133-pound Tyler Goodwin and 149-pound Frank Goodwin will compete at ACC championships for the Terps this weekend. The brothers forged a bond through the sport from a young age.

IT WAS JUST AFTER 3 P.M. ON A SCHOOL DAY, so Frank Goodwin and his younger brother, Tyler, knew they had about an hour before their parents came home from work. With an empty house to use as they pleased, the then-preteens crouched down in the living room and began to wrestle.

This would be the last of the impromptu showdowns they staged in their Pasadena, Md., home through the years. When their parents returned to find the wine glasses they used at their wedding shattered on the floor, Frank Sr. and Terri decided they’d seen enough of the brawling sessions in the house.

“We destroyed the living room,” Tyler said. “Every single day turned into a match on the carpet, with rug burns and bumping into the giant entertainment center and shelves and glass shelves.”

Soon after, the Goodwins moved to Aberdeen and bought a wrestling mat to place in their basement, creating a structured environment for their sons to perfect their craft. On that mat, the Goodwin brothers spent hours meticulously critiquing each other’s techniques, constantly competing and doing drills.

After nearly two decades of constantly battling each other, the Goodwins have emerged as key components of a Terrapins wrestling team that finished its regular season on a four-match winning streak. They are both expected to start at the ACC championship this weekend, with Frank at 149 pounds and Tyler at 133 pounds.

While Frank was an NCAA qualifier last year, Tyler has compiled a 13-7 record dotted with impressive wins and disappointing losses in his freshman year.

Tyler has had the luxury of leaning on his older brother, a redshirt junior, for advice. The two exchange text messages every day, just as they have ever since Frank left for college in 2010. And though he is two years older, Frank always listens attentively when his younger brother offers guidance.

After each of their matches, the brothers sit down together and offer their opinions on the other’s approach during the contest. It’s a product of their shared affection for the sport, the fabric of their relationship from the beginning.

“My older brother is my best friend,” Tyler said. “We wrestled when I was three and he was five, and we’ve been on the same team every year.”

 

TYLER WAS JUST 3 YEARS OLD WHEN HE FIRST JOINED HIS BROTHER on a wrestling mat. He was accompanying 5-year-old Frank to practice and decided he, too, wanted to step inside the competitor’s circle. Frank’s coach obliged, and the brothers trained together for the first time.

In the following years, wrestling consumed them. Frank Sr. and Terri would sometimes wake in the middle of the night to the sound of their sons grappling and crashing into household items.

“I came home from the house one time from work and my couches were thrown all over the place in the house because they moved them away,” Terri said. “They were going at it. … They’re not trying to hurt one another, they’re just trying to prove, ‘I’m the better one.’”

The brothers played other sports, including soccer and baseball, but wrestling provided an easy outlet. They just needed each other and a bit of clear space.

A spontaneous battle could be initiated by anything. Even control over the remote could spur a match.

“They would wrestle, and one would beat the other one,” Terri said. “Like an hour later, one them would be like, ‘That’s it, I want to do it again,’ and out of nowhere, while one of them was sitting on the couch, the other would be flying across the couch trying to put him in a headlock. … They used to do it all the time.”

In 2005, the middle schoolers were wrestling at a tournament at Mount St. Joseph High School when they met Cary Kolat. Kolat, one of coach Kerry McCoy’s teammates on the 2000 Olympic team, needed a few training partners for his student, Peter Galli, who now wrestles at Stanford.

“We were at the right place at the right time,” Terri said. “At that point, we knew then they were on a different level than most. … It was probably the best thing to do at the right time.”

Under the former NCAA champion’s tutelage, the Goodwins started taking the sport more seriously. They practiced seven days a week, and the reckless living room combat was over.

Kolat frequently traveled across the country to conduct clinics, bringing the Goodwins and Galli with him. Kolat would present a new move, and the children demonstrated the technique for the clinic. Often times, the group attended multiple tournaments, staying on the road for a whole weekend.

“I’m still scared of [Kolat] to this day,” Frank said. “Those practices back in those days were just crazy. They were like college-level practices for kids in middle school and high school. It was nuts.”

 

AFTER DROPPING A 7-4 DECISION to American’s Esteban Gomez-Rivera three weeks ago, Tyler dumped himself on the end of the bleachers and buried his face in his hands. His vitamin D deficiency, a longtime health problem, had returned and sapped his energy.

“Tyler wins a match, he’s really good, he’s pumped up,” Terri said. “[But] if Tyler loses a match, Tyler’s thing is he’ll go sit in a corner by himself because he wants to analyze that match all over in his head.”

When Frank calmly walked by after an exciting fall victory two matches later, Tyler didn’t look up. He was engrossed in his own defeat.

It was typical of their respective personalities: Frank tends to be more subdued and shy, while Tyler is just the opposite.

“He’s definitely more talkative, a little more crazy,” Frank said. “I’m just usually the one sitting back, watching him do his little shenanigans.“

Their contrasting personalities carry over to the wrestling mat. Frank tends to be passive, picking his spots and working through a set game plan. Tyler, however, often wastes little time going for takedowns.

“Frank’s more laid-back,” Tyler Goodwin said. “I don’t really like wrestling unless it’s aggressive. It’s hard for me to get into a match unless I get aggressive and hopefully get my opponent aggressive. If it’s just laid-back, I kind of get a little bored.”

Terri added: “Frank and Tyler are two different kids. Most people try to treat them like they’re the same kid, but they’re not.”

***

AFTER HIS FRESHMAN YEAR AT MOUNT ST. JOSEPH, Tyler decided to transfer to Arundel High School, and Frank, a rising senior, followed — even though it meant leaving behind his longtime friends and teammates from the previous three years.

In return, Tyler promised his older brother that he’d attend college wherever Frank decided to go.

“He was choosing for the both of us,” Tyler said. “I made that deal with him literally when I was a sophomore in high school. Said, ‘Wherever you’re going, I’m going.’ We are incredibly close.”

Growing up in Pasadena and honing their skills later in Aberdeen, it didn’t take much to keep Frank and Tyler occupied. Sharing a mutual obsession for one-on-one challenges, the brothers used each other as practice dummies. When they came home from team workouts, their day’s training was just beginning.

“They didn’t care if the coffee table was in the middle,” Terri said. “They would wrestle anywhere, anytime. It didn’t matter. It would start in one room, and they’d end up in another room by the time it was done.”

They didn’t know it yet, but Frank and Tyler were preparing each other to become high school state champions and later Division I college wrestlers.

After the Terps travel to Blacksburg, Va., for the ACC championship this weekend, though, the brothers could never be in the same lineup ever again, years after leaving the basement wrestling mat behind in Aberdeen. Tyler said the coaching staff might redshirt him next season, his brother’s fifth and final college season.

“I want to be able to be in the starting lineup for his last year,” Tyler said.

But if their history is any indication, the Goodwins won’t have any trouble finding a place to wrestle each other.

“They always wanted to wrestle together,” Terri said.