It is no surprise that Brother Rice`s Billy Savarino didn`t last long in Little League baseball. His specialty, as a second baseman, was booting groundballs-with both feet.
But it was hardly because Savarino lacked the skills.
To his baseball coach`s dismay, he was training for a future in soccer. Whenever a bouncing baseball came his way, Savarino would quickly stick out a foot if he couldn`t reach it with his hands.
”We pushed him into baseball, but he always wanted to use his feet,”
said William, Savarino`s father. ”People would laugh and tell me he was in the wrong sport.”
As the boys high school soccer season opens, it`s easy to tell Savarino is now in the right sport. After netting 40 goals last year, Savarino, a junior, is the Chicago area`s leading returning goal scorer.
He is the top goal scorer in Brother Rice`s history with 65.
But even after Savarino left the baseball diamond for the soccer field in 6th grade, he wasn`t immediately groomed to be a forward.
He became a goalie and excelled to the point that coaches at a soccer camp advised him to stick to that position. But he didn`t like the isolation and wanted to run.
His father noted that he was the type of player who was always running out of the net after the ball.
”It was boring because there wasn`t a lot of action,” said Savarino.
”But it made me see the whole field, which I still do now.”
At first blush, it may seem a strange path to becoming one of the most prolific goal scorers in the state. But Savarino is a rare breed, like the pitcher who can hit, and playing goalie gave him a chance to study the game.
Today both his father and his coach call him disciplined and say, no pun intended, that ”he constantly sets goals for himself.”
”He gives everyone fits,” said Brother Rice coach Nick Markulin. ”He`s quick, strong, tricky and he knows what other goalies are thinking.”
A member of the U.S. State and Regional Team of the Olympic Development Program (ODP), Savarino has toured Europe over the summer during the last four years. Having family in Italy helps as well. This summer, he played on the Italian team AS Roma for two weeks and learned a much quicker game.
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”What I like is how he is always moving,” said Maine South coach Steve Dezurko. ”He has a high work rate and isn`t a cherry picker. He moves side to side and back and forth.”
Savarino, a 5-foot-8-inch, 150-pound forward, isn`t as physically imposing as his 6-0, 165-pound teammate B.J. Carrick. But his quickness and ability to score with either leg and his head made him one of the top single- season goal scorers in the state.
St. Charles coach Paul Keenan has seen Savarino play at the club level, with the ODP teams and in high school competition. He calls Savarino a Division I player who could possibly go to the next level.
”One-on-one he is very dangerous and he will go at people and take them on,” said Keenan. ”It`s rare to have that kind of attitude in a player today. Many are almost afraid to fail, to look silly or to have a coach ask,
`Why didn`t you pass?` He and Mike Fisher of Batavia are two of the most exciting forwards around.”
Markulin says it`s because Savarino has a certain degree of ”healthy arrogance” that makes him more likely to accept challenges.
”God help Billy if he gives up the ball with one man to beat,” said Markulin. ”He has the arrogance (on the field) and if you have arrogance, you can take on the world. You respect your opponent but you also respect yourself and what you can do. To be a goal scorer is an art.”