Columbia quadruplets to compete at four different colleges this fall

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

From running, to baseball, to golf, the Eastman family knows a thing or two about sports.

"I think athletics is a huge piece of our life and I think it's a good learning tool...I think we're also competitive. It's a genetic thing,"Kristin Eastman said while laughing with her husband Stuart outside Hickman High School Tuesday.

The couple sat on a bench outside the school wearing a white and purple Western Illinois sweatshirt in support of one of their four children who signed to play a collegiate sport.

In April of 2007, Wilson, Ellie, Caroline and Luke Eastman were born at Boone Hospital in Columbia.

They've lived in Columbia since then, attending Paxton-Keeley Elementary and Smithton Middle School. Fast forward nearly 18 years later and the quadruplets, who now attend Hickman High School would sign to play four different sports at four different colleges.

"It's one of those things where I didn't really think about it until today when someone really congratulated me on how impressive that is," Stuart Eastman said.

Wilson will attend Westminister College in Fulton to golf, while Luke will attend Southwestern Community College in Iowa to continue playing baseball.

The girls will also travel ways from their home in Columbia.

Ellie will attend Western Illinois University to run cross country and track. Her sister, Caroline will travel the furthest out of the four to attend Nebraska Wesleyan to play basketball and volleyball.

"I think the competitive nature of all of us really helped each other to kind of find out what we wanted to do and then once we found that we just took off running and never looked back," Luke Eastman said.

The Eastmans said the word "competition" isn't taken lightly in their family. The four have been interested in sports for as long as they can remember. For Ellie, her love for running came after a friend in the third grade asked her to join the "Blue Thunder" running club to which she eventually came to love after initially hating it.

Wilson said he was the last of the four to decide on playing golf in college. He grew up wanting to be a basketball player, which then turned into baseball until he soon realized it was his calling to play golf.

Games of basketball at their home would typically turn heated, but that competitiveness is what they believe will be their driving force at the next level.

"I just, I feel like it's easily going to translate because we know that we want to be the best," Wilson Eastman said.

The four have always been close, even sitting in order from oldest to youngest outside their high school on Tuesday. Wilson is the oldest of the group by a few minutes, but has come to assume the role of "protector" to his siblings.

Now faced with the thought that they'll no longer be just a walk down the hallway of their home and school come the fall, the group says it'll be different, but nothing they can't manage.

"I guess I didn't really put much thought whenever I was going through the recruiting process but after I committed I was like oh like I won't have my three best friends with me going to school with me," Ellie Eastman said. "I told them we're gonna have face times every night."

Although proud, Kristin and Stuart say they don't take credit for the hard work their children have put in to excel in their sports, saying they were just along for the ride. They have a much quieter home to look forward to in the fall, which they say depending on the day may or may not be viewed as a good thing.

The couple hasn't fully nailed down how they plan to deal with the possibility of their children's games or matches falling on the same day, saying it's a bridge they plan to cross when they get there. At this point in time, they're most looking forward to seeing how their children grow independently.

That's a mindset the four are choosing to have at this time too.

"You know, just finding new friends outside of the friends I already have," Caroline Eastman said. "I'm really excited to play basketball and volleyball and just start my new chapter."