Balancing Act Baskett Gives Meaning To Term Student-Athlete With His Lifestyle

Maybe it takes a college professor to sort this out, to make order of Jason Baskett’s complex existence - his dizzying life in a 24-hours-a-day spin cycle.

“One of Jason’s professors wrote a note the other day,” Washington State track coach Rick Sloan said. “And he said that ‘Jason is an outstanding student. In fact, he’s teaching something to all of us.”’

The temptation is to consider Jason Baskett a disappointment, to enumerate the ways he has seemed to fall short of the enormous promise he showed as a star in the weight events for the Mead High track team.

But what he has been able to teach - to his professors, to his coaches, and to anybody with a hint of perspective - are the things a person has to go through to find his balance on that tricky athletic/academic see-saw.

“I know he would say that he hasn’t reached the marks he had hoped to in college,” Sloan said. “But would I do it over if I had a chance to recruit him again? Oh yeah, in a second I would, because of the type of person he is and the influence he’s had on other people on the team. He’s done everything we’ve ever asked him.”

Baskett came out of Mead with showy top-five national marks in the shot put (64-10 1/2) and the discus (191-10).

And as a redshirt freshman at WSU, Baskett displayed the potential for national prominence by throwing the shot 59-2 indoors, and placing 10th in the NCAA indoor championships.

Tenth in the country as a freshman - goodness, how good could this guy be as a senior?

Well, Baskett has been a steady point-scorer for the Cougars, but never come close to his own expectations.

Why?

A pesky ankle injury that required surgery last summer was one factor, but mostly it has been the demands of maintaining a 3.4 grade-point average in the study of architecture.

“There’s been some disappointment; my expectations coming into college were to be at that high level,” the Cougars senior said. “As a freshman, things seemed to really be on track, but we got put on probation and I changed majors (from electrical engineering) to architecture, and that really became my goal and changed my life.”

At a considerable cost.

Three days a week, Baskett is in class from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. He then practices the shot put, hammer and discus for several hours before entrenching to work on school projects.

“He called me Monday and said that he had four throws over 60 feet (in the shot put) in practice, but that he didn’t know when he was going to sleep,” Baskett’s father, Gary, said. “There are several nights a week when he’s working on projects that he gets no sleep at all.”

“Not a whole lot of people know the demands of the architecture department,” Baskett said. “Maybe outside of zoology, it’s probably the hardest major at Washington State - not because it’s always so difficult, but because it’s so time demanding.”

Aside from the architecture work, Baskett is involved in what Sloan calls “cutting edge computer technology.”

“The computer graphics industry in multimedia-type environments is what I really love right now,” said Baskett, who is diving head-long into the artistry of computer-generated animation.

As if he didn’t have enough to do.

And although he may be sleepy all the while, Baskett has put together good marks in all three events this season: 56-10 in the shot, 165-0 in the discus and 187-2 in the hammer.

At 5-foot-11, 245 pounds, Baskett is among the smaller collegiate weight throwers, but counters that with quickness and polished technique.

“He’s a terrific athlete; he has great body-control skills and a great sense of what he’s doing and where he is with his balance,” Sloan said. “And he’s very strong, which makes up for the fact that he’s not real tall.”

And, this year in particular, he’s motivated.

Gary Baskett stepped down as head track coach at Mead so he could watch his son compete - and offer his support.

“This year, I said to Jason, ‘I don’t care if you’re throwing really great or just average, I want to see you and share the time with you,”’ Gary Baskett said. “I just want to be the dad now and enjoy him.”

“Track for me, collegiately, would have been very difficult if it hadn’t been for the support of my mother (Susan) and father,” Baskett said.

These ceaseless demands of track and school have forced Baskett to forgo many of the diversions of a typical college student.

“Deprived? Oh, yeah, no doubt,” Baskett said. “When it comes to social life, I have none. I go to movies once in a while, but that’s it.”

This, again, may be the lesson to which his professor refers: That Jason Baskett is not just spinning inside some restrictive circle, but racing toward a goal.

“It’s a real challenge for kids to face,” Gary Baskett said. “I have a lot of admiration for my son. I know he hasn’t had a social life for five years, and he’s missed out on some things, but I also know he’s learned an awful lot about life.”