Local football legend Basanez has quiet homecoming at Wayside

Brett Basanez arrived back home in the Northwest suburbs last week, after signing a one-year deal with the Bears earlier this month.

The 25-year old grew up in Arlington Heights and for now is staying in Mount Prospect with his parents.

Last week, just days after he had arrived back, Basanez found himself drawn to his old stomping grounds, to Our Lady of the Wayside School in Arlington Heights, where he first played organized sports.

He walked into the gymnasium during a heated semifinal playoff game between the Our Lady of the Wayside Wildcats and the Eagles from St. Francis de Sales School in Lake Zurich.

"I saw a lot of cars in the parking lot, so I figured there was a game," he says. "I thought I'd stop in."

Sitting perched on a scaffold, behind the Wildcats bench, Basanez watched the game quietly, dressed in sweats and with a baseball cap turned around backward.

"The memories just came flooding back," he says.

Because Basanez didn't draw any attention to himself or interrupt the game, little did any of the seventh grade basketball players realize who he was, let alone that a dozen years ago, he had worn the Wildcats uniform and had played basketball in their same Northwest Catholic Conference.

In fact, Basanez says he still remembers the playoff game his team lost, which ended their dreams of making the championship game.

"We were heartbroken," he says.

The stakes for Basanez only got higher, as he continued on to St. Viator High School, where he was a record-setting quarterback in the East Suburban Catholic Conference.

He was the USA Today Illinois player of the year his senior season, when he threw for 39 touchdowns and 2,876 yards.

At Northwestern, he started 46 games, including 40 in a row, and was the Big Ten offensive player of the year in 2005.

In all, Basanez broke 32 Northwestern career records, including career passing yards (10,580), total offense (11,576 yards), completions (913) and passing touchdowns. He came up 4 rushing yards shy of becoming the first quarterback in NCAA Division I-A history to finish his career with 10,000 passing yards and 1,000 rushing yards.

Basanez has spent the last three years with the Carolina Panthers, but he says coming back to play for the Bears is a dream come true.

"It's glorious to be back," he says. "I've always been a Bears fan. There's just something about the team, the organization and its history, that makes you want to get in there and work."

And work he has, ever since arriving. Basanez says he alternates time between the gym at Halas Hall in Lake Forest, where he also spends time in the film room and learning the playbook, and working with trainer David Buchanan, of ProSport Training in Lake Barrington, who helped increase his speed and agility, going back to high school.

Basanez says he's trying not to think about where he fits in on the depth chart, but instead is focusing on pushing the other quarterbacks, so that together they help advance the team.

No matter where he ends up, one things remains certain: Basanez hasn't forgotten where he came from, and for a moment, he had a chance to go back.