Stanislaus District athletes find success in football and basketball

Aaron Paschini shuffles through the hall, leaning to his right to compensate for the large overstuffed bag hanging on his left shoulder.

The Ripon High School senior wide receiver lives out of this duffel, racing between 5:30 a.m. workouts at The Performance Lab in Modesto, school and the start of football camp.

So what’s in the bag? Everything but the kitchen sink.

The contents consist mostly of football gear: pads and helmet, socks and cleats, jersey, a water bottle, and ... a basketball?

In this era of specialization, Paschini is part of a special breed, an elite class of student-athlete. He plays multiple sports, he plays them well, and he plays them all the time. Like ...

All.

The.

Time.

Paschini is a returning All-Trans-Valley League receiver and shooting guard, and he spent his summer months traveling California and Nevada with Chuck Hayes Basketball, a local AAU team coached by its namesake.

While many of his peers believe specialization is their only ticket to a college scholarship, Paschini and few other Stanislaus District talents have found that football and basketball, specifically, have given them a future with options.

“I didn’t want to quit one,” said Central Catholic senior running back Jared Rice, a teammate of Paschini’s with Chuck Hayes Basketball. “I never wanted to miss one or the other, so I decided to do both and it’s worked out.

“Playing two sports forces you to be organized with your workouts. It’s tough, especially with school, but it keeps your options open for the next level.”

Paschini emerged as the Indians’ top down-the-field target in 2015, catching 54 passes for 781 yards and two touchdowns in nine games. He attacked the football in the air the way he would a rebound.

With a vertical game, the Ripon football team carved out a share of the TVL title and ranked among The Modesto Bee’s best small-school programs.

“It’s all about being aggressive,” said Paschini, who has received interest from Minot (N.D.) State (Division II) and a few NAIA schools for football. “I played (AAU basketball) against some of the best people around, and it taught me to play like a bigger person and get scrappy. Don’t back down.”

Success followed Paschini into the winter, where his role for boys basketball coach Rod Wright already was established. He averaged 16.6 points as the Indians finished second in the TVL and earned a home playoff game.

As dynamic as Paschini was for Ripon, Rice was even better for Central Catholic.

An All-Valley Oak League selection in football and basketball, Rice starred on two Sac-Joaquin Section championship teams.

He rushed for 1,086 yards and 12 touchdowns as the Raiders won their fourth consecutive CIF state bowl title. He then led Central Catholic basketball to its first section title in 28 years, averaging 16.0 points and 5.8 rebounds.

If specialization is becoming the norm, consider the Stanislaus District the throwback to another age and time.

Of the 20 players named to The Bee’s 2014 All-District boys basketball teams, seven played football last fall, including large-school first-team selection Talolo Limu-Jones of Davis, now a freshman tight end at Eastern Washington.

An eighth – Central Catholic point guard Joshua Hamilton – will play safety and wide receiver for the Raiders after sitting out last fall.

Rice joined Limu-Jones on The Bee’s large-school basketball first team. Ripon Christian’s Zach Cortright and Summerville’s Eli McLaurin were the only small-school first-team selections who played football, while second-team pick Ty Beidleman of Ripon Christian is The Bee’s top-ranked tight end entering this season.

The transition between the sports can be seamless.

The movements, Hayes says, are similar. For fast-action athletes, such as Paschini and Rice, the spin, juke and hesitation are moves for all seasons, whether you’re cradling a ball or bouncing it.

Hayes speaks from experience. Before he embarked on a Hall of Fame career at Kentucky or developed into a respected forward in the NBA, Hayes was a three-sport athlete at Modesto Christian. He played football until his junior year and baseball as a sophomore.

“I think it’s good that kids play multiple sports. It gives you a different skill set to apply to other sports – footwork, hand speed, agility, et cetera,” Hayes said. “I think playing football can help on the basketball court in terms of playing with a change of speed, being elusive and shifty.”

Rice used a hesitation, or stutter step, on a 70-yard touchdown run last fall.

“When you hit the second level, it’s just like a fast break,” he said. “You have to get by the guy and get to the rim or into the end zone. When I used that hesitation on the toss play, my dad said he saw me do that same move in basketball.”

Which brings us to the final item in the overstuffed bag, carried from place to place by many of these multisport athletes: tricks.

This story was originally published August 13, 2016 at 5:23 PM with the headline "Stanislaus District athletes find success in football and basketball."