 pounds wrestling heavyweight, while Jeremy weighed 195 pounds wrestling at 220 pounds. Both suffered a lot of defeats, but neither got discouraged.
Jeremy won the JV county and district championships that season, but Justin suffered a concussion just before the postseason and missed the county tournament.
For Justin, the injury theme has continued almost every year. Last year he broke his hand before Christmas and missed the rest of his junior season.
Jeremy had a breakout year as a junior and finished as the regular season heavyweight champion before losing in a close overtime match against Tyler Smith of River Hill in the county finals.
"That was crazy. I was pretty mad at myself," Jeremy said. "It made me work harder, drill harder, do anything I can to get the county championship this year. Every time I think about wrestling, I think about that match. It's always in the back of my mind."
So far this season, through Jan. 21, Justin is 17-7 at 220 pounds, while Jeremy is 18-5 at heavyweight. Both have become unspoken leaders for a young team and both feel there is unfinished business to take care of at the county tournament on Feb. 20-21 at River Hill.
"Hopefully I stay healthy and go on to counties, go on to regionals and finish at states," Justin said.
After graduation, they both plan on becoming firemen, just in different companies.
"I think we'll need some time apart," Justin said.