It’s likely that many a Harvard biology and psychology professor would love to debate the existence of an “athletic gene.”

Given a chance to enter into the debate, the coaches and players of the Crimson cross-country team would argue that there must be.

Considering the team’s strong evidence, those professors who believe there is no such thing may just have to concede defeat.

Cara Sprague and Claire Richardson are junior runners for Harvard, but what these teammates have in common—besides the track—is that they both have a younger brother on the team.

Kevin Sprague and Stewart Richardson are freshmen at Harvard this year and have joined their siblings on the Crimson’s roster. In Kevin’s case, he will also be nordic skiing for Harvard with Cara in the winter.

Claire, the women’s cross country captain, was named All-Regional in 2007 and 2008 as well as first-team All Ivy-League for outdoor track in 2008 and 2009 and indoor track in 2009. In addition, she has been named to ESPN The Magazine’s Academic All-District I second team and Academic All-Ivy League.

Cara has competed at the Harvard-Yale dual meet and the Heptagonal Championships.

She was also the top Harvard finisher and 17th overall at the University of Albany Invitational in 2009, and while neither of the younger siblings has had a chance to garner such success with only one collegiate race to their credit, the boys will rely on ample past experience running with the family.

Claire and Stewart both started running when they reached the seventh grade, while the Spragues have a tradition of hitting the pavement together.

“I started because the coach said, ‘you should come out and run’ when I was in middle school,” Claire said. “He did the same thing to Stewart. It’s been cool to be able to watch his [Stewart’s] progression.”

For their part, Cara and Kevin—the youngest of four children—have two older sisters, one of whom, Erin, graduated from Harvard in 2005 and yes, she ran track too.

“Our family ran, but it was never something our parents pushed us to do,” Cara explained. “We just kind of fell into it and really enjoyed it.”

“My dad was always into running,” Kevin added. “And our oldest sister, Erin, was an influence for us.”

Skiing was another family activity for the Spragues, who are from Queensbury, New York.

“Our family would go up every winter to Gore Mountain in North Creek [New York] and ski,” Cara said. “not only downhill, but cross country skiing as well. Kevin and I are the youngest, so we always paired up for things.”