Family First: Hanna and Haley Cavinder
Hanna and Haley Cavinder are one of the greatest duos in college basketball. Despite their success on the court, nothing is more important than their relationship as twins.
We got into basketball when we were around the age of 6. We loved all sports, but basketball just felt the most natural to both of us-which is crazy. We stopped playing all the other sports, and focused on chasing our dreams to play college basketball together.
What keeps us going? I think what keeps us going is just our drive to be better everyday and holding each other accountable. Growing up we always felt that we were the underdogs and always overlooked because of our size. We continue to use that as a motivator to this day.
Playing college basketball with your twin sister is everything. It is hard to explain the bond we have both on and off the court. It’s why we love the game so much. Of course when there’s good there’s bad that comes with it too. That is comparison. The feeling of being compared to one another is heavy. It’s a day by day process of learning to not let it affect us. People pointing out your insecurities in order to identify who’s better or the difference between us is difficult, but it comes with it.
When we were younger and immature we use to let the opinions of others get between us. It would lead to arguments or even not talking for a couple days. We’ve learned though. We know we’re better together and that our “twinship” will always come first.
During quarantine we started making basketball Tik toks which grabbed many people’s attention. We don’t really know how or why it did, but we just continued to do it, and that has helped our following grow. It was new at first for sure, but like we said early being compared was amplified x10. If you have a bad game or one of us does better than the other, the Tik tok comment section will let you know. It’s definitely a work in progress, but we know that putting ourselves out there creates more opinions from strangers.
Our advice we would give to young athletes chasing their dreams is to work hard. It sounds corny but working hard will guide you to accomplishing your goals and building discipline-which is a lifelong trait.
