The first Tuesday of each month, we interview someone from Charlotte Latin Athletics with twenty questions to help the CLS community get to know some of our athletes, coaches, and supporters a bit better.
 
Our April interview is with Henry and Erik Anglemyer. New to Latin this year, this freshman duo made an immediate impact on the cross country team, both in terms of performance and personality. They continued to impress as part of the swim team, making significant drops in their best times throughout the season, and are now competing in the mid-to-distance events for track and field. As impressive as they are as athletes, the Anglemyers further distinguish themselves as well-rounded students with a passion for the Fab Lab, music, and Spanish. Read on to get to know a bit about identical twins, Henry and Erik Anglemyer, and learn how their sister Sarah says you can tell them apart.
 
1. Who are the other members of the Anglemyer family?
Erik: Jon Everett, our brother. He's twelve and goes to Piedmont IB Middle School. Our sister, Sarah, who goes to Collinswood (Language Academy).
Sarah: And I'm in first grade.
Henry: Our dad (Brad) is an ER doctor, and our mom (Anna) runs the household.
 
2. Sarah, I find it difficult to tell your brothers apart. Do you always know who is who?
Sarah: Yes! Henry has five letters and green has five letters. Erik has four letters and blue has four letters. And their hair. Henry's is always flat and Erik's hair goes up and then down.
 
3. Who is older?
Henry: I am older, by like two minutes. We don't like that question, normally.
Erik: We are genetically the same, so it seems like a needless competition to say who was born first.
Henry: I think it's necessary (smiling).
 
4. Are you competitive with one another?
Henry: Absolutely. In middle school, I had this really bad mentality. Erik was faster than me in 7^th and 8^th grade and I had the mentality that I had to work to beat him, even in practices. But this year, it hasn't been like that at all. I feel like he's my biggest supporter and teammate. I'm just as happy…well, almost as happy…when he does well.
Erik: I absolutely agree. I may have come to that conclusion earlier than he did.
Henry: Well, you were faster.
Erik: I think there's always been a friendly competition between us and I use it as motivation. I feel like we both grow as humans, not just in sports but as students and socially and in music, because we push each other. Henry is really good at piano and it pushes me to practice guitar more so I can keep up and he doesn't try to form a band without me.
Henry: Erik is actually better at guitar than I am at piano.
Erik: We're both very into music.
(Editor's note: See them perform with bandmates Kate Griesser, William Austin, and Graham Davis at the Concert in the Stadium on April 26.)
 
5. Have you always gone to school in Charlotte?
Erik: We were born in Charleston, but we moved to Charlotte two weeks after being born.
Henry: We went to Dilworth Elementary.
Erik: Then we were at Sedgefield Middle for sixth grade, then Trinity Episcopal for seventh and eighth, and then we were in Costa Rica.

6. You were in Costa Rica? For how long?
Henry: Okay, so Erik and I were young for our grade. We have a summer birthday, so our parents had already discussed having us do a gap year between high school and college, that was the plan. Then Covid hit and it was really hard on our dad because he works in the ER, so plans changed. Our family moved to Costa Rica for a year and we went to school there. It was an enrichment year.
Erik: We have a connection with a family that has a house there, so we rented their house. We went to a bilingual school, so half of our classes were in Spanish and half were in English.  

7. Did you know how to speak Spanish?
Henry: I knew how to say, "I don't speak Spanish." That was a big goal, for Erik and I, to learn the language. We met Asley, a tenth-grade student, on the third day of school. He barely spoke English and we barely spoke Spanish, but we all really wanted to learn. We sat together for lunch every day, with another bilingual student to translate for us. We did it every day of the year and now we're best friends.
Erik: We learned so much. About the language and a lot about the culture.
Henry: To practice our Spanish, Erik and I call Asley. And the language program at Latin is wonderful.
Erik: When I was in Costa Rica, I didn't really have the grammar and structure of the language, but I've learned a lot about that at Latin.
Henry: Sarah actually picked it up the best. Her accent is incredible.
 
8. How did you land at Latin this year?
Erik: We did the applications while we were in Costa Rica, and we toured Myers Park and three private schools in December when we came back to the U.S. during a trimester break.
Henry: I did a Fab Lab camp here in fifth grade and it was always one of my favorite camps. I have always had an interest in creating things and in electronics, so when I saw that Latin was an option for school, I was really excited.
Erik: The engineering program definitely stood out and I thought Latin had a sense of community the others didn't have. We were very excited when we got the news that we'd been accepted.
 
9. What was the transition like, going from school in Costa Rica to school at Latin?
Henry: Our class in Costa Rica had twelve people in it.
Erik: So coming here felt like we were around a lot of people. We had cross country team camp which was very helpful to meet some people, and freshman orientation day as well.
Henry: The team camp was vital to me. The people were super welcoming and by the time school started I had friends. They would wave and say hi in the halls and made me feel like I was already part of the community.
 
10. Was anyone in particular helpful in making you feel comfortable?
Erik: Every teacher at Latin has helped me grow as a person and been very welcoming, but Coach Weiss was huge in making me feel like I'm really a part of Latin and he's helped me become the best runner I can be. He really cares about how I feel and he's super inclusive. He's made sure that I've made connections with the other Upper School students. He's just been extremely helpful throughout the entire year.
Henry: Coach Weiss is great. He's also been super helpful to me, especially with my injury during cross country. Also my advisor, Ms. Mercado. She's been an incredible history teacher and she will meet with me pretty much whenever I want to, to talk about history or anything else. I feel like she really knows me as a person.
 
11. Let's come back to your injury in a moment, Henry. First, have you always been runners? What other sports have you participated in?  
Erik: The first sport was soccer. I remember doing soccer when I was Sarah's age.
Henry: We did t-ball before we did soccer, didn't we?
Erik: I don't know.
Henry: T-ball didn't go well.
Erik: I played soccer and was really into it through sixth grade. I also loved basketball. We started running in fourth grade through a Let Me Run program. We did a race at the end of the program and we placed pretty well, so the interest was sparked in running but I was still going strong with basketball and soccer.
Henry: For me, soccer and basketball were not as interesting. Tennis was really my thing. Our mom played tennis through high school and was the #1 seed her senior year. She got me lessons when I was really young. It was at the same club where we did swim team in the summers, and I did a couple of tennis camps. We both enjoyed running and racing but it wasn't our main thing until maybe eighth grade.
Erik: Running here is a lot different than what we had experienced. Here, there's a focus on form and injury prevention. The coaching staff here is absolutely the best coaching I've had.
Henry: Before Latin, I always felt like I had to run every workout until I couldn't run another step. I thought coming into the cross country season that five workouts a week was going to be terrible. What I learned is that a big part of it is recovery. Not every workout is hard and that makes it so much more enjoyable.
 
12. You both had a really strong start in cross country, but Henry, you were sidelined at the end with an injury. What happened?  
Henry: I've been running since fourth grade and even though playing tennis increased my sideways motion, I really only trained for forward motion. I had pain that I thought was shin splints and was trying to run through it, but one day I got up and couldn't walk on it so we went for an x-ray. It turned out I'd been running on a stress fracture for several weeks. It was frustrating, but Coach Weiss was super supportive throughout and helped me keep everything realistic. And the trainers were very, very, very helpful. They made me feel like I was taken care of and that I would be good to go for track season. It took six weeks to heal, but then I was swimming and I was working on all these mobility exercises, which I'm making sure I do now after every workout and really focusing on the hip stuff because that's my weakest area.  
 
13. Had you both planned to join the swim team this year?
Henry: Erik and I knew at the beginning of cross country season that we didn't want to do indoor track. Well, I should answer for myself. I did not want to do indoor track. It sounded miserable. I thought we would literally just train on the indoor track. I was recommended to swim to cross train, then when I got my stress fracture that sealed the deal.
Erik: I don't like the cold. In my opinion, winter should last about a month and it should either be snowing or be warm. I do not like running in the cold, but I did want to do indoor track because I wanted to stick with my friends and keep working on my running. Henry's injury made me worry, though, about some of my shin splint and knee issues, so swimming seemed like a good option. We've done summer swimming every year that we could and our dad encouraged us through all of that, because he swam through high school.
 
14. Are you glad you chose to swim?  
Henry: Yes. The team camaraderie and the actual experience of being on the team was incredible. When Chucky (Chanakya Ayinala) gave me a shoutout at the end of the year, he really made me feel like I was part of the team and I think I want to do it again next year.
Erik: I really enjoyed the camaraderie. Especially with the people in our lane. When you're suffering together, you get to know each other a bit more. I got to meet a lot of people on the team that I wouldn't have gotten to meet otherwise, and built connections that I don't think I would have if I hadn't done swim. Right now, I'm leaning toward swimming next year, but I am going to play it by ear until after cross country season.
 
15. Alright, let's finish up with some fun questions. Are you an early bird, or a night owl?
Erik: Early bird. Absolutely. If I stay up too late, I get cranky.
Henry: He gets delusional.
Erik: I feel the best when I'm up early. Especially on race days. I totally prefer having them first thing in the morning.
Henry: I'm definitely an early bird. I feel like a gangster or a rebel if I stay up past ten.
 
16. What's your favorite sport to watch on TV?
Henry: I have been loving March Madness. Our dad went to NC State for his undergrad, so we're fans. At first, none of us watched, because we thought NC State would get crushed and we would go to bed sad. But now, we all stay up late, wear our NC State shirts, and watch them together. It's been so fun.
Erik: I concur. March Madness has been so much fun. Sports on TV is not something I do very often except for the Olympics, or when I play Fantasy Football with my grandpa.
 
17. Which holiday is your favorite and why?
Henry: Thanksgiving, because of the turkeys. I love making the hand turkeys and stringing them up on the…what do you call it? I'm not very crafty, but I make my hand turkey with passion. And the food, I love all the food. Yam souffle is the best. I feel like Thanksgiving goes unnoticed sometimes. Why don't we have Thanksgiving carols?
Erik: I like Christmas. We host an annual neighborhood party to make the string light balls, and we have hot chocolate and cookies and it's the first part of the season. I like Christmas carols, but only in December. It's also time to see family we haven't seen in awhile.
 
18.  What's the best vacation you've been on?
Erik: Costa Rica. Not the entire year, when we were going to school, but when we took a vacation during our spring trimester break and went to Manuel Antonio Park and Osa Peninsula. The beaches were beautiful, there were a lot of hikes, and macaws. The macaws are really loud. They think they're great singers and their confidence is what I love about them. And howler monkeys yelling at the top of their lungs. They're my spirit animal, honestly.
Henry: At our school in Costa Rica, we loved the Ancla class, which means anchor in Spanish. It's an outdoor class meant to anchor the kids with a connection to the environment. Our Ancla teacher, Ms. Diana, was awesome. Our mom volunteered there with the chickens and the gardens…
Sarah: I did too!
Henry: ….and we all became close with her, so she invited us to her wedding. It was fabulous. The party went to 1:00 in the morning.
Erik: It was all dancing. There were two meals served.
Henry: It was spectacular, and it was during that Costa Rica vacation.
 
19. How are you two different from one another?
Erik: There's a lot of differences between our personalities. My friends tell me we have different mannerisms and talk differently. Henry is super creative. He can do a lot of things with sound design and digital design that are really cool and I wish I could do.
Henry: Erik can whip up stuff on the guitar that I could never dream of doing. I'm the behind-the-camera guy who freezes when I'm in front of it. But when Erik's in front of the camera, he drinks it up and is so funny.
 
20. Would you say you have a special connection?
Henry: Absolutely.
Erik: I think we're best friends. He's always someone that will be there for me and we're really close.
Henry: Naturally, we don't get along all the time, but we have an advantage most people don't have. We always have each other, so we can put ourselves out there, especially in new places. No matter what happens, I can always count on Erik to be there.