Generally speaking, it’s easy to get a kick out of the specialists who play for Ohio State football.

Punters and kickers can be wacky individualists, given that they play a unique role on their teams. But because they also lack the celebrity status of their teammates, they can also be the most like the average student of any Buckeye.

It often produces a delightful mix of quirky and down-to-earth.

So it is with Drew Basil.

“When I was still in high school, my brothers would come out and kick with me,” he told The Dispatch explaining how he got good enough to join the Buckeyes. “They would try to distract me in ways I wouldn’t mention.”

Press him a little bit on that point, though…

“Josh would moon me, and Kyle would be flashing me,” Basil explained. “They’d be right next to the ball and trying to make me laugh while I was kicking.”

The Chillicothe native played at OSU from 2010 to 2013. During that time he made 169 of his 173 extra-point attempts, including a streak of 58 straight in his final season. He made 33 of his 42 field goal attempts.

Still, when Urban Meyer took over from Luke Fickell, the head coach for one season following the departure of Jim Tressel, Basil had to work extra hard to be accepted.

“It took a while for coach Meyer to call me by name,” Basil recalled. “That’s fine. I knew who he was talking to.”

In a 26-21 win over Michigan in 2012, Basil connected for four field goals, enabling the Buckeyes to cap their perfect 12-0 season in Meyer’s first year. What made Basil’s feat even more remarkable was that he had come into that game having made four field goals all season, and he struck his career-long, a 52 yarder, that afternoon.

He was an Academic All-Big Ten honoree his senior season. As for his football career beyond that?

“After Ohio State,” he said, “I went to the rookie minicamp with the Atlanta Falcons and did great, and they just said, ‘See you later.’ And then I also went to Canada with the Montreal Alouettes for a training camp and also for a private workout, and both times just got sent home. And then I played a season for the Cleveland Gladiators in Arena football.”

He especially enjoyed playing in the AFL.

“I think that was probably the most exciting football I’ve ever been around,” he said. “You’re on a field about the size of a hockey rink, and to see players getting hit into the wall and everything, it was a lot of fun to watch.”

Basil has stayed connected to football through his role as a special teams coach at Upper Arlington. But naturally, being a kicker, there’s a quirky part to the story, too.

“So, one of my former Ohio State teammates is (Spencer Smith), the athletic director at Upper Arlington,” Basil said, “and me and my wife were living in his basement while our first house was getting remodeled, and he came home one day and said, ‘Hey, Drew, I need a jayvee golf coach.’ I was like, ‘OK. Well, here’s a few people’s names I know that they like golf, and they’re good people.’ And he called all of them, and none of them could make it work with their work schedule.

“He came back and said, ‘Drew, I need a jayvee golf coach.’ “

Basil protested that he knew little about the sport, but Smith had nowhere else to turn.

“So I’ve done that for seven seasons now,” Basil said.

And that’s helped him on the links. Somewhat.

“I maybe lose fewer golf balls,” he said. “But I think most of the kids could beat me on any given day.”

Basil married his college sweetheart, and the two live in central Ohio.

“So the story that I tell everyone is that she chased after me,” he said laughing.

He then explained: “We dated a couple of times, and I would always end it, because personally, I would get scared. But I realized I wasn’t going to find any better than Melissa, and she gave me that third chance, and the third time’s a charm. We’re still on that third chance over 13 ½ years later, and we’ve been married for over eight years now.”

They have two kids, daughter Rennie, which was Melissa’s maiden name, and son Axe, which was the maiden name of Melissa’s grandmother.

“Those were definitely the better options than what I presented,” Basil said. “I had recommended Lisa Banana Basil because it spells the same thing forward and backward, but Melissa was like, ‘Absolutely not.’ “

Melissa runs her own insurance company. Drew has been working in real estate for Sorrell & Company for almost nine years.

“I don’t know that I have had many people that have said, ‘I’m using you because you used to play football,’ he reflected. “A lot of people who use are people who have gotten to know me or come from a referral from someone they trust.”

That might be a little surprising, given Columbus’ reputation for taking care of former football players, but Basil said Melissa, who played softball, was a bigger star than he was on campus. She was well known for the long, black hair that stuck out from beneath her helmet and the bows she wore.

“Little girls would come up to her after the game, right?” Basil said. “And they would be coming up to her asking for autographs, and it was the coolest thing ever to be able to see that.”

Exactly what a quirky, down-to-earth person would say.

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