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On this date in area sports history …
On this date in local sports history, 17 years ago, the News-Sun published a story about two Shawnee track athletes, identical twins Joe and Jon McGinnis.
Published: 05/07/1993
BRAVE TWINS NOT POLES APART
By Cindy Horner - Sports Writer
Joe-Jon’s the name and pole vaulting’s their game.
Joe and Jon McGinnis, sophomores on Shawnee’s track team, look alike, sound alike and even do things alike.
In fact, they’re so much alike you can’t tell them apart, because they’re identical twins.
“Joe-Jon is the name,” said Shawnee track coach Tim Mattern. “I can’t tell them apart. I just yell out Joe-Jon and they’ll tell me which is which. If they were standing in front of me right now, I couldn’t tell them apart, but I’m getting better at it.”
“The whole football team called us Joe-Jon,” said Joe, who is six minutes older than his twin. “Joe-Jon doesn’t bother us. Our father calls us `Twin.’ We’re announced by our first names at meets. They used to mark the wrong jumps for the wrong person. Our close friends can tell us apart because of our personalities.”
Mattern does have one way of telling Joe-Jon apart. Jon runs hurdles. He’s in the 110 and 300 hurdles and runs on the 400 relay with Joe, who also runs the open 400 and the 800 relay.
The brothers also competed in wrestling and football, but pole vaulting is the family sport.
Joe and Jon’s older brother, Steve, who graduated from Shawnee in 1988, finished second in the state with a vault of 14 feet as a senior.
Joe and Jon, on the edge of 17, are already close to Steve’s vault at 12-6 and 13-0, respectively. Mattern thinks both will add another foot before the track season ends.
“They’ve got good technique and good skills,” said Mattern, who also pole vaulted. “They’re coachable and they don’t have any fear, giving them that edge that’s needed to be competitive. You have to have a decent athlete to do it correctly and to know the technique. These guys - their technique is excellent.”
The twins were using a 12-foot pole before switching to a 14-footer, which increased their vaults because it bends more.
“At the beginning of the season, we only got 12-0 on the old pole,” Jon said. “Then coach bought us a new pole and right away I made 12-6. Then, I got a 13-0 at the Urbana Invitational, so now I want it again and hopefully I’ll do better for the CBC (meet).”
“We just went nuts when we got the new pole,” Joe said. “The track team thought we lost it. We showed how big a difference it made in the next meet. Now we’re hoping to get to the next (sized) pole.”
The twins practice as often as possible under the watchful eyes of their father, Tom, and Mattern.
“We’re consistently working on our form,” Joe said. “We even climb cliffs, jump off them and go rappelling.”
“I was vaulting at 12-6, I landed in a plant box and hurt my ankle, but you’ve got to be able to take it and go on,” Joe continued. “You have to be mentally tough. You can’t break.”
Like most twins, the two are close and almost inseparable, but that doesn’t mean they don’t enjoy competing against each other.
“When it comes to pole vaulting it’s above all to beat my brother in the next meet,” Joe said. “We push each other to the max. The competition is good for us. It helps us out during the meets. In anything we do everyone always wants Jon and I on the same team because we work so well together. I know exactly how he thinks so we can adjust to things.”
“We both joke around a lot,” said Jon, who said they started pole vaulting in the fifth grade after Steve broke a pole and brought it home for them to play with.
“We either get first and second or second and third or something like that. We encourage each other and are always in everything together. We want to finish higher than each other or its a week of ridicule. There’s been a battle between us all our life in everything. We’re used to it now.”
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