Boys track: Lake Park's Basso combines brains, brawn in throws
There are athletes, there are mathletes, and there is Lake Park senior Chago Basso.
Equally capable of throwing a discus 180 feet and determining its vector, Basso enters the 123rd IHSA Boys Track & Field State Finals this weekend in Charleston seeded second in Class 3A in discus and third in shot put.
"I wouldn't say I'm prodigal in most things," he said of his academics. That's humility talking. He scored a 35 on his first ACT attempt, retook it and got a perfect 36. He earned a 5.45 weighted grade-point average taking advanced-placement courses in calculus, statistics, economics and English literature.
If nothing else Basso is prodigious in mathematics and in the science of throwing weighted objects a long way. Sixth in Class 3A discus as a sophomore and again as a junior, Lake Park's 18th all-state thrower missed the DuPage County meet to join the Lancers' competitive math team at the Illinois Council of Teachers and Mathematics state championship May 5-6 at the University of Illinois. His group solved problems while being timed, no calculators allowed.
His specialty is using "almost intuition" rather than formulas to solve problems, he said.
It's a matter of touch and feel, which also helped Basso claim DuPage Valley Conference discus and shot put titles the next week. He did the same May 19 at the Class 3A Lake Park sectional, winning shot put at 59 feet, 2 inches and discus by nearly 43 feet, at 184-2, his best mark this season. Both approach his personal records of 61-1 in shot put and 185-6 in disc, each set his junior year.
With 200-foot practice throws in discus, he's got more in the tank.
"With throwing it's biomechanical efficiency and, logically, a reason why you do a certain technique is based on physics so in that aspect there's a relationship. But there's also a sense of what you do more internally, more instinctually, and being able to train your muscles in that way," said Basso, younger brother of former Lancers' all-state sprinter-jumper and math team member, Gio Basso.
Chago, whose Christian name actually is Santiago, is himself the product of throwers. His mother, Elizabeth, born in California, threw discus and shot put at Purdue. On a work assignment she traveled to Chile, where she met hammer thrower Andrés Basso. (Andrés now is the general manager and director of winemaking at Lynfred Winery in Roselle.)
Genes galore, the instruction followed. Basso trained at Lake Park and with the DuPage Track Club under Illinois Track and Cross Country Coaches Association Hall of Famer Bob Nihells and, for the past two seasons at Lake Park by 34-year veteran throws coach Scott Bennett.
Bennett compares Basso to one of his former throwers at Wake Forest, Andy Bloom, who won the 1996 NCAA discus and shot put titles and placed fourth in discus at the 2000 Olympics. Both are brainy, disciplined, coachable, fast through the ring and "can squat a house," Bennett said, noting Basso's 600-pound lift.
"Sometimes those individuals with real high intellect would overthink things. He doesn't," Bennett said of Basso, who chose to throw at Alabama over finalists Missouri, Clemson, Michigan and Iowa. Basso plans to major in computer science.
"(O)ne of his greatest strengths as an athlete," Bennett says, "is to visualize and be able to feel (the throw) as he visualizes."
Entering the ring Basso steps to the top of the circle, implement in hand. He stands still, senses the breeze, gazes upon the sector with Zen focus. He turns to the back of the ring, steadies his balance, accelerates into a right-handed spin and with a tall, barrel-chested release slings the weight high and deep.
"On the whole for me, it's about staying relaxed, making sure nothing's going too fast in the throw, kind of feeling it on a more holistic level. Because when I start to focus too much on one specific thing or a bunch of little things in competition it affects your mindset," Basso said.
"So the best way to compete for myself, I've found, is make sure I'm rhythmically smooth. There's a couple things I mentally check in the throw and if I can check them all off then usually what I throw can go pretty far."
Top dogs:
IC Catholic senior Jordan Rowell is the No. 1 seed in Class 1A long jump at 22 feet, 6 inches. The nine-time all-state track athlete and Northern Illinois football recruit at running back is also entered in the 100- and 400-meter dashes. Rowell has twice finished second, in the 400 each of the last two years but has never won an event.
Wheaton Warrenville South senior pole vaulter Tom Ansiel shares the top Class 3A sectional height of 15-1 with Providence's Lucas Weaver. Last season Weaver finished eighth, Ansiel ninth.
Five of the 12 3A high jumpers to clear at least 6-3½ at their sectional meets come from DuPage County teams: Hinsdale Central's Cullen Fitzgerald and Naperville North's Kris Heinz at 6-5, York's Obi Nnam and WW South's Erik Stubner at 6-4 and Hinsdale South's Alek Cirjakovic at 6-3½.
In Class 3A triple jump, returning qualifier D.J. Anderson of Hinsdale South follows only West Aurora's DaVion Cross - but by a foot, at Cross' 48-11 to Anderson's 47-10.
Glenbard North senior Jace James is seeded No. 2 in the 110-meter hurdles and fifth in the 300 hurdles. Glenbard West senior Vince Divenere is the third seed in the 300s.
It must be noted that on his home turf, at the Class 3A Lockport sectional junior John Meyer recorded the farthest shot put throw recognized by the IHSA, 67-2. This surpassed the official state record of Lake Park's Jermaine Kline, 66-5¾ in the 2011 3A finals, as well as the 66-3 of Lake Park's Dan Block at the 2009 Lake Zurich Invitational. But the Illinois Throws Association recalls Jeremy Kline's 67-6½ at the 2011 Upstate Eight Conference indoor meet, and Jermaine Kline's 67-3 at the 2011 Senior Spotlight Meet.
Passed the test:
York senior Obi Nnam competed in the 2016 indoor season but later left the Dukes after a mutual decision with his mother to focus on prepping for the ACT.
"Track kind of got in the way a little bit," he said.
After one test in April 2016 and another in June, Nnam got the results he needed. He'll attend Butler and study chemistry.
This year he's competed all season and was the first athlete at the Class 3A Lake Park sectional to qualify for state, in high jump.
"I've been running track most of high school," he said. "To finally make it downstate just shows all that hard work paid off. I'm really excited about the opportunity."