A real insight into Braxton Burmeister’s success not only as the record-setting quarterback of Country Day’s football team but also as a leader comes in the story of how he dealt with beating out a senior for the quarterback position in his freshman year.
Athletic director Jeff Hutzler, Burmeister’s coach at that time, says, “The dynamic of talking to the friends of the senior he beat out” (were something the freshman had to work out). LJCDS is a small, private school and the Torrey football team, and athletic department as a whole, are close families where relationships have to be cared for or discontent could disrupt team harmony.
Everyone around the star student athlete agrees the 6’1″, 210-pounder has been blessed with lots of God-given talent. His head coach since his sophomore year, Tyler Hales, a teacher on campus, and Hutzler, who both know Braxton and his family well, single out his work ethic and drive for excellence.
But it’s the small things, and the intangibles, that convince folks like those at the University of Arizona to extend him a full-ride scholarship to play quarterback for the Wildcats–an offer granted in his sophomore year in high school.
“He is one of the hardest working athletes around, and he’s dedicated to being good in-season and in the off-season,” gushes Hutzler, who probably partly wishes he hadn’t stepped down from the reins of the Torrey football team three years ago, just so he could continue coaching Burmeister. “He’s in the weight room. Diet: he lives a clean life. He’s not a party-er.”
Says Hales: “I could talk about him a lot. I don’t know if I have coached someone with the passion he has. Many kids say they want to be the greatest. With Braxton, he does it, whether it’s in practice, a drill, he doesn’t take it off. Matched against someone else, he tries to win it.”
Not to mention the 17-year-old’s being unfailing polite in a phone interview after breaking the CIF record for total yards, formerly held by Dillon Baxter of Mission Bay. In response to each question, he begins with “Yes, sir.” A mature young individual, he has been guided well by parents Angela and Dan.
His older brother Sage, a CIF record-holder himself, is a friend as well as workout partner to push him, as well as other athletes at Country Day. Sage, who led the Torrey basketball team to the Division 4 state title in 2012 as the San Diego Section Player of the Year, now plays football at Humboldt State.
“Sage is definitely a role model for me. We are close friends. When he’s here, we’re pretty much together 24/7,” the younger brother says with obvious pride.
Braxton tells a funny story not uncommon among brothers who both play sports. “Sage and I are very competitive,” he says. “One day, I was in the fourth grade, we were playing home run derby in the backyard. I don’t know if he knew I was walking behind him. He swung the bat and hit me in the head. I had to get 32 stitches.”
In response to suggestions that that accident rearranged his brains for the better, he chuckles and says, “That could be.”
The older brother ranks ninth in Section football records for points scored in a career with 402 during his years at LJCDS from 2009-2012. Baxter stands atop the stat with a whopping 697, far above other scorers.
Whatever the resulting cerebral alignment, Burmeister has come out a thinking quarterback and action figure nonpareil at his position, breaking Baxter’s San Diego Section record for total yards–passing, rushing, and receiving–in the Torreys’ 51-12 win at University City Sept. 16.
He didn’t just break the seven-year-old record, Burmeister obliterated it in spectacular fashion. Before Friday’s game, he only needed 16 yards to surpass Baxter’s 10,230 yards–passing, rushing, and receiving. He drilled the Centurions, no longer a patsy under second-year head coach Ryan Price, by piling up 364 yards in the air for six touchdowns, and another 173 yards rushing and one TD, for the perfect number of 7 TD’s on the night. That’s a total of 537 offensive yards.
Burmeister now stands at 8,419 yards passing, 2,338 yards rushing, and -5 yards receiving, the new CIF San Diego Section record of 10,752 total yards.
Baxter, who received a scholarship to USC but finished elsewhere, lined up at receiver, as well as quarterback, so he was able to pile up 1,685 yards receiving, in addition to his 5,539 yards rushing and 3,006 yards passing.
Burmeister’s team still has six more regular season games, plus potentially four playoff games if Country Day goes to the Division 4 finals. So each time he plays, he sets a new CIF record. He is averaging a phenomenal 429 total yards per game.
The quarterback confides about the UC triumph, “Watching some film, we noticed some things we could do (against the Centurions). We came into the game pretty excited.
“We were watching the Scripps Ranch-UC game. Scripps Ranch threw a lot. (UC) played a lot of off-man coverage. When they went deep (in defending), we threw underneath. We had a lot of quarterback drafts and draws.”
In characteristic fashion, Braxton spread the kudos around: “The line did a good job of protecting me.” His favorite passing targets have been receivers Casey Mariucci, with 20 receptions and 359 yards, Brennan Goring, 29 receptions for 353 yards, and Jaden Dir, 23 catches for 327 yards. David Brewster, like Mariucci and Goring a senior, has seven receptions for 160 yards.
His body was sore after the UC game, though he didn’t bring the issue up. A reporter asked him how he felt physically after the beating he took on 14 carries plus all the hits he took after releasing his passes. “Last night I took a hot shower, then I kind of sat down” (in the shower stall to let the water hit him), he said somewhat sheepishly. “I got face-masked. It wasn’t called in the game. (As a result) my neck is pretty sore today. That’s probably the part that hurts the most. My leg is also sore.” But he quickly concluded talk of his soreness, a normal part of the game.
Said Hales, “In the ‘Iolani game (in Hawaii, the Torreys’ season opener) he took a pretty good hit early in the game. He came back. He was playing with pain. We had the last drive of the game (which fell short as LJCDS lost. 27-19). If he’s in there, we know we have a chance to win.” “This year it’s almost like having an offensive assistant coach on the field,” says the head coach. “You don’t know that he calls a lot of the plays. We might have fourth-and-two. He might check it and have a running play (instead of the play we called) if he thinks we can get two or three yards that way.” Carmy Cesaire is LJCDS’s offensive coordinator.
Chuckles Hales. “As a coach, he’s pretty nice to have.”
The head coach traced his quarterback’s development as a player: “As a freshman, it was more running. Sophomore year, there was more passing with the running. We let him check it off (call some plays) as a junior.”
La Jolla Country Day, combining the talents of Burmeister, Goring, Mariucci, and others, won the CIF Division 5 title in Braxton’s sophomore year, Hales’ first year elevated to head coach. That means a Burmeister brother led the Torreys to a CIF title in two out of four school years, Sage’s coming only two and a half years before his younger brother’s.
On the human side, Hales adds the personal note that with Braxton graduating next June, there won’t be a Burmeister on campus next year after two decades: “After having them here for 20 years, it’s going to be really different.”
Regarding Braxton’s family, they do much more than provide two sons to be star athletes for LJCDS. “There’s been nothing more important for the Burmeisters than each other,” said Hales. “They’re giving, also. They help other kids going to camp. Right after summer break started, they were already on the beach for offseason workouts, with other kids working out with (the Burmeister boys).”
Angela, the mom, deflects praise for her contributions but acknowledges: “I generally have a ton of guys at our house, with ‘Brax’ and others.”
The quarterback played basketball as a freshman, but gave that up to concentrate on his prime sport. He still plays some basketball in his free time. “I play video games. I surf a little, but I don’t get much time in the water,” says the senior. His video games of choice are “Madden 17” and “Call of Duty”.
The issue of recruiting gets hurled against private schools in CIF. Hutzler refutes that: “People talk about recruiting. We didn’t recruit him as a three-year-old,” the age he first attended Country Day. “(As he got older) we knew had the chance to be a really good athlete.”
“Yes, sir, I was there at an early age,” says the athlete. “We moved out from Virginia. My mom wanted me in a private school. We lived in Oceanside. She put us in Country Day. I moved to La Jolla my eighth grade year.”
“I’ve taught him in the third grade, fifth grade, and eighth grade (besides coaching him in high school),” said Hales. “You could tell when he was running around the fourth-graders that he could be an exceptional athlete. He has a laser focus to get the best scholarship offer and be an elite athlete. He’s so competitive, That’s the kind of leader he is. He’s not necessarily going to be the most vocal kid, but he’s not going to slack off. Every sprint, he’s not taking off.”
“I’ve known him since he was nine,” said the head coach. “Other kids want to follow. They see the kind of kid he is.”
“It has been really fun knowing him.”
Regarding the total yards record, Hales said, “We knew he was approaching it. You look at the record book and some of the names. It’s pretty incredible. Dillon Baxter. I was looking at some of the film and to realize Braxton is going to pass him, it’s hard to believe. His ability to be at the top of his game all of the time and play hard all the time” (is impressive).
“It’s pretty cool to put La Jolla Country Day at that level. Obviously, we have some great kids that Braxton can throw to. Our offensive coordinator (Cesaire) does a great job.”
Said Burmeister on his record, “It’s definitely an awesome feeling. I have to pretty much give all the credit to the players and coaches around me. They have made it possible for me to be successful.”