DENVER — Amongst the crowd of a cramped basketball court, it's hard to get much closer than the Noland brothers.
"We're probably as close as they come," Vann Noland said of his brother, Owen. "It's hard to imagine being any closer. I do a lot of stuff with him. Pretty much everything we do, we do together."
You could say Vann and Owen are inseparable -- but also, nearly indistinguishable. Not only are they identical twins, they're also the voices and creators of the Mullen Broadcast Network. Their jobs include filming practice for the Mullen baseball and football teams, and serving as the play-by-play announcer and color analyst for Mullen's girls' and boys' basketball games -- all of which are streamed live on the NFHS Network.
"My dad always calls us the president and vice president of the club, so that's pretty interesting," Vann said.
When prompted to see who is the president, the choice was obvious.
"I would say me," Vann said. "I'm older."
But that's another point of contention with the Nolands. Because they're identical twins, they're parents often joke they don't know who's older, as it's very possible they were mixed up at the hospital when they were born. To this day, it's still difficult to separate the two.
"We're about half way through [the school year], and our teachers till can't tell us apart most of the time," Vann said (but to their credit, the Nolands share all five of their classes together, so cut their teachers some slack).
The Noland's passion for sports broadcasting began the summer before they started high school. They attended a broadcasting camp that sparked a love for being on the sidelines.
"I knew I wasn't going to make the major leagues [and] be a pitcher," Owen said. "But I realized that broadcasting was a way for me to stay involved in athletics, which is something that Vann and I have always been passionate about."
The duo takes turns calling play-by-play and serving as the game's color analyst each half. During those times, they use the opportunities to learn from each other -- their in-game vocabulary, they agreed, is one of their few differences.
"When I'm listening to Vann call a game, I'm thinking, that's a really good way to describe something that I wouldn't have thought of," Owen said.
"There's a lot of stuff I can learn from [Owen]," Vann echoed.
Naturally, both Vann and Owen's favorite sport is baseball, and both have aspirations to make it to the broadcast major leagues.
"Ideally I would want to do play-by-play for any major league baseball team," Vann said.
"I'd love to, like Vann said, be the play-by-play announcer for a major league baseball team. That's ultimately the goal," Owen added.
They're currently considering a number of colleges, including Arizona State, Colorado State and Missouri, all of which have outstanding broadcast programs.
Whatever they do -- be it college, broadcasting or beyond, the Noland twins will do it together.
"It's hard to imagine being any closer," Owen said.
