Venegoni did it all -- well

So what does David Venegoni do now?

On a sweltering Saturday, he chose to do what he's done no doubt thousands of times before -- toss a ball around. A football, in this case. Claudia Venegoni said with a laugh that her middle son was at his now high school alma mater, Carmel Catholic, whipping his kid brother Luke into shape.

"Attempting to," David stressed.

Since he entered high school, and probably even before that, Venegoni has spent his summers bouncing from one sport to another. Baseball to football to basketball, or some combination of the three. Maybe he even managed to squeeze in a game of golf, a sport he's played all his life, he says, but rarely has time for.

Venegoni was one of only a handful of three-sport athletes in Carmel's Class of 2008, but more impressively, he performed at a high level in all of them. Named co-offensive player of the year in the rugged East Suburban Catholic Conference during football, he was both an effective scorer and defender in basketball and strong hitter and catcher in baseball. And, oh, he pulled a 4.01 GPA on a 4.0 scale.

For those reasons, Venegoni is the Daily Herald's male athlete of the year.

"I respect the time he gave to each sport," said Jon Baffico, Venegoni's basketball coach the last two years. "It's nice to see a kid take some pride in doing something like that."

Make no mistake, Venegoni says, playing three sports at the varsity level and playing them well wasn't easy.

"It's a lot tougher than people think," he said.

"It was hard."

Another testament to Venegoni? He won. While the basketball team struggled, Venegoni quarterbacked the Corsairs to 10 wins and a berth in the Class 7A football state semifinals. The baseball team earned a share of the ESCC championship, won 32 games and came within a win of advancing to the Class 4A state semifinals.

"For us to be good this year, we needed him to be good, and he was very good," Corsairs coach Chuck Gandolfi said. "He did what we needed him to do. He hit the ball and he blocked the ball."

Venegoni batted .340 with his 35 hits including 7 doubles and 1 homer. He knocked in 28 runs, scored 31, drew 21 walks, boasted a .472 on-base percentage and even stole 4 bases. He had gone into his junior season in a battle for the starting catcher position and, according to Gandolfi, "flat out" won it.

"He showed a willingness to work on his weaknesses," Gandolfi said.

In basketball, Venegoni showed few weaknesses as a guard. He provided toughness, Baffico said. He could score -- dropping 29 points on Joliet Catholic and netting 26 against Wauconda, for example -- and he could defend.

"David was a kid who was pretty versatile with what he could do," Baffico said. "He could play up to four positions on the floor if we needed him to do that. This year he could score a little more because he didn't have to play the point, and he usually took on the role of defending the other team's best player.

"He was our best defender."

On the football field, Venegoni excelled in Carmel's option. As one of only two returning starters on offense, he rushed for 1,055 yards and 19 touchdowns, leading the team in both categories. The 6-foot, 190-pounder became the first Carmel QB to surpass 1,000 rushing yards in a season.

"Once David gets to a seam, he can hit it and he's hard to bring down," Corsairs coach Andy Bitto said following last season. "You should see him in the weight room. He's strong and he was able to break a lot of tackles."

Venegoni will play football in college. He recently committed to Augustana, where he might also pursue baseball at the Division III school.

"I could have gone to Miami of Florida or Miami of Ohio (for football)," Venegoni said. "But I probably wouldn't have made the team at Miami of Florida, and Miami of Ohio ... I don't know. I wanted to go somewhere where I could play. I didn't want to watch. I didn't know how I would handle just sitting there."

With summer here, and no basketball or football camp obligations, Venegoni plans to play some American Legion baseball and just get ready for college football.

"I have a lot of time on my hands," he said. "It's kind of weird."

Maybe Luke will want to play catch.