This year’s March Madness will feature twin basketball stars who were raised by a single mother of three who did three jobs to support them.
Jenny Bennett, a hard worker, raised Caleb and Cody Martin, both now 23, in a single-wide trailer in the small north Carolina town of Cooleemee. They are now two of the best basketball players on the University of nevada team, which just won the Mountain West Conference championship.
Bennett told CBS news that if she had to do it all over again, she would raise her boys by herself. Bennett had her twins when she was a youth and in a relationship with a man of a different race. When she told her family she was pregnant, they kicked her out of the house and left her to take care of her kids on her own. The single mother also had to deal with hate and criticism from people she didn’t know. She told CBS news that someone burned a cross in front of her house because of how they saw her family. You just don’t understand why you feel the way you do. She asked, “How can someone be so mean?”
“You’re worried about what will happen to your kids when you’re not there to keep people like this away from them.
“That is scary. It is very scary.’
Bennett raised Cody, Caleb, and Raheem, along with their older brother Raheem, in a 300-square-foot trailer. The Reno Gazette Journal says that this trailer was raised up on gray blocks and was often full of ants.
The mother would sometimes make food for her three kids but not eat it herself.
She would tell her kids at the time that it was because she wasn’t hungry. But the real reason was that the family didn’t have enough money to buy food.
Caleb told the Reno Gazette Journal in 2017: “I have a crazy, crazy amount of respect for my mom and everything she’s been through.”
“Cody and I like to talk about our childhood, and now we see all the things she didn’t tell us when we were young but that we know now.” The twins set up a hoop they found outside their trailer, which is where they first got interested in basketball. They put a small platform next to the hoop and made up a game called Slamball to play against each other.
During the game, the person with the ball would run toward the hoop instead of dribbling. The goal was to get to the trampoline so that the ball could be dunked.
The twins played baseball and football with their school teams when they were younger. But their first love was always basketball.
As word spread that Caleb and Cody were both 6’6” basketball stars, teams from all over the United States sent scouts to watch them play.
The twins went to Oak Hill Academy together. Oak Hill Academy has one of the best high school basketball teams in the country and has taught famous players like Kevin Durant.
Cody and Caleb were both 6’7″ at the time, and they went on to play basketball for north Carolina State during their freshman and sophomore years. After that, they both got full basketball scholarships to the University of nevada.
“It’s been hard at times, but I’ve always told them, “You give now for later,”” Bennett told the newspaper at the time.
“It’s been a hard road, but seeing them where they are now and happy makes it all worth it.”
Even though they had to deal with problems as kids, the twins have become basketball stars and even had the chance to go pro last year.
Instead, they chose to finish their last year of college with the goal of getting the nevada Wolf Pack to March Madness.
The twins have always said that it was their mom who helped them get where they are now.
Caleb told CBS news, “She didn’t fold.” “She can’t do it. This is what makes us who we are.’
But all Bennett could say was that she was proud of her own boys and everything they had done over the years.
Bennett said, “I don’t even know if they know how proud I am of them.” “They did a great job.”
Caleb and Cody will play with the seventh-seeded nevada Wolf Pack against the 10th-seeded Florida Gators from the University of Florida on Thursday in Des Moines, Iowa.