Four years ago, a teenager tweeted, “I hate how people judge when they really don't know anything.”
That person was Emma Carlson, who has grown to be a member of the Duke women’s soccer team and is now a sophomore. She and her best friend, teammate and classmate Ella Stevens, have made it particularly easy to get to know them by keeping a digital log of some of their exchanges over the years.
The two grew up in the outskirts of Atlanta and played club soccer for many years on the same team before facing off as rivals in high school. The Tweets and Vines tell a story of two people who are more than just soccer players.
Not just ‘weird,’ as they would say. Really weird. Okay with the world to see them for who they are.
There was that time Ella pondered whether or not to one day have a child. That time she did not like her lunch schedule. Or when Emma really wanted chicken. And one of their worst ideas, running into each other with two bouncy balls and then suffering the wrath of kinetic energy.
Ella also proudly shared one of her favorite pranks, when she ‘whaled’ the bathroom floor while Emma was showering.
“I got out so gingerly,” Emma said, knowing Ella had spread the floor with butter. “And I still just completely wiped out on the ground.
“And it was so bad because we were at the beach. And so there's obviously a lot of sand on the ground, so I'm trying to get up and I'm rolling around in butter and sand on the ground. And so I get back into the shower to clean it off. And when I got out again, I fell again, it was so slippery.”
Emma and Ella are like a fantastic duo from a movie. First, it’s like the director chose two similar names, each four letters, beginning with 'E', ending with 'A', and having two of the same consonants in between. The similarity of their names has prompted them to refer to each other on social media as ‘Yella’ and ‘Yemma.’
Next, the personalities. Yes, they are gregarious, and have the kind of humor that results in their loving The Office. “[It’s] like a Dwight-and-Jim relationship,” Ella said.
Ella described Emma as the more quick-witted of the two and Ella as the laugher. It also seems like Ella is the prankster more of the time. Asked if she ever got revenge on Ella for the whaling episode, Emma responded, “I've never really done an actual prank like that, it’s more of an Ella thing.”
Do they just act weirdly in private?
No, they say. They said if this story published old, cringeworthy social media posts that their teammates saw, there would be few surprises in store.
“Once one of us starts quoting the movie [Madea], we'll just like go back and forth,” Carlson said, referring to this kind of communication as their own language of sorts. “And then it just spirals out of control to the point where it's really not funny anymore. But we're just laughing so hard, and we don't even really know what we're saying anymore. And so no one thinks it's funny except us.”
In front of head coach Robbie Church, they say they have not revealed as much embarrassing content, but they think he knows they’re kind of weird. Granted, this is talking about a man who buys a Diet Coke before every game as a superstition.
Emma explained, using a deep voice to impersonate Church, how he refers to them as “the ATL girls.” And Carlson, with a knack for comedic timing evident even over the phone during the 20-minute joint interview for this story, said that they respond, “... hey,” emphasizing the uncertainty in their response to him as a sign of the awkwardness.
They both love Church, they said. And after saying he is a nice guy, Emma whimsically added, ‘Put that in [the story].’
They will tell you, though, that their relationship is not just immature. Of course, there may never be enough maturity to make up for the time they played with their food inside the concession stand during a soccer tournament in high school.
Stevens led the team in goals as a freshman last year with 10 scores, earning All-ACC Third Team and All-ACC Freshman honors. Her finesse on the ball has led her to score a goal that earned national recognition and cross up defenders like this example from the season’s opener against North Carolina two weeks ago.
Carlson, on the other hand, has struggled to earn playing time so far. The sophomore has logged just 44 minutes of action in conference play without sustaining major injuries. She said when she came to Duke, the Blue Devils already had a stout back line of one senior, one redshirt junior, two juniors and a sophomore.
Here’s the maturity, though. When asked whether she was the leading goal scorer last year, Ella did not have a chance to respond. Emma bursted in, “Yes she did. 10 goals.”
“I definitely feel like I am Ella's number one fan no matter what,” Carlson said. “It's not like I'm jealous at all toward what she gets—'cause she's worked so hard for it.”
The two are also now more open with each other than they were in high school, they said. Although they have known each other since they played U-10 soccer at age seven, they are roommates this year for the second time in a row.
“If I go somewhere, it's not like Ella's like, 'Hey, where'd you'd go?' Like we just kind of do our own thing, and then, at the end of the day, we come back to each other,” Emma said. “It’s a really good relationship.”
A really good relationship, one might add, with some great entertainment value so far.
Listen to our Jack Dolgin's joint interview with Ella Stevens and Emma Carlson here:
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