Brother Act

Justin Dumais has finished eating his pasta and salad. He is comfortable, relaxed, looking like a financial analyst or a politician in his suit and tie. Prim almost. Next to Justin, 21, sits his brother Troy, 20. He is chattering away, about how close he came to making the 1996 Olympic diving team.

Justin starts talking too. Suddenly, seriously.

“I almost died twice this year,” he says. Now this is a conversation stopper. Troy looks and smiles a little. Justin begins to tell his story.

The brothers Dumais, the diving sensations from Ventura who have been perfecting their styles at the University of Texas with Coach Matt Scoggin, have come to this Seattle suburb to try to qualify for the 2000 Olympics.

In 1996 Troy, the more accomplished, finished third on the platform at the Olympic trials. Third is the worst place to be in diving. Just one spot away from the Olympics, so close. Troy was only 16. Maybe he didn’t start those trials with expectations, but he sure finished with some. He expects to be in these Olympics.

Since 1996, Troy has won one national title on the 3-meter; finished second twice on the 3-meter; and has one second and one third on the platform. Justin has finished second once on the platform.

Troy has been bothered because of an injured muscle in his calf, one that kept him out of the 2000 U.S. Indoor Nationals. The muscle is fine now, he says. And, really, what’s the big deal about a bad muscle when your brother is telling stories about his brushes with death?

“I’ve been close to death, real close,” Justin says. “It’s so hard to believe, and when I think about it, it doesn’t seem real. But, for some reason that I don’t understand, I had two of the weirdest car crashes. Really bad ones. How I haven’t been hurt really badly or killed, I don’t understand.”

The first one came on Feb. 24. Justin was driving his 1995 Chevrolet Cavalier in Austin, Tex. It had just started raining. If Justin recently read his Rules of the Road book, he would have known this is the time the road is the most slippery.

“I know now,” he says. “The water mixes with the oil on the dry road and it gets slick. That’s what happened. I just totally spun out. I did about a 270-degree turn, I swear. I got control for a minute, but spun out again and ended up smashing into a tree.

“Yes, I was wearing my seat belt or I would have been thrown out the window. That’s what the police told me.”

The Cavalier was a total loss. Justin wasn’t. He was bruised and scared and swore off cars for awhile. He rode a bike around Austin, even took the bus.

Justin has been a straight-A student at Texas. He had gone to USC for a year, the winner of a full academic scholarship, but when Troy opted for Texas, Justin decided to join him.

The brothers love to train together. They are often synchronized diving partners. In these Sydney Olympics, synchronized diving will be on the schedule for the first time. The synchro divers will be picked this summer from among the men and women who qualify in individual events. Troy and Justin are pretty sure they’d make a great medal-winning team were they both able to make the U.S. team. But we’ve gotten away from Justin’s death trips.

About two months ago, having tired of biking and busing around Austin, he decided to use his insurance money and get a new vehicle. He came home to Ventura. He bought himself a truck. “A Silverado,” he says.

“A man’s vehicle.” he laughs.

He can laugh about this because, well, he is here to laugh.

“I was driving back to school,” he says. “I was making the drive by myself. I just thought it would be cool to relax on the road with my new truck. So I’m about two hours from Austin, on the back roads, in the backwoods, actually. It was the day after Memorial Day weekend and there was so much traffic so I decided to get off the interstate.

“There was this big bungee cable in the road. It must have fallen off a truck. The way the sun was glaring, I didn’t see it. The cable punctured my back tire and I spun out again. Pieces of stuff were flying all over, smashed my side-view mirror. When I came to a stop, I called home on the cell phone. I think I was hysterical I was so scared. I was screaming at my mom, ‘Why is this happening to me?’ ”

Mom, Kathleen, as mothers do, told Justin to cool it, be glad he wasn’t dead or badly hurt and get on with things. That’s what he has done.

At the same U.S. Nationals in April, which Troy missed because of his calf injury, Justin dove. But he had a serious case of bronchitis and an ear infection.

He finished a disappointing 18th in the 3-meter and 11th in the platform.

But now the brothers are healthy. And eager. And unwilling to talk about making the team together. No brothers have ever made an Olympic diving team.

“If we do that,” Troy says, “I’ll have a lot to say afterward. But I don’t think I’ll talk about it now.”

He has spent the last four years thinking about the Olympics. When you come so close once, you don’t stop.

“To have been so, so close,” he says, “there has been frustration left since 1996. But I was a young guppy then, 16 years old. But it also boosted my confidence big-time. I’ve improved a lot in four years. The way both of us are looking at this is that we’re just at another meet. Talk to me after this meet, though. I might feel differently.”

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Diane Pucin can be reached at her e-mail address: diane.pucin@latimes.com