As mirror-image twins, seniors Brea and Dakota Goodman are as close to physically being the same person as they can be.
The twins are practically indistinguishable, and they know it.
Dakota said she and her sister often prank their friends, relatives and coaches. In high school, the pair even exchanged classes and took tests for the other, she said.
“Everyone knew except for the teacher,” Dakota said. “We did it like three or four times. Sometimes [Brea] will even show up for work for me.”
In addition to being the same height, having the same haircut and almost the same tone of voice, the fact that the sisters’ interests are also indistinguishable doesn’t make it any easier to tell them apart.
“We have the same likes, dislikes,” Brea said, laughing at the how much alike they seem. “We’re pretty much the same person.”
LSU cross country coach Mark Elliott knows first-hand how hard it is to distinguish between the two.
Elliott said he’s never had much interaction with twins before Brea and Dakota, but said the sisters appreciate when he guesses correctly.
But Dakota said Elliott still has some work to do.
“Sometimes our friends can tell us apart, but Coach definitely can’t tell us apart,” Dakota said. “He thinks he can, but he can’t, so we play jokes on him.”
Competitively, Elliott said he thinks the sisters definitely push each other.
“Brea, since she was the first born, she thinks she has to be faster than Dakota. But then of course Dakota wants to beat her all the time,” Elliott said.
This season, Dakota has bested Brea in all three races, but the pair said that hasn’t always been the case.
Dakota acknowledged that Brea was probably better in mid-distance runs, but Brea was quick to acknowledge Dakota’s prowess in the races this season.
Both said they’ve been back and forth throughout their entire career.
In high school, the sisters were recruited by Minnesota, but Dakota wasn’t accepted because of her ACT scores, they said.
Since the two would have to be separated, Brea declined her scholarship offer, and instead the pair accepted scholarships from Nicholls State.
They spent one year there before transferring to LSU.
“There was no competition whatsoever,” Brea said. “I felt like I was just running in another high school, so I wanted to get to a bigger school with more competition.”
Elliott said he didn’t know of Brea and Dakota before they expressed interest in walking on to the team. Once Elliott found out they were scholarship athletes at another university, he knew they could help the Lady Tigers.
Despite that, Elliott said he never thought the twins would have the impact they have had.
“Normally for cross country for us, we may have two or three top girls, but it’s good when you have five, and two of them just happen to be twins,” Elliott said.
The sisters’ careers, which had already taken a circuitous route to LSU, took an unexpected detour almost two years ago when the pair was involved in a car accident on Nicholson Drive.
Each suffered a concussion and missed the entire 2011 fall season recuperating from injuries and getting into running shape again.
Brea said she spent weeks training on an elliptical machine before she could run long distances without getting intense headaches.
This season, in Brea and Dakota’s first season back, the twins are making quite a comeback.
Brea and Dakota have each finished in the top 10 in their last two races, and each have set LSU career bests in the 5K and 6K.
Barb Goodman, the twins’ mother, attributed the sisters’ comeback to their perseverance and commitment to each other. She said the strength they showed by coming back from injuries is what makes them successful.
Brea and Dakota will need that strength in their profession of choice after college. The twins each hope to become forensic psychologists for the FBI.
At 5-foot-2-inches, the women may not fit the common perception of what an FBI agent should look like, but they have at least one thing in their favor.
“My husband always kids around that if they get into the FBI, there’s not many people that will out-run them,” Barb said. “They may be little, but they’re fast.”
Whatever the future holds for the twins, it’s evident that the two will never separate.
They have never lived separately, Barb said, and while growing up, the pair never even expressed interest in living in separate rooms.
“I don’t see us ever splitting,” Brea said. “I mean, I can see us literally having two houses right beside each other.”
