Race won’t define him

It’s hard not to notice Cecil Whiteside.

At any given football game, he’s the Newport Harbor High defender who’s flying around the field, who always seems to be near the ball.

In the Sailors’ starting lineup, he’s the only sophomore.

On the Sailors’ football team, he’s the only African American.

So fading into the woodwork just isn’t a viable option for the Sailors’ starting middle linebacker.

Not when he’s second in the Sunset League with 98 tackles. He trails only senior Esperanza linebacker Lukas Brady, who has 99.

Whiteside has been making a name for himself with his performance. As a member of the ranks of the top five tacklers in the Sunset League, Whiteside is the youngest. The rest — Reggie Mitchell (Marina), Earnie Sagiao (Edison), and Kameron Jones (Los Alamitos) — are all seniors.

When Newport Harbor Coach Jeff Brinkley started to think about Whiteside’s potential, and the sort of player he would grow into by his senior season, he started to smile. The sophomore middle linebacker and receiver is 6-foot-3, 205 pounds, and Brinkley expects he’ll get bigger.

He’ll need to play big tonight at 7, when the Sailors (8-3) play host to top-seeded Long Beach Poly (10-1) in a quarterfinal of the CIF Southern Section Pac-5 Division playoffs.

“He has got the ability to run a little bit,” Brinkley said. “He has got a huge upside over the next couple of years. He’s just starting to figure this game out. By the time he’s a senior, I’m sure he’ll be a recruited guy, and have a lot of colleges talking to him.”

Whiteside, who also had two sacks and three fumble recoveries this season, had 14 catches for 152 yards as a receiver. Still, his ultimate love is defense.

“To start both ways, and to play the positions that he does is a big deal,” Brinkley said. “But Coach [Danny] Pulido was the same way.”

Whiteside also competes in basketball and track and field teams. He throws the discus and the shot put.

As the one responsible for communicating plays on defense, he’s also a leader on Newport Harbor’s closely knit football team.

After a Wednesday morning football practice, a couple of teammates tapped him as they walked off the field, to say “See you later.”

“Hey, wait for me,” he told junior offensive lineman Peter Kinney. “I mean, don’t leave without me.”

Kinney and Whiteside attended Newport Elementary together, and Kinney is Whiteside’s closest friend on the team.

Last season, Kinney was still playing junior varsity, and he’d sit in the stands on Friday nights, watching Whiteside make plays under the lights as a freshman. He was so happy for his friend, and proud to see him doing well so early.

“I think people respect him as a great athlete,” Kinney said of Whiteside, the first freshman to start a regular-season game in Brinkley’s 22 seasons.

But even Kinney was slightly surprised to hear that Whiteside sometimes feels alienated because of his race.

“Obviously, we all know it,” Kinney said, after a pause. “We don’t make fun of him.

We would never do anything, or say anything racist, or count him out of anything. We would never be racist toward him at all. There’s no reason to do it. We just wouldn’t do it to him or anyone just because we’re not like that.”

The two had never really discussed Whiteside’s race, because Whiteside never wanted it to be the one thing that defined him.

“I fit in with a lot of different people’s personalities,” Whiteside said. “I think people are starting to not really look at that so much as they used to, and they’re starting to embrace it more.”

Whiteside is more than just his skin color, or his talent, or his 40-yard dash time. He wants to study business and he’s into modern architecture. And even though he thinks of himself as a science person, his favorite class is English. Something about “Lord of the Flies” and “The Catcher in the Rye” sparked his interest.

When he’s not playing sports, Whiteside’s with his teammates, playing video games, going to the beach, and watching movies.

“When he’s around his friends, he’s really funny,” Kinney said. “And, he’s definitely proud of his accomplishments, but he’s not arrogant. He’s a really fun guy to hang out with and be a good friend.”

SORAYA NADIA McDONALD may be reached at (714) 966-4613 or at soraya.mcdonald@latimes.com.