TO THE MAXIM
An accomplished violinist, LeBarron Burton II leads West Side in tackles
LeBarron Burton II’s passion for music runs deep.
The West Side junior is a highly accomplished violinist in the orchestra and euphonium player in the band.
Burton started playing violin in fifth grade and has earned gold medal recognition as a soloist from the Indiana State School Music Association every year.
“That’s actually his first love, the arts,” West Side coach Eric Schreiber Jr. said. “That’s what he actually wants to go to college for.
“He’s a creative kid, very talented. He’s just a good all-around kid and really exemplifies the ‘change your best’ mentality we’ve tried to implement here at West Side.”
Football came later for Burton, who didn’t start playing until eighth grade. But his love for it also has been growing, so much so that he would like to continue playing in college. He mentioned Jackson State and Tennessee State as two schools that interest him.
“My family’s really from down South, so we’re all into sports and competitive,” Burton said. “At picnics and things, we’ll always play baseball, then after that we’ll play basketball, and after that just go into other sports. I’ve always been inclined to sports, but it never really was football.”
This season, though, Burton is leading the Cougars (6-2) with 54 tackles, including five for loss. A 6-foot-4, 200-pound middle linebacker who moves well at that size, he also has an interception.
“I can read the line, the guard, the formation and the cadence,” Burton said. “It’s something I’ve done really well. It’s me being shifty and knowing what I have to do.”
Burton has come a long way even since last season, when preparation was limited due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“To be honest, last year I really didn’t know what I was doing at all,” he said. “I had coaches teaching me on the fly. Now we’ve had an offseason and we’ve taken time to learn football, learn the position. It was drilled into our head, and
now we know how to play. Athletic-wise, we had an offseason, we lifted weights and had conditioning, so we’re in shape.”
Schreiber hasn’t been surprised by Burton’s rapid development into one of the team’s top players.
“Last season we discovered LeBarron halfway through the year,” Schreiber said. “We had one of our linebackers leave the team, so LeBarron had to fill a role as a sophomore. From that point on, Week 6 until the end of the season, he led us in tackles.
“From there, he’s really just become a leader. He’s a natural leader. He’s very much an introvert. But he’s vocal when he needs to be, and he leads by example, and that’s how he leads the defense. He gets our kids in the right positions. He makes the calls on defense.”
Burton also starts on offense at tight end. He doesn’t have a catch — “not yet,” he said matter-offactly — but does have 16 pancake blocks, the third-most on the team.
“Our line has been really good blocking,” Burton said. “This is the best line we’ve had in a while . ... We’ve all come together as a group, as a whole, and put our all into the line blocking. I know I have to put my all into every block. If I don’t, then I’ve let down the running back, the quarterback and everyone else.”
Burton is a throwback when it comes to his role on offense.
“He really looks at himself as a lineman,” Schreiber said. “He loves blocking, which is kind of weird nowadays because kids want to
catch the ball and be the superstar. But he loves putting his hand in the dirt and blocking.”
That mentality has helped make Burton someone his teammates respect, according to Schreiber.
“I try to keep my head up at all times no matter the situation, so they know never to give up,” Burton said. “I’m always trying to give my teammates advice and words of inspiration.”
Burton ran cross country before switching to football. He also competed in track — with his events being the 300-meter hurdles, the 400 and the 800 — before high school. But the track season was canceled during his freshman year due to the coronavirus pandemic, and he opted not to participate last season.
“I wasn’t in the mindset to be able to do it at the moment during the pandemic,” Burton said. “My mind was not in the right place. This season, I’m ready. I’m looking forward to it. I’ve grown.
I know what I need to do.”
Burton also knows what West Side will need to do when it begins Class 4A sectional play Friday night at Lowell. The Cougars received a bye last week, when the Red Devils (7-3) opened with a win against Highland.
“We know as a team, we all have to play our best the whole game, and if we do that, we have a chance at beating Lowell,” Burton said. “We know the legacy they have. Where we are now, we can shock the Region and show everyone we’re not a team to be taken for granted.”
The Cougars already are guaranteed to have their first winning season since 2013, when they went 8-4 and advanced to a sectional final against East Chicago Central. They defeated Lowell and Highland in the first two rounds that season.
“You can feel the positivity,” Burton said. “You can feel that there’s growth. You can tell people on the team really care more about what’s at stake and the legacy we want to leave behind.”