Positive People in Pinecrest: Trent Wasser

Trent Wasser
Trent Wasser

Palmetto High School senior Trent Wasser just finished his last season as a high school basketball player. The season extended all the way to the district semifinal game, a good season for a team that had a rough start at 5-4.

Wasser’s attention is now turning to the future. He’s still weighing his options as to where to go to college. He has been accepted to the University of Central Florida and Florida International University for academics. However, he would like to play basketball so he has been talking to other Division II and III colleges. He has had contact with schools in New York and Ohio, but nothing has been decided. Wasser does not expect to make any decisions until after the season and more likely toward the end of the school year.

“It depends on if I can get enough aid,” he says. “Maybe I’ll walk on in a school in Florida.”

He is undecided about his major, but thinks he might take something in criminology or law because of his family background. Wasser’s father is a private investigator, so he has been immersed in crime and legal issues all of his life.

Wasser has played basketball since he was four-years-old. He started at Coral Reef Park and then moved over to the league at Suniland Park. He also played in the Beth Am Basketball League, starting when he was in the fifth grade.

“This year and last year I put together my own team,” he says. “My friend’s dad coaches the team.”

Because basketball takes up so much of his time, most of Wasser’s community service has been basketball related. He volunteered at the Converse Open Gym at Jose Marti Park in downtown Miami.

“I volunteered and helped pass out food, helped score games and helped referee them,” he says.

The event drew approximately 300 children from seven to 18 years old to participate.

“My whole team volunteered. It was fun, even though it lasted from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.,” he says. “You get to play basketball and teach the little kids how to play basketball.”

At Palmetto, Wasser has been involved in the Amnesty International Club. “We sent out letters to free some political prisoner in Iran,” he says. “They were being brutally tortured. We sent letters to the Iranian government.”

Wasser has been in the HIV Peer Educators Club, or Health Information Project club, as well. Even though playing sports didn’t allow him to go into the classrooms, he did learn the same lessons as those going into the freshman classrooms.

“The club sponsor is a well -liked teacher,” he says. “They make it interesting and they make it fun to learn.”

Outside of school, he has been on an AAU basketball team called The Crusaders.

He usually plays in the spring and summer.

“We practice at Wayside Church. Most of the kids on the team go to Palmetto, Columbus or Gulliver,” he says. “We play in tournaments. Some we win, some we get blown out. We went to Orlando for the national championships and we came in second.”


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