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Volume 63 No.74
MIRACLE TWINS Soria brothers have overcome tremendous odds on their path to success ANDY KONIUCH Sports Editor
Doctors said the Soria brothers wouldn’t survive on September 13, 1991. But at 10:19 p.m. in Stony Brook Hospital, a miracle happened. In fact, two miracles happened. Maxwell and Michael Soria – identical twins – were born on Friday the 13th. After their mother’s legs were crushed in a hit-and-run accident, the boys were born three months premature. At their first ‘official’ weigh-in, Max was 2 pounds and 3 ounces. Ten minutes later, Mike was born at 1 pound and 9 ounces. Since then, the two have done what few could have expected that September evening – become Division I wrestlers. Max and Mike were juniors on the Buffalo wrestling team this season. Max is first on the active roster with 59 career wins, while Mike ranks fourth with 30. These numbers, however, are far from their greatest accomplishment. Their fight began three months before they were even born. Karen Soria was picking up a friend from the Kings Park Clubhouse. A routine walk from her car drastically changed when a gray truck veered from its parking spot in reverse, crushing Karen’s legs. The driver was never found. “I don’t remember much of it,” Karen said. “I was in shock. I felt my leg right away and knew it was broken.” Karen was rushed to Stony Brook Hospital’s emergency care center in an ambulance. To her surprise, doctors informed her that she was two and a half months pregnant. One month later, she learned she’d be delivering twins. Karen’s doctor wished to insert steel rods into her broken legs, but because of her pregnancy, the operation was not permitted. For the next three months after the accident, Karen was in and out of the hospital. She would spend a week in the hospital, be released, but then have
to return due to urinary tract infections. “I remember asking the doctor, ‘How do I get rid of the infection?’” Karen said. “The doctor said, ‘The babies must be born.’” Karen was told if her babies’ umbilical cords were cut, the twins’ chance of survival was slim. Karen only had two vessels in her umbilical cord compared to the normal three. Because of this, the probability of the boys’ hearts and livers failing were high. But three months after the accident – Max and Mike were born. Karen and Robert, her husband, didn’t get to celebrate the birth of their children for long. Shortly after, the twins were placed in incubators after experiencing severe breathing problems. They were transferred to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). “To feed them, I’d have to stick a tube through their nose which led to their throat,” Karen said. “If they’d stop breathing, alarms would go off, their faces would turn purple.” Two months later, Max and Mike were released from the hospital after reaching Stony Brook’s requirement of 4 pounds and 7 ounces. About five months after the accident, the entire Soria family returned to its Kings Park home. Growing up, breaking bad habits Max and Mike didn’t allow early hardships to dictate their athletic futures. They excelled on the basketball court in middle school and often led their team in scoring. The twins would be seen regularly doing back flips off buildings. They were the epitome of athleticism. They often played football at Memorial Field in Kings Park. “We’d always have Mike and Max cover each other because no one else could keep up with them,” said childhood friend and former high school wrestling teammate Tom McGuire. “We’d say you two cover each other, but don’t fight. They’d usually fight.”
In eighth grade, the Kings Park varsity football coaches saw Max and Mike playing flag football and wanted the two to play for the team. Karen wasn’t sure about the idea because of their size. “I told [the coaches] they were crazy,” Karen exclaimed. “They only weighed 80 pounds, they’d get crushed. [The coaches] would respond, ‘But no one can catch them.’ They were quick little boogers.” But as their peers outgrew them, it was difficult for Max and Mike to find a sport they could compete in. That’s when Kings Park High School’s wrestling coach Brian Lopalo contacted Robert and Karen. “[Lopalo] came to us with an idea,” Robert said. “All the other children their age were becoming much bigger. They started out as peanuts. They played ninth-grade basketball, but everyone else was over a foot taller. There’s no such thing as a 4-foot point guard. Little by little, we got filtered into wrestling.” Max and Mike barely stood 5 feet tall as high school freshmen. That is when the boys met the biggest influence of their wrestling careers, Jack Mangani. A former wrestler at Iowa State, Mangani’s teachings went well beyond the wrestling mat. “I loved having Mangani as a coach,” Max said. “I can’t explain it, but just the things he said – the things he taught me, the things I got out of him, the way he’d push us. Being with him for four years in high school was just beyond the sport of wrestling. He taught life in general, how to be a good person.” A way Mangani pushed the boys was kicking them off their inhaler dependence. Since they were born, Max and Mike had chronic asthma problems and heavily relied on their medicine. Mangani trained the boys so hard that eventually, the two began to grow out of it. “As many as one in five youngsters with asthma may grow out of the respiratory condition as they age,” according to U.S. Health News.
Max and Mike still take pills every day to monitor their asthma, but no longer need an inhaler. “After I worked [with Max and Mike for] one year at the high school level, I told them to throw [the inhaler] out,” Mangani said. “It’s important to get in such great shape that you don’t need them anymore.” Early struggles The Soria brothers didn’t experience instant success when they stepped onto the mat. They weighed only 80 pounds and were wrestling against kids 18 pounds heavier. In high school competition, the lowest weight class is 98 pounds. It was difficult for Max and Mike to add weight. “There was a rule that you can’t wrestle unless you weighed 88 pounds,” Mike said. “We had to gain weight every time just to compete. We’d drink massive amounts of Gatorade before weigh-ins and wear heavy clothes.” Mike once vomited on Mangani’s shoes during weigh-ins because of the excessive amounts of water he was forced to drink. The extra clothing to add pounds caused him to undergo heat exhaustion. They would sometimes resort to illegal measures to make weight. “We’d fill up water bottles and stuff them in their pants so they’d be able to make weighins,” Mangani said. “One time, the refs let them wrestle despite being underweight. We had to beg.” Freshman and sophomore years were a struggle for Max and Mike. Competing against heavier opponents left the twins beat up, but not discouraged. The constant beatings only drove the brothers to train harder. “Struggling as babies and growing up struggling as teenagers wrestling, it’s honestly what helped us in this sport,” Mike said. “Getting through all those adversities, that’s what this sport is really about: learning how to deal with problems and battle
through. That definitely helped us as kids, at least from a wrestling perspective.” Success and sportsmanship It wasn’t until their junior year of high school that the Soria twins started to excel. The brothers bulked up to 98 pounds and both qualified for states in 2009. After winning all of their preliminary matches, Max and Mike were scheduled to wrestle each other in the quarterfinals. “I’ll never forget when we found out that they had to wrestle each other,” Karen said. “When they came out, the coaches were in tears. I was in tears, but it happened.” What happened next was unprecedented. The two took their positions on the mat. But instead of squaring up with one another, they pulled out a coin and flipped it. That coin – a dime – has been viewed as a token of good luck in the Soria family since their grandfather, also named Mike Soria, passed away from Mesothelioma in 2007. Since his death, the Sorias have found thousands of dimes lying around their home and in public. “It’s never quarters, nickels or pennies – only dimes,” according to Karen. It was because of this that a dime was chosen over any other coin. “I’m very proud of that moment,” Robert said with tears in his eyes. “That’s rare. That’s love. Those are two of the most competitive guys you’ll ever see.” When the boys first started wrestling, the Soria family made a mutual decision that the brothers would never compete against one another in live competition. The agreement was made after Max and Mike became heated with one another after a match. “It all started back in seventh grade when we first started [wrestling],” Mike said. “Max actually won. I was angry. It brought the family down; we were fighting each other in our own house and didn’t talk for a week. Ever since then, there was a rule we wouldn’t wrestle each other.” SEE SORIA BROTHERS, PAGE 4