Congratulations, Mrs. Barber, It’s Twins

No need to wait until Sunday. I’m about to give you the Super Bowl MVP.

Most Valuable Parent.

When Tampa Bay Buccaneer cornerback Ronde Barber takes the field, that will mean both of Geraldine Barber’s twin sons have played in the Super Bowl; running back Tiki Barber played for the New York Giants in Super Bowl XXXV two years ago.

Two Super Bowl starters from one egg. Two men reaching the peak of their profession thanks to one mom so proud she can’t even describe it.

“How do you put that into words?” Geraldine Barber said.

Apparently the only way is to create a new dictionary entry. That was the solution for Philadelphia Eagle Pro Bowl quarterback Donovan McNabb’s mother, who shook her head when asked if she could comprehend Geraldine Barber’s fortune.

“I can’t imagine, because one is such a joy,” Wanda McNabb said. “It must be double-joy for her.”

Double-joy. It’s a fair reward for a single mother who often pulled double duty, working two jobs to provide for her kids -- just as the 50th-anniversary Corvette her sons gave her for her 50th birthday last month is a well-deserved upgrade after all of those years she hauled her boys to practice in a Chevrolet Chevelle and wore out her Oldsmobile Cutlass Sierra driving to their college games.

She was so dedicated to her sons that she sat in her regular seat at Scott Stadium for the opening game of their senior season at the University of Virginia five days after having a double-mastectomy.

The courage to fight cancer was something she drew from her sons, who came into this world battling.

Twins are more likely to be born prematurely, and Geraldine first went into labor six months into the pregnancy. The doctors gave her drugs to halt the process, but a month later she went into labor again.

“They’ve always been impatient,” Geraldine said.

In her second hospital stay, she had to spend 30 days in bed, on her back, hooked up to tubes pumping intravenous drugs into her.

The twins were born five weeks early, on April 7, 1975. The babies were rushed to the incubator, where they had “tubes in the side of their heads, IVs running everywhere,” Geraldine said. She didn’t get to hold them for three days. It was then that she named them. Her husband’s friend was a cultural exchange student from Africa, and he helped with their names: Jamael Oronde (first-born son) and Atiim Kiambu (fiery-tempered king).

Geraldine and James Barber divorced when the twins were 4 years old, and he wasn’t a part of their lives afterward.

There’s some super-human quality about single mothers. They can’t leap great distances, but somehow they’re able to overcome time constraints to get everything done each day.

“You really don’t think about it,” Geraldine said.

They just do it. And then one day there’s a son returning an interception for a touchdown to clinch the NFC championship, smiling that big smile with the teeth the mom paid to have straightened.

The twins never fought for her affection.

“There was no need to,” Ronde said. “She showered us both. My mom was great. She let us grow up to be ourselves.”

When they began to play sports she had two requirements. They had to play on the same team, because there was no way she could take them to different practices. And if she was going to spend her hard-earned money on league fees, they weren’t going to quit.

Geraldine handled finances for the local chapter of the Girl Scouts in Roanoke, Va. As the kids grew older and could spend more time alone, she took on other jobs at night. She did transcriptions at an office building. She did inventory control, at supermarkets and warehouses, going up and down the aisles scanning and counting merchandise.

“We never knew that she was doing all that,” Ronde said. “We always got what we wanted; she found a way to get it.”

When they were in junior high, she wanted to get her sons braces but feared she couldn’t afford to pay for them both at the same time. She found an orthodontist who gave her a “group” discount and agreed to a payment plan.

“We ate beans and hot dogs for a long time to take care of that,” Geraldine said.

Flexibility was more important than finances when it came to taking jobs, because she wanted to see her sons’ games.

Sitting in the stands is a big part of what football mothers do. As Wanda McNabb said: “We’re like postmen; you sit in the rain, the sleet, the snow ... “

When the Barbers went to Virginia, Geraldine established her Saturday routine, leaving Roanoke at 6 a.m. to make the two-hour drive to Charlottesville, stopping at Hardee’s for breakfast, then finding her seat by 10:30 to watch her sons come out for pregame warmups. They’d see her in the stands, always wearing her distinctive hat.

“A big straw hat, like a Greg Norman hat,” Ronde said. “It had two huge pins, one with a picture of me, one with a picture of Tiki. I thought she looked kind of snazzy, myself.

“She was always worried, ‘Am I embarrassing you?’

“Mom, you could never embarrass me.”

She made it to every road game, driving everywhere except for a flight to Detroit for a game at Michigan. Her longest drive was 15 hours, to Shreveport, La., for the Independence Bowl. A 15-hour drive to Shreveport just to see a football game? Now that’s love.

“That’s my babies!” Geraldine said.

Then, in the August before their senior year at Virginia in 1996, she learned she had breast cancer. As always, she thought of them first. She thought of their last go-round in college, their preparation for the NFL draft. When she first called them, she said, “I’m going to ruin your year.”

“She didn’t want us to worry,” Ronde said. “She was strong enough to deal with it on her own.”

But the twins weren’t about to forget their mother

“At that point, our roles shifted,” Geraldine said. “They became the nurturers and caretakers. They would call, [asking], ‘How are you feeling? Are you drinking water? You need to keep fluids in the system.’ They never wanted me to think I was in the battle by myself.”

She wasn’t about to forget the twins, either.

She had the surgery on a Monday, left the hospital Tuesday, went back to work Wednesday and was in the stands when the Cavaliers played Central Michigan that Saturday.

“I just wanted to be there,” Geraldine said. “Cancer has taken a part of my body, but I’m not going to let this disease take my life.”

Throughout the season, she scheduled her chemotherapy sessions for Tuesdays so she would feel well enough to go to the games on Saturday. The sessions went through April, ending around the same time the Giants selected Tiki in the second round and the Buccaneers picked Ronde in the third round of the NFL draft.

That’s when Tiki told her, “You don’t have to work anymore.”

She tried retirement for four months. It drove her crazy. So she went to work in the finance department for the County of Roanoke. And she volunteered for the American Cancer Society, facilitating survivor networking groups and educating college students about healthy lifestyles that can lower cancer risks.

With her sons in different cities and her job frequently requiring her to work weekends, she can’t make it to all of the games anymore. So she uses the satellite dish and shuttles up and down the stairs, watching and taping both their games.

On Sunday, she’ll watch her second Super Bowl in person, thanks to the efforts of one of her boys, who made the Barbers the 13th set of brothers to reach the title game.

Can’t we get this mom a Chunky Soup commercial?

“I don’t know about that,” she said. She’s happy enough with the Visa check card commercial in which the twins have trouble buying flowers for her because they don’t have identification.

“I think it’s adorable,” Geraldine said.

She only has one complaint: “I have yet to get my flowers.”

Actually, the Twins have an unpaid debt from when she was lying on her back in the hospital for those 30 days before they were born.

“One of these days,” she told her unborn children, “Mama’s gonna say you owe her.”

But to date she hasn’t demanded restitution.

“They’re good kids,” she said. “They never let me forget for a moment how much they love me. That’s all I need.”

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J.A. Adande can be reached at: j.a.adande@latimes.com

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Twice as Nice

Ten twins have played in the NFL, AFL and AAFC (All-American Football Conference).

Those players, with positions, span of NFL careers and teams:

BARBER:

RONDE

CB

1997-

Tampa Bay

TIKI

RB

1997-

N.Y. Giants

*

BELL:

MARK

DE

1979-84

Seattle,

Balt.-Ind.

MIKE

DE

1979-91

Kansas City

*

CASH:

KEITH

TE

1991-96

Pittsburgh,

Kansas City

KERRY

TE

1991-96

Indianapolis

Raiders,

Chicago

*

GOLSEN:

GENE

RB

1926

Louisville

TOM

G

1926

Louisville

*

McDONALD:

DEVON

LB

1993-96

Indianapolis,

Arizona

RICARDO

LB

1992-99

Cincinnati,

Chicago

*

McKENZIE:

RALEIGH

G

1985-99

Wash., Phil.,

S.D., G.B.

REGGIE

LB

1985-92

Raiders,

San Fran.

*

SAUL:

RICH

OL-LB

1970-81

L.A. Rams

RON

G

1970-81

Houston,

Washington

*

SERWANGA:

KATO

CB

1998-2001

New Eng.,

Washington

WASSWA

DB

1999-2000

San Fran.,

Minnesota

*

SHOENER:

HAL

E-DE

1948-50

San Fran.

HERB

DE

1948-49

Wash.

*

TABOR:

PAUL

C-G

1980

Chicago

PHIL

DL

1979-82

N.Y. Giants

Sources: www.profootballhof.com and www.twinstuff.com