Quad squad: Durst quadruplets are now 10, going strong

This is the game plan: Line up the Durst quadruplets, let the identical 10-year-old girls charge down the soccer field, then watch the confused looks of their dumbfounded opponents.

"Have you ever seen them play?" asks their community education coach, Don Freiborg. "They go full-speed."

"Uh, coach," interrupts one of the girls, "Sarah doesn't want to play offense. She wants to play goalie."

Freiborg looks at the goal to see a tiny whirlwind bouncing in her kid-size 13 1/2 basketball shoes, her face a sea of freckles, her auburn hair spotted in a rainbow of colors after a trip to a salon for highlighting as part of Wacky Hair Day.

Ten minutes into the game, Freiborg notices another quad on the sidelines. "Kendra, what are you doing out?" he asks.

"I'm Calli, Coach."

Another comes off the field, asking for rest.

"Who are you?" Freiborg asks, scrambling for a clipboard with the quads' names and corresponding numbers.

Minutes later, one of the quads scores the game-tying goal.

"Hey Megan, nice goal," Freiborg says.

"I'm Kendra," she says. "And that was Sarah who scored the goal."

Jim Durst, who has spent the past 45 minutes at a nearby field in Buffalo, Minn., watching son Travis, 12, play, switches places with his wife, Naomi, so he can catch the rest of his daughters' game. He, too, does a double take when one of the girls greets him with a high five.

"I get occasionally confused, too," the 38-year-old dad said. "The girls just keep coming at you."

Beating the odds

The same could be said for their birth. A decade ago, Naomi Durst beat the odds of one in 700,000 by having quadruplets without using fertility drugs. She may be defying even greater odds by maintaining her sanity.

When the Star Tribune first visited the Durst family in Buffalo, infants Sarah Elizabeth, Megan Marie, Calli Kristine and Kendra Nicole were fuzzy-haired, green-eyed, freckle-faced mischief-makers.

Those four on the floor have grown into auburn-haired, brown-eyed cuties who, at 55 to 60 pounds, may be slightly small for their age but command more attention and double takes than most children twice their size.

They've wowed audiences on both coasts, having been guests on "The Tonight Show" in Los Angeles and "Today" in New York. Maury Povich has had them on his show five times. During an appearance on "Tonight," the quads left George Clooney and Rob Lowe breathless -- not the other way around.

Looks can be deceiving, of course -- which is part of the fun. A few teachers may have discovered that last April Fools' Day when the girls plotted for the first time to pull a big switch.

But pity the bleary-eyed fool who can't see the difference between the girls, who have developed striking and powerful personalities of their own.

"Who am I?" any one of them may ask unsuspecting visitors.

Sarah, slightly tinier than the others, hopes to one day own a pet store. Calli expects to be a professional basketball star. Megan's going to be a teacher -- like mom. Kendra prefers riding her bike to thinking about the future.

"I'm the fastest swimmer," Kendra says.

"You're the slowest," Megan counters.

"One of the times we went on Jay Leno, there was this girl who really didn't sing too good," Kendra says.

"Yeah, but Jay Leno gave us nice toys -- a Furby," Megan says.

"My friend Teddy's initials are T.P., so we call him Toilet Paper," offers Sarah. "Get it?"

"Hey, which one of us talks the least?" asks Calli. "And is there anyone in the world who doesn't love the TV show 'Two of a Kind' with Mary-Kate and Ashley? Aren't twins just amazing?"

Kendra, who no longer wants to eat anything cooked on the grill, once loved the color pink, but now hates it. Megan, who always wears earrings, once loved green, but now hates it. Sarah and Calli are too pushy, their sisters say.

"It's been fascinating to watch them evolve," said Dr. Nancy Nelson, the quads' pediatrician since they were born on Feb. 10, 1993, at North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale. "How can four people so alike develop so differently?"

"The good thing is when you're lonely, you always have somebody to play with," Kendra says.

Crammed into a small basement bedroom with bunkbeds across from one another, where their parents just hope the quads will eventually talk themselves to sleep each night, the quads have grown highly competitive among themselves. But they still insist on playing on the same team.

Never any time off

Big brother Travis, who is happy to come along for the ride to family vacation spots such as Universal Studios or the Empire State Building, can simply skateboard away or escape with his buddies when the girls become too much to handle.

Mom, Naomi Durst, 45, an English teacher at Maple Lake High School, just completed a one-year leave. She knew it would be difficult to give up a year's salary, but after years of hustling home from work to cook for five kids and shuttle them to various activities, she needed to recharge her batteries.

As Jim Durst said, "After we had Travis, we wanted another baby. We just never planned for four at once."

The parents, both of whom have twins in their families, had joked about the possibility of twins. Then, 20 weeks into the pregnancy, Naomi and Jim learned she was carrying quadruplets.

They were born seven weeks prematurely and, a few weeks later, joined the family in their three-bedroom rambler. Target's corporate office supplied the Dursts with highchairs, car seats, baby supplies and clothes. A McDonald's in Buffalo gave the Dursts playpens. Maple Lake High School held a fund-raiser. And people whom the Dursts have never met sent money, clothing and blankets.

Sometimes that seems like so long ago. Last year, 11 inches of rain fell within a week in Buffalo. Water seeped into the Dursts' basement, forcing Jim to rip out carpet and gut the basement -- which meant stripping his daughters' room.

"It didn't faze them," said Jim, who fills service orders at Star West Chevrolet in Delano. "Nothing does.

"I used to take them to my family's farm and I'd hike them through the woods -- a good three miles -- to see if I could get them tired," he said. "But they wouldn't burn out.

"Now, when I get home, if I need some time to relax, I ask them 20 questions and that stops them in their tracks -- or it gets them to holding their own private convention of ideas."

The girls are beginning to develop friendships outside the home -- and rivalries, too. When the quads enter fifth grade this fall at Tatanka Elementary School in Buffalo, they know they will be split into two pairs. Naomi has asked that Sarah and Calli be separated because, Mom says, they can get a little feisty together.

Two weeks ago, the quadruplets made the ultimate declaration of independence:

They had their hair cut.

At different lengths.

Sarah's is the shortest -- just under the ears. Megan's is chin-length. Calli and Kendra allowed theirs to remain longer, but at different lengths.

"You can tell us apart," Sarah says. "But we could always tell us apart. I'm the one that scored seven goals in five games."

Paul Levy is at plevy@startribune.com.