ATHENS, Ga. — In those days, the football players were allowed to all stay in the same dorm. And so in the case of the Georgia football team of that era, when guys with names like Hines and Kirby and Bobo were around, it was often another trio that caused the most ruckus: Mike Luckie, Miles Luckie and Dustin Luckie.

Advertisement

Otherwise known as the Luckie Triplets.

“We made McWhorter Hall interesting,” Mike Luckie would put it two decades later.

That gives off the image of the Hanson Brothers, the brawling trio made immortal in Slap Shot, but they — along with the real-life Carlson brothers they were based on — were only brothers. Georgia football’s real-life version were, and are, literal triplets. That appears to be historically unique at that high level of college football.

They were also pretty good players.

“Being triplets, that’s cool for the novelty standpoint,” Miles Luckie said. “But you’ve still got to be decent players for people to continue to talk about you.”

Dustin was the first to come along, at 8:06 p.m. on the night of Oct. 29, 1976. He would go on to be a starting linebacker at Georgia for two years.

Mike was the second-born, 14 minutes after his older brother. Mike would play linebacker for three years at Georgia before transferring for his final year at James Madison, following his position coach there.

Miles was the last to enter the world, his official birth time at 8:30 p.m. He would be Georgia’s starting center as a junior and senior, and first-team All-SEC in 1999.

How unique was all this? Georgia’s sports information department at the time could find no record of a set of triplets having ever played for the same Division I-A football team. It doesn’t appear to have happened in the two decades since. Ithaca, a Division II program, had the Scarpa brothers, whose careers ended last fall. Lackawanna Junior College currently has a set, the Boothmans. McKendree University, a Division II school, recently had a trio of offensive linemen.

Twins have been more common: South Carolina had the Brinkley twins, Jasper and Casper, in the late 2000s. But if you google “football” and “triplets” you’re more likely to come up with the best combinations of quarterback/running back/wide receiver. (Almost always non-relatives, it should be pointed out.)

Advertisement

The Luckie triplets, meantime, are often overlooked because they played before college football, recruiting coverage and the information age really converged.

“Could you imagine it if were playing now?” Miles said, with a laugh.

As Miles spoke, he was on his way to Mike’s house in Norcross, Ga., where they were doing some self-quarantining. A few days before that, Dustin had come over and spent the night at Mike’s house. Dustin and Mike live about five miles from each other in Roswell, Ga. They’re as inseparable now as they were then.

They were not a package deal to Georgia, per se. They hate that term, because it hints that one or two of the brothers was better and the school took the trio to get who they really wanted. As the brothers remember it, Georgia, as well as Clemson, wanted all three for different reasons. All three, who grew up in the Atlanta suburb of Clarkston, Ga., filled needs at different positions.

They all redshirted the first year. While they were recruited under Ray Goff’s staff, they flourished after Jim Donnan took over.

“It was a unique challenge coaching these young men. They were very close, as brothers, but were also good teammates that came from a very loving family,” Donnan recalled this week. “They were very instrumental in our program development on and off the field. Proud of the men they have become and the way they rep the G.”

Mike was actually the first to get playing time, and as a sophomore had a pick-six against Mississippi State. But the linebacker position became so deep that he ended up transferring to James Madison for his final year, following his position coach there. But Mike still thinks of himself as a Georgia Bulldog (he graduated from UGA before transferring) and revels in his time in Athens, during a time the campus and the city were really becoming trendy.

Advertisement

“It was the mid-90s, the whole grunge thing, and of course everyone went downtown for the music scene,” Mike said. “Athens, it kind of is what it is. The culture there is just lights out. It was just fun, you know?”

They didn’t want to be those weird siblings who were only around each other. Marcus Stroud was their roommate for a couple years. Their circle included Jasper Sanks and Jermaine Smith. Their suite also included Brandon Miller, whose love of braised chicken wings caused the room to have “this weird smell,” as Mike put it, and “you had to hold your breath when you came in sometimes.”

When outside media did write about the brothers it predictably was about the triplets angle. At first they were okay with it, going back to a story in Scholastic America when they were in high school. But as time went on they got annoyed at being asked simply about being triplets. As Dustin would point out, he never sat in on a meeting with Miles when he played center. They were three different players.

“The coaches and players didn’t look at us as triplets,” Dustin said. “The coaches and players looked at us as: That’s Dustin, and that’s Mike and that’s Miles.”

After college, Miles and Mike worked for Philip Morris. Mike’s area was Nashville, so he “left the clan” a second time. But he moved back and now works for a pharmaceutical company. Miles works for EcoLab as a corporate account manager. Dustin works for Rodney Strong wine.

They also still look a bit alike, by their own description. Mike and Miles are identical and Dustin fraternal. One can tell all three apart by being around them for a little while, but their mannerisms are still similar, and Mike said he can’t tell over the phone whether he’s speaking to Dustin or Miles.

“We do have other friends. But we all live within a 25-mile radius of each other, and see each other quite a bit,” Dustin said.  “We’re like three best friends. We can’t help but be.”

(Photo of the Luckie triplets: Courtesy of the University of Georgia Athletics)