Balliu's busy approach leads to three-sport excellence

Walking down a pristine, white-sand beach. Sitting on a dock with nothing but bright-blue ocean on all sides. Now, that was a vacation. A real one.

Jake Balliu had kind of forgotten what one of those was like.

The now graduated Lakes senior had been far too busy over the last four years to enjoy such an elaborate and far-flung getaway. But it had finally become his reality this past week, as part of his cousin's wedding in the Florida Keys.

"I'm sitting on a dock right now. It's 88, sunny. It's so nice," Balliu said with a laugh on Thursday. "I haven't been able to do something like this for a while.

"Usually spring break, winter break, summers … I had too much going on to get out of town. Maybe I'd get a few days off here, a few days there. But vacations were just staying home and chilling. Resting."

Ironically, Balliu isn't all about rest on his real vacation.

"I'm still getting my workouts in," Balliu said. "I'm going for runs on the beach."

Balliu isn't great with down time, which is part of the reason he's been able to flourish under the crazy schedule of a four-year, three-sport high school athlete. He's the only 12-sport athlete in the Class of 2015 at Lakes.

An all-state football player, the point guard of a basketball team that advanced to the sectional championship game and the anchor of a relay team that made yet another trip to the state track meet, Balliu has been named the Daily Herald's 2015 Lake County male athlete of the year.

"Jake is one of the most outstanding all-around male athletes that I have ever been around in my entire time in Lake County," said Lakes athletic director Troy Parola, pointing out that Balliu also finished with a 4.16 grade point average while taking advanced placement classes. "I've said that Jake is the kind of kid that I want my own daughters to date.

"I can't stress how much I love this kid, his effort, work ethic, character, morals, values and ethics. He was the heartbeat of any team he was on at Lakes."

Balliu started out the school year with the football team, helping Lakes to its second straight North Suburban Conference Prairie Division title. A utility player in the truest sense, Balliu was named to the Class 6A all-state team for his impact as a receiver, running back, cornerback and returner of punts and kicks. He also played some quarterback for the Eagles over his career.

"I have never seen one player impact all phases of a game like Jake has the past two years," Lakes coach Luke Mertens said. "He is the whole package. A strong argument can be made that he is the best overall athlete Lakes has ever had in our short history."

In just his senior year alone, Balliu rolled up 1,758 total yards and 23 touchdowns. A slot receiver, most of his production came in the passing game, where he made 62 catches for 952 yards and 16 touchdowns. He is now the all-time leader at Lakes for receptions in a game (12), season (62) and career (77), as well as for receiving yards in a season (952) and career (1,259).

Balliu, who earned a football scholarship to Winona State, will never forget the very first time he touched the ball in a varsity game.

"It was my junior year. First play of the first game of the season. It was the opening kickoff and we were playing Grayslake North," Balliu said. "The ball was kicked to me. I mean, this is the very first time I'm touching the ball in a varsity game. I saw a hole and I hit it. I got some great blocks from my teammates and I ran 95 yards for a touchdown.

"At about the 15-yard line, I started screaming. I couldn't believe I was actually going to score. I was screaming so much that my mouth guard fell out of my mouth and onto the field. I was just a little bit excited."

In basketball this winter, Balliu was just excited to play.

The heady point guard missed about four weeks of the season with a serious ankle injury. But when he returned, he guided an up-and-down Lakes team to a spectacular postseason run that extended all the way to the sectional championship.

"We were pretty average during the regular season. We were probably like 15-14 heading into the playoffs," said Balliu, who advanced to the state 3-point contest as a junior. "But our journey through the playoffs was pretty amazing. We ended up upsetting Vernon Hills on their own floor in the sectional and they were the No. 1 seed and they had beaten us twice during the regular season. That was a really great moment."

For Balliu, there were still more of those to come.

He finished the school year with plenty of great moments on the track, leading the 4x400 relay team to an undefeated record that spanned more than two years outside of the state meet.

That 4x400 team, which Balliu anchored this year, made it to the state meet each of the last three years, placing as high as sixth his sophomore year. Over his track and field career, Balliu helped Lakes to North Suburban Conference and Lake County meet titles as a junior and senior, as well as the prestigious Prospect Invite and the sectional team title this year.

"At the sectional meet this year, I remember that Jake got the baton as the anchor in first place but two schools passed him on the back stretch," Parola said. "Then Jake came back and ran by those other schools to win the (race) in a school-record time."

Balliu was always catching people by surprise. He's an underdog personified. He arrived at Lakes as a 5-foot-3, 100-pound freshman and is still undersized at 5-foot-9.

"To do what I've done in high school is something I'll never forget," Balliu said. "There's no doubt people wrote me off. But I live by the saying that 'it's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.'

"I'm not the biggest kid, but my dream since I started playing sports was to be able to play in college and I just set my mind to doing everything I had to do in order to get there. Lifting extra, studying the playbook extra, running extra routes. I knew I had it in me. I just wanted to prove to everyone that I could do it."

Balliu signed on with Winona State in February. He didn't have a ton of other offers. His size cut down his options. But Winona State liked Balliu's speed and gumption, and it helped that the program has had luck with other football players from Lakes, such as Justin Bergeron, Andrew Spencer and Direll Clark, who are all on the team now.

"I'm kind of looking forward to just playing football," Balliu said. "I've loved playing three sports. It's been a challenge and it's kept me moving. I don't know what I would have done with myself in high school if I didn't have another sport to go to (from one season to the next). I would have been bored.

"But it will be nice to just focus on one for a change. I've never done that before."

Balliu has fought an uphill battle before, though. So he'll be in familiar territory at Winona State.

"I'll be at the bottom of the totem pole again," said Balliu, who will be majoring in athletic training at Winona. "I'm going to have to work my way up again. But I'm ready to put myself out there. I'm ready to work and prove people wrong. I've done it before."

pbabcock@dailyherald.com

Follow Patricia on Twitter: @babcockmcgraw