RSSBrothers in pads
Wasser twins always have each other's back at Cedaredge
Cade Wasser is the smaller of the two Wasser twins, but his instincts on defense and his ability to find openings on offense make him a good player for Cedaredge.
Carter Wasser is the ‘best player’ Cedaredge coach Brandon Milholland has coached in his 10 years as a coach. Wasser is a fullback/linebacker for the Bruins.
QUICKREAD
MARKLEY CLEARED TO PLAY
Doctors on Friday cleared Cedaredge starting quarterback and safety Dante Markley to play in the Class 1A state football championship 1 p.m. today at Buena Vista.
But Markley, who has passed and rushed for more than 1,000 yards with a combined 26 touchdowns, and who missed the Bruins 16-12 semifinal win last week over Hotchkiss with concussion symptoms, said Bruins coach Brandon Milholland told him he likely would not start on offense or defense.
Markley said he likely will play some quarterback and perhaps at safety on third-and-long situations.
Markley suffered a concussion Nov. 10 in the fourth quarter of the Bruins 18-0 quarterfinal win over Monte Vista.
“I’m not complaining at all at this point,” Markley said. “I’m just happy to play.”
Trent Walker would start at quarterback for Markley, and Peter Williamson would start at safety.
“It feels great to be cleared,” said Markley, who finally passed memory, balance, coordination and physical tests. “I’ve got one more shot at it.”
Cade Wasser remembers it, because he was the one being pushed and taunted, the only white kid on the team — besides his brother.
Back in Agana, Guam, in first-grade Pop Warner football, Adam Wasser was watching his sons, twins Carter and Cade, practice. Carter Wasser, the younger but bigger twin, and Cade, went to get some water.
Adam Wasser saw the skirmish: Cade, the smallest on the team, was getting bumped around by three other boys. He told Carter “to go get them,” Cade recalled.
“He hit one of them and they all ran away,” Cade said. “So ever since then we’ve always had each other’s back.”
The twins try not to think about today’s Class 1A state championship at 1 p.m. at Buena Vista as likely being their final game together. It’s about more than the twins, because the whole community has been washed in blue.
“But we’ve been playing together for 12 seasons of football, whatever it is,” Cade said. “It’s just a great feeling knowing I’ve got this side and Carter’s on the other side.”
Even on defense, that’s where the seniors play — apart. Twins could hardly be any more different. Carter, who’s been about 50 pounds heavier than Cade since junior high and now stands 6-foot-3 and 205 pounds, is the left-side linebacker, the enforcer. On the other side is Cade, the right-side cornerback, 6-foot and 155 pounds. He’s pesky. He’s fast. He talks.
“I’ve always been almost like a Chihuahua,” Cade said. “I always mouth off. Not always. But I run my mouth.”
Cade is the elder by 25 minutes, but in a biological sense, they’re separated by a year. Carter grew facial hair a year earlier; in fact, he’s sprouting a playoff beard. “It’s kind of embarrassing,” Cade said.
Trying to reach the Wassers by phone? Try Cade.
“Carter doesn’t answer his phone,” Cedaredge coach Brandon Milholland said. “And Cade answers it all the time. You can tell who’s the talker.”
They’re part of a Cedaredge senior class that has taken the Bruins from nine wins in their previous three seasons to 11 in a row this season.
Carter Wasser is also a fullback who has rushed for more than 1,000 yards, has a 4.8-second 40-yard dash and the strength to tote linebackers like school bags.
Milholland said Carter is “the best (college) prospect I’ve had in 10 years of coaching.”
Carter said he’s getting interest to play football from coaches at Colorado Mesa University and Western State Colorado University. He’s jersey No. 44.
No. 10 is different. Same speed, but more outgoing, Cade has instincts that have allowed him to nab four interceptions and as a receiver find openings in the secondary. With 31 receptions and 409 yards, Cade has become quarterback Dante Markley’s top target.
In Cedaredge’s 16-12 win over Hotchkiss in last weekend’s semifinals, Cade caught two 2-point conversions from backup Trent Walker that made the difference on the scoreboard.
Cade doesn’t get picked on anymore.
But, boy, if someone does …
“I do remember some other times in middle school I’d heard some guys might be picking on him,” Carter said. “I’m like, ‘Sweet. Who’s doing it?’ “
Together, the Wasser twins, like the rest of the Bruins, say the top prize has been too blurred to talk about.
A state championship? Cedaredge hasn’t had a chance to win one since 1993.
“I think it seemed like such a tough goal,” Carter Wasser said, “that we never specifically talked about being in a state championship.”
Of course, they were moving around too much to claim such a goal. In 2001, shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, Adam Wasser, then a commercial pilot for United Airlines, was laid off.
“No one wanted to fly,” Cade said. Afterward, the Wassers lived in North Carolina and North Dakota until Adam Wasser began flying again, this time for Japan Airlines out of Hawaii.
When the twins were in sixth grade, the family moved to Cedaredge. Adam Wasser still is a pilot, commuting from Cedaredge to Guam, a 23-hour flight.
Cade runs precise routes, too.
“Cade is your intellectual one,” Milholland said. “He takes great pride in being smart, knowing how to get open on routes. And he’s a tough kid, too.”
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