{"id":2446211,"date":"2019-07-10T22:56:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-11T04:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/jason-santo-named-new-athletic-director-at-basalt-high-school\/"},"modified":"2019-07-10T22:56:00","modified_gmt":"2019-07-11T04:56:00","slug":"jason-santo-named-new-athletic-director-at-basalt-high-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/jason-santo-named-new-athletic-director-at-basalt-high-school\/","title":{"rendered":"Jason Santo named new athletic director at Basalt High School"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Jason Santo was recently named the new athletic director at Basalt High School. Santo, who has been visiting the Roaring Fork Valley since he was a child, most recently worked for Geneva High School outside Chicago.<\/strong>
Courtesy photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Jason Santo is no stranger to the Roaring Fork Valley, which is partly what made it easy for him to jump on board when he was offered the position of athletic director at Basalt High School.<\/p>\n

Santo, 42, was hired earlier this summer to become the new Longhorn AD after Sean Nunan resigned and relocated to the Front Range. Nunan had been Basalt\u2019s athletic director since taking over in 2016<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we are sad to be leaving, we are really excited to be in the valley and taking on a new challenge,\u201d Santo told The Aspen Times on Wednesday. \u201cBasalt is a great landing spot because we know it. We are excited.\u201d<\/p>\n

Santo is coming to Basalt from Geneva, Illinois, which is about 45 minutes directly west of Chicago. He\u2019s been a teacher at Geneva High School since 2011, where he taught a mix of television and print journalism, and for the past three years has been one of the school\u2019s assistant athletic directors.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s bringing with him his wife, who will also work in the Roaring Fork School District as a social worker, and three children. He has a 5-year-old son and two daughters, ages 10 and 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just felt like a huge benefit to our whole school district to have he and his wife here,\u201d BHS principal Peter Mueller said. \u201cHe is passionate about sports, but most importantly passionate about teaching and students. He came highly recommended from his school.\u201d<\/p>\n

Santo grew up in Detroit and studied journalism at Marquette University in Milwaukee. He began his career as a sports reporter and television anchor in Michigan before he transitioned into education after working with some local high school students.<\/p>\n

His connection to the Roaring Fork Valley goes back to when he was 5 and would come here to vacation with his family. His parents own a property in Basalt where they live a couple of months out of the year when they are not in Florida, and his brother, Michael, is a longtime resident of Grand Junction, where he is a partner at a law firm.<\/p>\n

Santo said he looks forward to living in Basalt and embracing the small-town lifestyle. His also looks forward to working at a school that has an enrollment of less than 500, compared to the roughly 2,000 students who attend Geneva.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to get to know all these kids and all the coaches,\u201d Santo said, \u201cand I\u2019ve been talking to coaches this week and just getting a sense of their programs for the fall and what to expect. In talking to them, the numbers are strong and I\u2019m super excited about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Santo plans to be in the valley by the end of July. As of Wednesday, he was still back in Illinois planning and saying goodbyes before making the trek west. Fall sports practices officially get underway Aug. 12, while the first day of school is Aug. 19.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is going to be a great adventure to be in Basalt,\u201d Santo said. \u201cI want to be able to be around students who love being on the field, see it as an extension of the classroom, but at the same time I want to make sure we are building the programs to be sustainable and to let the kids know we are going to be competitive.\u201d<\/p>\n

acolbert@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jason Santo was recently named the new athletic director at Basalt High School. Santo, who has been visiting the Roaring Fork Valley since he was a child, most recently worked for Geneva High School outside Chicago.Courtesy photo Jason Santo is no stranger to the Roaring Fork Valley, which is partly what made it easy for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2446211","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-21 04:16:30","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2446211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446211\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2446211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2446211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2446211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}