Their looks are about the only thing they don’t have in common. Rob is white and 6-foot, 7-inches tall. Kyle is black and 5-foot, 11-inches tall.
They even have the same last name: Lewis. They both love basketball and play for the University of Denver Pioneers. They’re both Coloradans. They both recently took up golf. They’re both junior finance majors. Both had internships this summer in finance. And they’re roommates.
“We decided since we have all our classes together and we play basketball that we should room together,” says Rob, a forward from Colorado Springs.
‘We do everything together,” Kyle adds. “We eat together, work out together, play ball together. We’re always together.”
“Some people do call us brothers,” Rob says, “but when they see us, well, they know that’s not really the case.”
Undoubtedly as roommates, they’ll get to know each other even better. For example, Kyle has learned Rob snores and sleep walks. In fact, Rob says this summer he sleep walked right out of his bedroom, locked the door behind him and ended up sitting on a table in the living room. “I had to go down to the front desk and get them to let me back in my room at 3:30 in the morning,” Rob says with a deep chuckle.
Kyle says he can’t top Rob’s sleep walking when it comes to strange roommate habits. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see if I develop something in the future.”
The pokes are, of course, all in jest. “We pick on each other sometimes, but that’s just the way we are. It’s all brotherly love,” Kyle says.
Kyle credits their closeness to having survived the rigors of Division I sports with regular 6 a.m. wake-up calls and daily three-hour practices. “We started out together and there were seven of us. Now we’re the only two left,” he says. “We fought through it all and have survived.”
Joe Scott, the men’s head basketball coach, admits the two “both have had their troubles, but they came here at the same time and have been part of building the program and have been good from day one.”
“You couldn’t ask for two better guys,” Scott says. “They love the program, they love the game, they love their school and they’re smart and over the last two years they’ve played a big role in making this program better. Now for this year, we have to see how much more improvement we’re going to make, but with the kinds of kids these two are, I like our chances of continuing to get a lot better.”
This summer the two even had similar internships, both in finance. Rob worked at Ryan Financial, a financial planning firm in the Denver Tech Center. “It was really different, but I learned a lot,” he says. “I’d sit in on meetings and take notes and write down words I didn’t even know — I had to look them up online after the meeting.”
And Kyle worked at Lazarus Investment Partners in Cherry Creek. “I had a great time, it was a true learning experience,” he says. “I liked that there’s so much to learn, and I like the competition.”
Rob says there are parallels between business and basketball. “They’re both very much about hard work and teamwork.”
And Kyle agrees, of course.