COLD COMFORT
Ticats Lucas Wacha, Avery Jordan motivated by superstar siblings
Hamilton Tiger-Cats centre Mike Filer sprays running backs coach Corey Grant with cold water during practice at Tim Hortons Field on Monday. The Ticats take on Saskatchewan Thursday night at home.
Where there could conflict and envy, there is friendship and incentive.
The Hamilton Tiger-Cats have an unusual duo on their roster: two young Texans making CFL minimum pay, whose older brothers are multimillionaire stars in other sports.
Lucas Wacha, who backs up Larry Dean at middle linebacker, is tied for the team lead in special teams tackles. He’s the younger brother of fifth-year St. Louis Cardinals’ pitcher Michael Wacha, who has an 8-2 record and came within three outs of a no-hitter in early June while the Ticats were in training camp.
Offensive tackle Avery Jordan’s older brother is two-time NBA rebound leader DeAndre Jordan, who just signed a one-year $24.1 million US deal with Dallas Mavericks, after a decade as one of the L.A. Clippers’ Big Three with Chris Paul and Blake Griffin.
“I don’t know if it’s necessarily genetics,” 25year-old Wacha says. “I see it more as motivation. My brother and I are only a year and a half apart, so we’ve been competing, just fighting and clawing at each other, our whole lives. But he’s definitely my best friend, too. We talk all the time.
“He set the standards that I want to achieve. I want to be the best I can be at whatever I have to do, and that’s what he does. We learned that from our parents.”
Jordan is the youngest of four very athletic brothers who have combined to have pro careers in three different sports. Besides DeAndre’s marquee exploits, Brett Jordan played football at Colorado State and Cory Jordan played professional baseball in the New York Yankees system.
“I always played basketball,” says Jordan, who didn’t come out for football until he was a high school senior, then led his Houston high school team all the way to the state championship game.
“I never played on the same team as my brothers, but we’d always play against each other in 2-on-2 backyard basketball.
“It pushed you, just from being the youngest with three older brothers. It gave me something to look up to. I’ve got three brothers who are doing the right thing in life and are being great role models for me.”
The Ticats’ starting tackles are Tony Washington and Ryker Mathews, but Jordan, who’s on the practice roster, is the only other American offensive lineman in town, which is a positive indicator for him.
He has a good opportunity to eventually develop into a starter, because he’s only 23, very young for an international tackle to arrive in Canada.
Wacha, from Texarkana, knows how the practice roster can serve as a CFL launching pad. After playing college football at Wyoming, he arrived here last October, finishing the season on the practice roster, which led to a two-year contract. This year he’s on the game roster, has five special teams tackles (three in one game against Edmonton) and is inhaling information and experience from Dean.
Like his brother, he played baseball in high school, although they were never on the same team, because Michael was a senior by the time Lucas entered high school. Michael was a good basketball player and football quarterback, but left the gridiron in his high school freshman year “because he was tired of being sacked.”
The brothers did play baseball together in summer leagues, and Lucas himself was a threetime all-state right fielder who won two state high school titles.
He spent the Ticats’ bye week with his brother in St. Louis. Michael has a strained oblique muscle and likely won’t return to the mound until mid-August, otherwise he likely would have been selected for Tuesday’s MLB all-star game.
Wacha says he’s never felt a twinge of negative sibling rivalry around his brother’s success, nor his $5-million-plus US salary. “No, I don’t even think about that. I’m just really proud of my older brother and never, ever, would have any jealousy or any of that kind of stuff. I’m just happy for him.” Jordan expresses similar sentiments.
“I’m proud of all my brothers,” he says. “They were doing this, and I wanted to be just like them. And they all said, ‘No, man be better.’
“We have a very close bond, we talk to each other every day. Growing up and learning from them, it was an amazing feeling.”
NOTES: June Jones said Luke Tasker missed practice Sunday and Monday recovering from the effects of a PRP (platelet rich plasma) injection. He isn’t sure if Tasker will play Thursday against Saskatchewan, but thinks DE Adrian Tracy, who did practise, will . ... Johnny Manziel left the field for the latter half of practice to deal with some personal matters, Jones said.