Nearly a decade ago, Joe Houck got a glimpse of the future during a two-day volleyball clinic in Lakeview.
It was there that he met eighth grader Maria Clemens and seventh grader Jessica Clemens, two sisters who had traveled more than 140 miles from Burns in their family's brown Plymouth Voyager seeking instruction and competition.
Maria and Jessica had been playing sports for as long as they could remember and also had experienced a steady regimen of physical chores on their family's 2,000-acre cattle ranch. To Houck, then the coach at Concordia University in Portland, the benefits of their efforts were evident -- especially in their speed and strength. "Their coordination at an early age was just exceptional," he said. "They were just in control of their bodies. They were learning things immediately that would take other kids months or years."
At a barbecue after the clinic, Houck half-jokingly said he would coach the sisters one day, even though he was two jobs and many years away from that becoming a reality.
Houck might have had an inkling of their potential. Their father John had played football at Oregon State and Portland State, and their older brother Kellen was in the midst of a career that would take him from high school football to the University of Oregon to the NFL. But it would have been difficult for Houck to grasp the connection the sisters shared, one that is remarkably tight even within their own family.
Benefits of hard work
Tarweed is a plant that covered wide expanses of the Clemens family ranch during the dry summers of Maria and Jessica's youth. Inedible for their cattle, the plant derives its name from the sticky, smelly resin that it acquires at maturity. That stickiness also contributed to the bond that the sisters share today.
Of all of the chores assigned to them by their father -- building fences, moving cattle, digging ditches -- one of the most memorable for Maria and Jessica was filling garbage cans with tarweed.
"He would make us pick it from when he left in the morning until he came back for lunch," Maria said.
"And there was no way we could pick all this tarweed," Jessica said.
"And we'd have it full and he'd come home for lunch and he would jump in it and step on it," Maria said.
"It was his way of getting us to work," Jessica said. "But I think it paid off, I really do."
In addition to building their bodies, the daily chores kept them together, kept them laughing, and helped them become the best friends that they are today. Born 17 months apart between 1987 and 1989, they had the same circle of friends at Burns High School and enjoyed state championships in volleyball, basketball and track.
They figured their days as schoolmates were over once Maria matriculated to the University of Portland in 2006 to play volleyball and study elementary education. Jessica was interested in Boise State and Eastern Washington in addition to the Pilots.
But when it came time for Jessica to choose, their bond had just as much influence on her decision as the Pilots' offer for Jessica to play both volleyball and basketball.
"My senior year (at Burns High), I kind of got to experience what it was like to not have someone really close who understood how you play and how to handle each other," Jessica said. "That was one of the big factors."
"I was the same way," Maria said. "I didn't want her to follow me. I wanted to do my own thing or whatever. But then after a year of playing without her, I was just like, 'Please come to Portland with me.'
"I just think we're so close."
Sharing, with differences
Cows and clothes. Horses and homework. Bedrooms and beds. Even a toothbrush.
These are just a few of the things that Maria and Jessica Clemens have shared -- and in some cases continue to share. Today they share an apartment, pews at Mass and spots on the Pilots volleyball team.
But that doesn't mean they are the same person.
Maria, a senior, knew the major and career she wanted to pursue when she arrived at UP. Jessica, a junior, is still figuring that out.
Maria considers sugar a food group. Jessica abhors soda, sweets and fast food.
Maria's hair is straight. Jessica's is curly.
Maria tries to keep a clean house. Jessica, not so much.
And while Maria tends to offer pats on the shoulder, Jessica prefers figurative kicks in the butt. "Jessica pretty much says the way things are," said their mother, Vicky Clemens. "She's not afraid to say it the way she sees it. Maria's a little more diplomatic."
Houck, who became the sisters' college coach after leaving Western Oregon for UP in 2008, employs Maria as a setter and Jessica as an outside hitter. When he looks at them, he sees common physical traits but significantly different personalities.
"It's amazing how different the two of them are, actually," he said. "They are very easy to treat as individuals.
"Their athleticism and size put them in a similar category. Both are very artistic in how they play. They are creative and rhythmic in what they do -- very fluid. Jess is exceptionally powerful, and Maria's a little bit more finesse, but she can bring some heat too."
One last hurrah
Except for Jessica's senior year at Burns High, she and Maria have been sports teammates since third grade. But because Maria is a Pilots senior, they are playing their final season together as members of an elite, organized and competitive team. This realization already has crossed their minds, even though the season hasn't yet reached West Coast Conference play.
Jessica says she wonders if her senior year of volleyball at UP will be like her senior year of high school, when she didn't have her best friend to lean on.
Maria is alternately wistful and hopeful. "I'm going to miss the competitiveness, the people coming and watching, and being able to play with Jess under the spotlight," she said. "But I know that me and her are always going to be picking up a ball or playing a game of doubles.
"We want to coach together. So it is the end under the spotlight I guess, but I definitely don't see it being the end forever."
Far from it. One day, after they find careers and spouses, they plan to return to Burns and be neighbors on a high spot of land on the family farm. The sisters might not share a roof, but they'll probably share a driveway.
-Daniel Uthman, Special to The Oregonian
