Brothers, Friends and Foes

It was late of a mid-August eve, and James Serwanga was sick and tired of listening to it.

“I’m faster,” Wasswa Serwanga said.

“No, I can beat you,” Kato Serwanga replied.

“No, I’m faster than you.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Am.”

“Aren’t.”

Enough, said James, who declared the meeting of his younger brothers adjourned, then reconvened it on the track at Cal State Sacramento.

On your mark, get set, go, he called, and there was just enough moonlight at 11 o’clock for him to see that the 40-yard dash was a dead heat.

“Again,” James said, and they took off.

“He beat me by a step,” Wasswa said.

“No, it was by a breath,” Kato replied.

The race has been on since Wasswa Serwanga won the first one, beating his brother into the world by 15 minutes to earn his surname, which in Ugandan means “elder twin.”

“He’s my best friend,” says Kato. “And he’s my worst enemy.”

They arrived at Sacramento from Uganda when they were 4, brought by parents who sized up a future there under the politics of dictator Idi Amin and decided it held only violence and oppression.

They raced to the grocery store. They compared report cards.

Sit-up contests: “I can do the most. I have better abs [abdominal muscles],” Kato says.

And spelling bees: “One time I won, but Kato was sick that day and he told me if he’d been there, I wouldn’t be going to county,” Wasswa says.

They compete in everything.

“If there’s a chance for competition, we’ll do it,” Wasswa says. “It makes it fun to find out who’s the better Serwanga on that day.”

They will get another chance to determine the better Serwanga on Saturday when Wasswa, the roverback for UCLA’s fast-improving defense, and Kato, the right cornerback for California’s struggling Bears, meet at the Rose Bowl.

You’ll recognize Robina Serwanga in the stands. She’ll be the one with the shirt with “UCLA” on one side, “Cal” on the other. They’re still trying to figure where she’ll sit, there being little mid-ground at the Rose Bowl.

She wore the shirt a year ago at Strawberry Canyon. As the teams headed toward their locker rooms after the game, Robina was smiling, posing for pictures for the family album with a son in blue and another in white, both excited, both with plenty to say.

The one in Cal blue had intercepted a pass and made five tackles. The one in UCLA white had sacked Cal quarterback Pat Barnes. UCLA had won, 38-29, and seldom have bragging rights been taken so seriously.

“I think I had a better game, so he couldn’t talk too much,” Kato says.

“I’ve been reminding him who won all year,” Wasswa says.

It was the first time they had been on a football field together in different-colored jerseys

They played together at Sacramento High. They played a season together at Sacramento State and another at Pacific. And then Pacific went out of the football business and its players were on the market.

“It came down to the two UCs,” Wasswa said of transferring to UCLA or Cal. “We both wanted to play cornerback and stay in California. A lot of schools wanted a corner and a safety. But we both felt we could play corner . . . and then we found out that here, [former secondary] coach [Larry] Marmie wanted me to play corner and up there they wanted Kato to play corner and me to play safety.

“So we thought, ‘OK, two UCs, two corners, Mom’s happy.’ Both UCs are known for the power of their degrees, and both of us would play on TV almost every weekend.”

So much for plans.

Kato went to Berkeley and became a cornerback, and Wasswa came to Westwood and became a roverback, which is a kind of safety. And this week they play against each other and the game isn’t on television.

They talk two or three times weekly, comparing notes, competing statistically. Kato, an inch taller and a pound heavier, has intercepted a pass and deflected seven others this season. Wasswa is a defensive back with a linebacker’s mentality and 26 tackles, six of them for losses, four of them sacks. He also has an interception.

“I think that’s what makes it fun,” Wasswa says. “In football, every weekend we try to out-do each other. Then we call and find out how everybody did, the pluses and the minuses. Sometimes I tell him the good stuff, and he’ll ask me the bad stuff. I’ll tell him that’s confidential. That’s what makes it fun.”

Says Kato, “I think he’s ahead of me right now.” He then reminds that he had the higher grade-point average last quarter, 3.2 to 2.9.

One of the reasons for Wasswa’s senior success was a Serwanga get-together over some videotape after last season.

“Last year, I had a problem with thinking,” Wasswa says. “I was thinking while trying to make plays instead of thinking during the week and just letting it go on Saturday. Kato showed me that on tape, showed me my tentativeness, when I was thinking about things to do, my assignments. He knows how I play.”

The Serwangas admit that each will be watching the other from the sideline on Saturday.

It’s as close as they’ll get, unless Wasswa gets his wish. He’s on UCLA’s backup kickoff coverage team. Kato returns kickoffs for Cal.

“I think I’m going to talk to coach [Marc] Dove about that this week,” Wasswa says.

Dove, who coaches UCLA’s secondary, doubles with the kickoff team. In a perfect world, Wasswa would talk Dove into a position and steam downfield Saturday, drawing a bead on his brother.

And make the tackle. And laugh about it, remembering a spelling bee and a race to the grocery store.

Or miss. And be laughed at by a brother who just sees it as a continuance of a sprint in the moonlight at Cal State Sacramento.