Love, sports, family ... How the Bastis became ‘Core Four’
The story starts in a physical education class at Walsh Intermediate School in Branford and takes us to places where only love and sports can go.
“One day in my P.E. class in seventh grade, Tyler wasn’t feeling too well, so he was sitting on the sidelines with me,” Megan Basti said. “He noticed this one girl was struggling out there with a game we were playing. So he went in to help her out, helped her multiple times, trying to make her get better.
“I just thought it was really cool.”
Cool enough for Megan to decide to call Tyler’s parents and tell them what he did and how proud they should be of him. When she went to call, she saw “foster” next to their name.
This is how, four years ago, Tyler and his younger brother Dom came to be adopted by Megan and Jon Basti, the lacrosse coach at Sacred Heart University. It would be convenient symmetry to write this is how Tyler Basti, a senior running back/linebacker at Notre
Dame-West Haven, also came to sign his national letter of intent Wednesday to play football for the Pioneers. Only great families, made whole by adoption, don’t need convenient symmetry.
Tyler is going to wait to sign with a group of his friends during the February NCAA signing period.
The Bastis didn’t wait that day after class. Jon and Megan, who had tried unsuccessfully to conceive, already had started classes on foster care and adoption.
“We wanted a family and it wasn’t happening,” Jon said. “We tried all the steps. It wasn’t in the cards for us naturally. We both wanted kids in the worst way and, being a coach and an athlete, I wanted two boys.”
Megan, who also has coached and, Jon said, probably is the best athlete in the family, asked why not two girl athletes?
The answer came with one call. “We finished our classes and inquired about Tyler,” Megan said. “Their case worker, their legal guardian, told us he was a package deal. He came with a younger brother.”
Once they digested that not-so-little piece of information, they responded: “No problem.”
So on May 16, 2016, Tyler and Dominic walked into their legal guardian’s office and were told someone wanted to adopt them. The boys couldn’t believe it.
They were told it was Mrs. Basti and her husband. They were blown away.
“They were so excited that they came over that night to meet us for the first time officially,’ Megan said.
Unfortunately, Megan had been sent on a field trip to Nature’s Classroom. So when Tyler and Dom arrived with their foster parents at the Basti home in East Haven, only Jon was there with the family dogs to greet them. The remedy: FaceTime.
“The boys lived with their foster family in East Haven, who we still stay in touch with, talk to them often, see them a decent amount,” Jon said. “We hung out for an hour, hour and a half, with Meg on FaceTime. The boys were so excited they had no idea what to say.” Yes, would suffice.
“That was it,” Megan said. “They moved in June 10th (2016) forever.”
“Now we can’t get rid of them,” Jon said. “And it’s the best thing that ever happened to us.”
“Best thing,” Megan said.
“By far,” Jon said. “The amount of joy they give us far outweighs any frustrations of having two teenagers in our house. They’re terrific kids.”
They do well in school. They have been part of leadership groups at their schools. The two also had never played sports before they moved in with the Bastis. Dom, a freshman at Notre Dame, already is quite the lacrosse player.
Tyler played football in the eighth, ninth and 10th grade. It would be Sept. 28, 2018, a Friday night, when Basti burst onto the area football scene. Notre Dame’s starting running back Warren Murphy went out with a knee injury. Basti, who didn’t carry the ball in the first half, ran for 163 yards and two touchdowns in a 33-14 win over Branford. He finished his sophomore season with 332 rushing yards and 5.4 yards per carry.
Again, it would be convenient to say Basti went on to run for more than 1,000 yards in both his junior and senior seasons. He did not. He missed his first four games as a junior with a back injury and, in his first game back, tore his ACL the first series of the second half against Bunnell. His senior year, as with all CIAC fall athletes, got wiped out by COVID. He would have been one of the Green Knights’ top two-way players.
Tyler, who also plays for the CT Oil
ers club team, lost his freshman lacrosse season to a torn labrum and his junior season last spring to COVID cancelation.
“Not playing football last year or this year really screwed a kid like Tyler,” Jon said. “And he didn’t play all that much as a sophomore. We have so many of our friends with kids who are tremendous players who haven’t gotten that chance to play.”
Enter Sacred Heart strength and conditioning coach Chris Fee. Once Tyler could begin his rehabilitation in his third month, Fee was the guy he went to in the weight room. That’s how football coach Mark Nofri saw him.
“Coach Fee has really been a driving force,” Basti said. “He went to bat for Tyler with the coaches.
“I talked to coach Nof after Tyler committed and he was like, ‘He’s a son of a coach who has battled back from all these injuries. Why wouldn’t we want a kid like that on our team?’ That was one of the nicest things that anybody could say to me about my kid. He loves sports. The dude just loves to practice.”
The fact Tyler is 5-foot-10, 210 pounds, built for running back, certainly helps. His dad jokes that he plays lacrosse like he plays football. He’s a physical faceoff guy and transition middie. It’s not a surprise his favorite player is 5-10, 230-pound Trevor Baptiste, born in Newark of Haitian parents, who has proven at Denver and in the pros to be perhaps the greatest faceoff man in lacrosse history.
“Tyler fell in love with Trevor Baptiste,” Jon said. “We have a lot of ties to University of Denver. African-American kid. All-American. Jersey, East Coast kid. Tyler’s like, ‘I want to be like that guy.’ I’m like, ‘Go ahead.’”
Yet it’s not a football or lacrosse story Jon Basti was eager to relate. It’s a bigbrother story. Dom played on the Eclipse Lacrosse Club U13 that advanced to the World Series of Youth
Lacrosse in Denver on July Fourth weekend, 2019.
“The kids worked so hard and Ty went to every practice,” Jon said. “He just wanted to be around it. When we got to Denver, he became like the Pied Piper. He took all the little siblings and became in charge of them. The parents trusted Tyler. He’s a protector.”
Basti is technically a non-scholarship player. Because Jon is an employee of Sacred Heart, Tyler benefits from the tuition-remission program. This, of course, cuts Tyler, who’ll live on campus, exactly zero slack.
“He’s going to see dad every day,” Megan said, “but it’s not like dad is hovering.”
“I told him if he gets in trouble, he’s going to have to hear it twice,” Jon said. “You’ve got to pass my office to get to coach Nofri’s office.”
The primary reason Tyler wants to go to Sacred Heard is because he wants to become an athletic trainer.
“There aren’t too many places better for that,” Jon said. “I have to say the Sacred Heart community has welcomed both our boys with open arms. The guys on my team all know and love the boys.
“Our coaches, the football and basketball coaches, (athletic director) Bobby Valentine and the administrators went out of their way to make the boys feel welcome when we first got them. That really resonated with both of them. Although the little guy is like, ‘Dad, I’m going to play lacrosse at Maryland or Stony Brook.’ I’m like, ‘Whatever dude.’”
You know it’s a good crew when the young one is busting dad’s jobs.
“We really feel like we’re a core four,” said Megan Basti, who found a family in her gym class. “Yeah, we ARE the Core Four.”