Put the game on his toe

BY: LANCE CRANMER (ChillicotheGazette.com) -

Drew Basil knows what you’re thinking right now.

The annual prep football preview — the highlight of the high school sports fan’s season — and who’s on the cover?

A kicker? Seriously?

“Oh man, I think they’ll be surprised,” laughed Basil, the Chillicothe senior kicker-slash-punter. “Most people get the paper and expect to see the quarterback or a linebacker or some other position.”

Basil, however, is not just a kicker. He’s a phenomenon. He’s a Chillicothe legend-in-the-making. Like those who arrived immediately before him — Caleb Knights and Chris Givens on the football field; Anthony Hitchens in basketball or Seth Dawes in baseball.

Last year, Basil accounted for 59 points, on 8-of-14 field goals and 35-of-37 PATs. He’s scored 139 points in his career and averages 40.2 yards per punt. He also booted a school-record 50-yard field goal last year.

But a kicker — on the cover?

“It means a lot,” Basil said, of the honor. “It’s just crazy to think how much a kicker means to the team. How much everybody respects me, even likes me to put me as a captain and think of me as a leader of the team.”

But it does make sense.

With a full year left ahead of him, Basil already is the program’s all-time leading scorer. Last year, he was an all-league, all-district and second-team All-Ohioan. And there is the small matter of Basil being a future kicker at Ohio State University.

IN THE BEGINNING

The original kicker in the Basil family wasn’t Drew.

Drew was just the little guy along for the ride while his sibling was giving it a try.

“Actually my brother Kyle, who is now playing soccer at the University of Dayton, he was going to kick his freshman year,” said Basil. “They had a team camp at Thomas More College down in Kentucky. I went along for the ride, just being a ballboy and learning stuff. (Former Cincinnati Bengals’ kicker) Doug Pelfrey was down there to teach Kyle how to kick. I just stayed right there by his side the whole time. I learned how to kick, too. In the end, it really paid off.”

By the time he was in eighth grade, Basil’s name was well-known by Cavalier fans.

As a freshman, Basil’s growing reputation quickly got put to the test.

“I remember our scrimmage against St. Charles,” Basil said. “They pulled me out there to try a 40-yard field goal. It dinked off the crossbar and came back out. That was just a scrimmage. I really don’t remember my first (game) attempt though.”

Basil’s first field goal came from 25 yards out in a 31-21 win over Logan Sept. 1, 2006. From there, he never looked back.

“(People) were surprised with how much we were kicking. I think I only attempted seven or eight field goals (that year), but that’s a lot more than they had done in the past,” Basil said. “I think that’s what opened a lot of people’s eyes.”

HIGHLIGHTS

No matter the sport, no matter the athlete, everyone can pick out two moments in sports: The time they were the hero, and the time they’d like to try over again.

Basil’s hero moment: “There’s a few kicks,” he said. “There’s probably two of them from this past year. The 50-yarder from Jackson. That’s just a stepping stone in my career. Then, probably the 69-yard kickoff after I hit the game-winning field goal at Zanesville. That kickoff, it was just a big turning point again. They had to start at the 20. That’s a good feeling.”

His do-over: “I don’t know if I really want a second shot at any kick,” he said.

Really? None?

“I remember I think it was my sophomore year here against Logan, I don’t know, it might have been my freshman year. I had three field goal attempts against Logan. I made one of them. One went right over top of the upright, so the ref said it was no good because they weren’t sure since it was above the upright. Then there’s another one I got blocked.

“I think I’d like to have those two kicks back. I think we won that game, but it still would have been nice to have those back.”

BUSY SUMMER

Playing two sports — Basil is also a starter on the Chillicothe soccer team — is never easy.

Going through conditioning for two sports is downright exhausting.

When football two-a-days began in August, Basil’s first workout of the day with the Cavaliers was at 8 a.m.

When that wrapped up, the next stop was soccer conditioning. And when that was done, it was back to the football field at noon for another round of drills.

“I just went from football to soccer and back to football,” said Basil. “It’s not too big of a deal, though, because I usually stay pretty loose.”

Surprisingly, though, Basil said it wasn’t too tiring, and actually left him some free time for other things.

“I still have time to get tutored for my ACT and I still have to read for summer reading and get my project turned in on time,” he said. “But I still have time to hang out with friends just about every night.”

BECOMING A BUCKEYE

Drew Basil was sitting in a parking lot in West Lafayette, Ind., preparing himself to go in and put on a kicking display for the coaching staff at Purdue University.

“I was in their parking lot getting ready to go into their camp,” he said. “I was supposed to call (Ohio State’s) coach that morning, Coach Gillum, who is the recruiting coordinator I believe. That’s when they offered me. In the parking lot.

“He told me to call Coach Tressel then, so I called Coach Tressel from Purdue’s parking lot. When he answered the phone, he knew it was me. That’s just a cool feeling.”

When Basil made the call to Columbus, Tressel made his intentions very clear.

“He said, ‘Now, you know, we want you to be a Buckeye. And we’re going to do everything we can to make that happen,’” Basil said.

And then? What about the Boilermakers?

“I just went in and had a great day. I was smiling the whole time,” Basil said. “I was kicking the ball great. Just having fun.”

While Ohio State’s offer hit the table that morning in late June, it wasn’t official just yet.

“It was down to the five schools that had offered me, which were Air Force, Purdue, Kentucky, Cincinnati and Ohio State,” Basil said.

But OSU was the front-runner.

“Mostly. After I got the offer, I wanted to make sure I went and saw the campus and everything before I made a decision,” he said. “The other four schools that had offered me, I’d gotten a tour of the campus and had seen the facilities and everything.

“I had to make sure it was the right choice. If they didn’t have what I wanted academically, it probably wouldn’t have been as good of an option as it was.”

WHAT’S LEFT

A local boy signing with Ohio State is a big deal. While Basil is happy to talk about his future with the Buckeyes, he also can get frustrated by those who forget he still has a senior year to finish at Chillicothe.

“There’s been at least 10 to 15 people come up to me and say, ‘Why aren’t you up at Ohio State right now? Why aren’t you at practice?’” Basil said. “I still have my senior year of high school left. I have to focus on that first.”

Despite losing a great deal of talent from last year’s team that went two-games deep into the playoffs, including quarterback Caleb Knights and Basil’s long-snapper Danny Russell and holder Alex Grow, Basil is optimistic about his senior season.

“We have a lot of speed this year,” he said. “Other teams are going to need to watch out for it. We’ll be the team to beat this year.”

And it certainly won’t hurt that the Cavs have a scoring option from 50-plus yards out whenever they need it.

“You just have to get excited about it. Kicking is something that, if you don’t get excited about it, then you won’t succeed,” Basil said. “You need to be excited about it every time you go out there.

“Being the kicker, you’re always the hero or the goat. Just hopefully you’re the hero most of the time.”