The Paiges: A house divided; a family united

MARION - Game nights are late nights at 4215 Willowbrook Drive.

Perhaps Marcus Paige played at Waterloo. Or maybe his sister Morgan traveled to Epworth.

Even so, there's more on the agenda than a shower, hitting the books and hitting the sack.

There's game tape to watch. Two of them.

“We might not watch the whole games, but we'll definitely watch some of both games,” Morgan said. “My dad doesn't like to miss games.”

Most nights, Ellis Paige doesn't have a choice.

Here's the choice: Does he watch Marcus, a sophomore at Linn-Mar? Or does he follow Morgan, a senior guard (and his wife Sherryl, the head coach) at Marion High School?

Welcome to the dilemma at the Paige household. It's a house divided, yet united.

“It's a pretty wild ride sometimes,” Sherryl said. “But I wouldn't trade it for anything. Both of the kids are where they want to be, and both of them are happy.”

And both of them are very talented. Morgan (23.5 ppg) has signed with the University of Wisconsin while Marcus (15.6 ppg) already is weighing numerous Division-I offers.

There are resemblances. Both are left-handed, smart and quick, for starters. And there are differences.

“We're different players,” Marcus said. “Morgan is a flat-out scorer, a very versatile scorer who can attack you a lot of ways. I'm more of a point guard whose role is to distribute.”

It's only natural that the Paige kids were drawn to basketball. Their parents “met in a gym,” at Mount Mercy College, according to Sherryl.

Morgan started playing ball in second grade. Marcus began even earlier, entering a YMCA league in kindergarten.

It wasn't long until he was competing - and succeeding - against players two and three years older.

“You saw him as a second-grader, playing with the fourth- and fifth-graders, and you knew he had the fundamental talent to be something crazy,” Morgan said.

The Paiges live in the Linn-Mar school district. But as both blossomed on the basketball court, it was clear they would attend different schools.

Sherryl is a longtime track coach at Marion, and took the varsity girls' basketball job in 2000.

“It was simple. I wanted to play for Mom,” Morgan said. “It made sense to me.”

Marion suffered through some lean years before Morgan and classmate Brittany Fish arrived as freshmen.

Since then, the Indians have gone 66-13, advanced to state for the first time (they were Class 3A semifinalists in 2008) and are shooting for their third straight title in the Wamac Conference.

Morgan was the setter for the Indians' volleyball team that captured a state championship in 2008.

Marcus was enrolled at Marion through his sixth-grade year, then chose to transfer across town.

“Marion was all right, but it just wasn't the right fit for me,” he said. “I knew Linn-Mar was a good basketball school, and I had made a lot of friends over there.”

Morgan said, “I understand his choice. It was the right choice for him. We support him and we love him.”

Both are thriving academically with matching 4.0 grade point averages.

Freshman varsity players are uncommon in the Mississippi Valley Conference, but Marcus was in Chris Robertson's rotation from the start.

The Lions reached the state finals, losing to Ames. Marcus scored a season-high 22 points in a 63-60 semifinal win over Bettendorf.

“We kind of rode him down the stretch,” Robertson said afterward. “He's pretty special. You don't see many freshmen step up like that on this kind of stage. He carried us on his back.”

The Marion girls are 6-1. So are the Linn-Mar boys. It's not a stretch to imagine the Paige family spending back-to-back weeks at Wells Fargo Arena in March.

It would give Morgan and Marcus a rare opportunity to watch each other play.

Not on tape, but in person.