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Photo by Erin Nelson Sweeney.
Moses Caldwell, a freshman at Briarwood Christian School, throws a discus during practice on April 1.
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Photo courtesy of Staci Caldwell.
Eli Wharton, Isaac Wharton, Moses Caldwell and Isaiah Davis during a track meet at Hoover High School in June 2022.
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Photos by Erin Nelson Sweeney.
Isaac and Eli Wharton, identical twins from Uganda and freshmen at Bessemer Academy, on the track at Hoover High School.
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Photos by Erin Nelson Sweeney.
Isaiah Davis, a freshman at Homewood High School, runs during track and field practice at Waldrop Stadium on April 3.
While brothers often have at least one parent in common, that’s not always the case.
Identical twin brothers Eli and Isaac Wharton of Hoover, Isaiah Davis of Homewood and Moses Caldwell of Meadow Brook are one such case. Only the Whartons, of Hoover’s Lake Cyrus community, share the same mothers, but the foursome indeed have a shared connection that is like a brotherhood.
All four are adopted orphans from Uganda, now high school freshmen who all excel at track and field.
“I do, in a way, feel a type of kinship to Isaiah and Moses, even though we are not related,” Eli Wharton said. “I feel this way because of the sense that we were born in the same place and are growing up around each other.”
“Our families have been friends since we were little,” Isaac Wharton said. “We have the same heritage, Uganda, same-looking families. We may not be best friends, but we know we will always have that special connection.”
Davis feels that connection, too.
“We are all from Uganda, and I’ve known them since I was little,” he said. “I ran with the twins in kindergarten.”
Caldwell remembers going to each other’s birthday parties. “In the summer, we hung out a lot,” he said. “When we were in junior high and after COVID stuff, we couldn’t hang out as much, except school and everything. I love watching them run and race and compete. That’s one of my favorite things to watch.”
And each has made a name for himself as a runner.
Competing for Bessemer Academy, Eli Wharton was the Alabama Independent School Association 2023 varsity state champion in the 1,600-meter and 3,200-meter as an eighth grader and again this year as a ninth-grader. He broke the state record in both races this year. He was also the 2022 and 2023 AISA varsity and junior varsity state cross-country champion in eighth and ninth grades.
Isaac Wharton was the 2022 AISA varsity state champion in the 800-meter and second in the 1,600 and 3,200 to his brother as an eighth grader and again this year as a ninth-grader. He also set a new state record in the 800 this year. He was the 2023 AISA varsity and junior varsity state cross-country runner-up, again behind his brother, as a ninth grader.
Davis was one of two ninth graders to finish in the top 20 in cross-country for the Alabama High School Athletic Association’s Class 6A. He finished 20th overall and was the top male finisher for Homewood High School, with a time of 16 minutes, 19.94 seconds.
The Patriot freshman ran a personal record time of 1 minute, 58.98 seconds in the 800-meter during the indoor track season at the Last Chance Invitational meet in Birmingham in January. That wound up being the fourth fastest time for a freshman in the nation.
Davis finished fifth overall, at 52.41, in the 400-meter at the Icebreaker Invitational indoor meet in Birmingham in January, and in early March he was the second overall freshman in the 800 at the New Balance Indoor Nationals in Boston, with a time of 2:00.15.
Caldwell competes for Briarwood Christian High School, competing in discus and shot put. As an eighth grader, he broke the Briarwood Junior High school record and the Southern Conference record in discus.
Photo courtesy of Staci Caldwell.
Eli Wharton, Isaac Wharton, Moses Caldwell and Isaiah Davis during a track meet at Hoover High School in June 2022.
GREAT POTENTIAL
Bessemer Academy coach Bob Spurgeon said the Wharton twins are just special and different.
“Last year, they were winning state races,” Spurgeon said. “In the 3,200, 1,600, 800 as eighth graders, they were competing at the varsity level. They’re not just talented athletes, but they’re great kids. They’re just super-polite, well-mannered, great kids. And not only are they phenomenal athletes, but being that they’re freshmen, they’re also leaders on the team.”
The coach, who teaches the twins in his honors English class, said they excel in the classroom as well. “You’ve got phenomenal athletes, phenomenal kids, and they’re also phenomenal students,” he said. “That’s a great thing. They are able to make great grades and compete at a very high level, especially considering the fact that they’re ninth graders.”
Kelly McNair coaches distance runners at Homewood High. She said Davis is a very talented, humble freshman with a lot of potential.
“Isaiah is extremely, extremely talented in the 400, 800, 1,600, 3,200 and 5K,” McNair said. “The talent lies in that he could race and be in our top three for all of those. If you are a strong 400 or 800 runner, you’re not typically a strong distance guy, like in the 5K. He has the potential to excel across the board.”
So what’s his ceiling?
“That’s a great question, a fantastic question,” the coach said. “I don’t even know where his limit is, honestly. My priority with him is going to be to keep him healthy. I try not to overtrain him. I don’t want to push too much mileage, too much speed work. He’s responding well to what we’re doing, so I’m gonna continue to hold back a little bit on training right now.”
Photos by Erin Nelson Sweeney.
Isaac and Eli Wharton, identical twins from Uganda and freshmen at Bessemer Academy, on the track at Hoover High School.
IN THE FIELD
Caldwell breaks the mold of the Ugandan quartet as he competes in the throwing events of discus and shot put. In doing so, he takes after his adoptive father.
“One day doing garage work, I found all my dad’s shot puts and discus from college,” Moses recalled from his days as a rising fourth grader. “I had been asking about [them], and then we got me my own tiny shot put to throw in the yard. I wanted to go to some track meets that summer.”
His adoptive father, Josh Caldwell, is a volunteer coach at Briarwood and couldn’t have been more pleased, as his son’s interest in the sport brought back memories of him and his father.
“When I was 15, my dad spent a lot of time teaching me, helping me learn how to throw. It was a really great experience through college, and then I helped coach after college with some area schools,” he said.
“I thought it was exciting, and I looked forward to seeing if he was interested in it. But I wanted him to be interested. I didn’t want to just tell him to do it. I wanted him to be interested in it, too,” Josh Caldwell said.
Briarwood track coach Aaron Margene said Moses is a great young athlete with some lofty goals, whose work ethic will allow him to go after them.
“The thing that I find most compelling about him is his knowledge and skill of discus and shot put at such a young age,” Margene said. “It is obvious that his dad is very knowledgeable and that Moses soaks up whatever information and technique that he can.
“He’s right now undersized [compared] to a lot of the guys that he’s competing against,” the coach said. “When he’s done growing and maturing, he’s gonna be a really big force in the shot and the discus, especially the discus. He’s third on our team this year, and the two guys in front of them are both seniors, much bigger than he is.”
Photos by Erin Nelson Sweeney.
Isaiah Davis, a freshman at Homewood High School, runs during track and field practice at Waldrop Stadium on April 3.
CALLING TO ADOPT
The Whartons have four biological children, a daughter and three sons, each of whom is now an adult. Angie Wharton said she had a friend who had adopted a daughter from China, and God “laid it [adoption] on my heart. I couldn’t shake it.”
“Every time I’d see her and talk to her about her adoption process, my chest felt like it was going to explode. I remember asking Kelcey [her husband] about it,” she continued. “‘What do you think about adoption?’ My two youngest big kids were in high school. He laughed and said, ‘I think we need to pray about it.’”
The couple visited Lifeline, an adoption agency. “We knew immediately when we started talking about Uganda, that’s where we’re supposed to adopt from,” she said. “It just wouldn’t go away. It just kept piercing our hearts. We just started the process, and here we are.”
Briefly, Angie Wharton questioned if she’d be able to handle multiple children. Then she got a post-Mother’s Day call from Claire Davis, a social worker with Lifeline (and Isaiah Davis’s mother).
“‘Would you consider twins?’” she recalled her asking. “Of course, I started screaming on the other end. Yes! If God wants me to take twins, I’m gonna take twins. We got the pictures the day after Father’s Day.”
Claire Davis said she and her husband, Joel, have different stories of coming to a place of wanting to adopt a child.
“I knew in college that I wanted to enter a helping profession, and I was really interested in adoption,” she recalled. “I began my professional career working in adoption, and I worked with our Uganda program, back in 2009.
“Joel and I ... we’re Christians, and we also know that we’re adopted, and we know what the Bible says about being adopted into God’s family,” she said. “That always really stood out to us.”
Joel Davis remembers talking about adoption before he and Claire were married, but it was something they thought would happen when they were older. Trips to orphanages and Peru and Haiti, however, brought the idea to the forefront. In addition to adopting Isaiah from Uganda, the Davises also adopted a 13-year-old son, Nico, from the Congo and gave birth to 11-year-old Benji.
Like the Davises, the Caldwells went to Samford University. Staci Caldwell remembers Josh, who she was dating at the time, saying he needed to talk to her.
“I thought he was about to break up with me,” she said. “He actually said, ‘I just want you to know that I don’t know if I ever want to have birth children. I only want to adopt.’ I said, ‘Great. Me too.’”
The couple got engaged four months later and were married nine months after that.
“It’s always been our plan to grow our family through adoption,” she said.
The Caldwells have a second adoptive son, an 11-year-old from Haiti. Staci Caldwell said the commandment to care for orphans and widows in James 1:27 led them to choose this path.
“We wanted to care for children who might not have a home,” she said. “Those are the children who are at the greatest risk. We wanted our life to count for more than having a job or doing something that was maybe the easiest thing to do. We really wanted the Lord to use our life in a way that wasn’t maybe conventional or normal, if that makes sense. We know we were not born into His family, but He saved us.”
