The Rise of a Gillion Academy Phenom From 'Skinny, Slow and Pigeon-Toed' to Future SEC Star

The Mississippi State signee’s unlikely journey from overlooked underclassman to national recruit mirrors the rapid rise of one of the country’s most intriguing new basketball programs.

Once a "scrawny freshman" from Melbourne, Florida, Willie Burnett III has developed into a rising star at Gillion Academy in Virginia. / Gillion Academy

This is the next installment of our continuing series on Northern Virginia’s Gillion Academy, which is among the country’s premiere prep basketball teams in its first year of existence. You can read Part I here. 

While coaching Orlando’s West Oaks Academy during the 2022-2023 season, Kenny Gillion began hearing whispers about a scrawny freshman from Melbourne, Florida with an impressive scoring arsenal named Willie Burnett III.

A First Impression No One Could Forget

Gillion’s assistant JP Gajardo first saw Burnett in a state playoff regional final that year and reported back with rave reviews.

“I went to watch another kid and couldn’t take my eyes off Willie,” said Gajardo. “He was electrifying. He scored about 17 points but he really caught my attention because he was this little freshman who played like a senior.”

Gillion invited the precocious freshman to a practice session that spring for his Team Breakdown AAU program. But when Burnett walked into the gym, the coach paused as he looked the kid over and thought he’d made a mistake.

“He was little, skinny, slow and pigeon-toed,” said Gillion, recalling his first impressions. “Willie didn’t look like a baller at all.”

As the ninth graders warmed up with three-man weave drills, Gillion was further convinced that Burnett was in over his head.

“That was the first time I saw Marcis Ponder and he was trying to rip the rim down,” recalled Burnett. “I was the only player in the gym who couldn’t play above the rim. I was about 5-foot-11 and bony. And after every one of those guys went flying through the air and dunked, I was like, ‘Damn!’”

Buckets Over Bounce: How Burnett Changed Minds

When they began scrimmaging, though, eyebrows throughout the gym were suddenly raised. 

“Willie had this spirited, bubbly personality,” said Gillion. “He couldn’t move fast laterally or in a straight line, but he was giving out buckets. He just had this natural confidence and was so comfortable in his own skin.” 

Whenever a defender pressed up on him, Burnett would grin, saying, “You better back up, you ain’t gonna be able to guard me.” 

While jogging back after each improbable basket, he’d glance toward the sideline while chirping at Gillion, who he’d met for the very first time that day, “Hey coach, you know these guys can’t guard me, right?”

“He wasn’t athletic, he wasn’t tall and his knees were knocking against one another. But he was incredibly skilled,” Gillion continued. “I thought that once Willie’s athletic ability caught up to his skills, he was going to be unstoppable.”

Now approaching 6-foot-5 less than three years later and having blossomed into one of the top backcourt prospects in the country, Burnett is putting an exclamation point on his prep career as a senior at Gillion Academy in Northern Virginia before suiting up for Mississippi State in the SEC next year. 

He committed to the Bulldogs in September after considering offers from the likes of Florida State, Oklahoma State and a host of others. 

Basketball in His Blood: A Family Legacy Forged in Resilience

Basketball was Burnett’s destiny, his future path germinating years before he came into the world.  

His mom, Dr. Roselyn Burnett, was a star at Miami Central High School. A self-proclaimed “tough” tomboy, she was the only girl among eight brothers reared in a Carol City public housing development. 

Her hoops dream was deferred as a young mother after attending Miami Dade College for two years. But she was resolute in furthering her pursuits on the court and in the classroom after a necessary hiatus. 

Separated from the game for three years, she worked full-time at McDonald’s and Wendy’s.

“I not only wanted to finish playing, I had to,” said Dr. Burnett. “I trained five days a week, packing a lunch and taking the train to Broward to work out. A lot of people said I wouldn't be able to do it, but I was determined.”

Once back in playing condition, she sent out tape with the help of her former Miami-Dade coach. Scholarship offers soon materialized. She chose to attend Florida Institute of Technology over overtures from schools in Georgia and Alabama. 

After her college career, she competed in local rec leagues, where she fortuitously met Willie Burnett, Jr. 

He was a neighborhood legend on the sandlot football fields and playground basketball courts of his hometown of Melbourne, Florida, a truckdriver, a “hardworking man” as his future wife described him. 

He wasn’t allowed to compete in sports until his junior year of high school due to his mother’s strict adherence to Seventh Day Adventist religious principles, which stipulate that the hours between sundown on Fridays and Saturdays are reserved solely for worship.  

But that didn’t stop his name and exploits from making a permanent mark on the area’s sports tableau. 

“When I was young and my dad would take me to the parks to play and work out, I can’t tell you how many times the older guys would come up to me saying, ‘Your daddy was the truth back in the day!,’”said Burnett.

Dr. Burnett’s first interaction with her future husband was when he blocked her shot during one of those rec league games after she’d finished up at Florida Tech. As she shook her defender and drove toward the hoop, Burnett Jr. slid over and sent her shot flying out of bounds.

The parents of Willie Burnett III met on the basketball court and passed on their love of the game, as well as their talent, to him. / Gillion Academy

“I was about to talk trash, but then I really looked at her and was shocked by how beautiful she was,” he said. “So I didn’t say anything and just kept playing.”

A few evenings later he was at Jamaican Me Crazy, a nightclub in Cocoa Beach. Unable to get a haircut before heading out, he decided to mask his dire need for a shape-up with a stylish cap. 

When he noticed the cute lady walking past him, the one whose shot he punched in that rec league game, he stopped her and said, “Hey Roz, remember me?”

“Yeah,” she said, showing little emotion. “Take your hat off.”

After a few seconds of the hat staying stubbornly affixed, she smiled, shrugged her shoulders and walked off. 

He saw her again at another local club a few days later and said hello, bought a drink for her and her friend and promptly left. They bumped into one another shortly thereafter and exchanged numbers.

“She called me that Monday and we went on our first date a few days later,” said Burnett Jr. “We went to Burger King and had the greatest time. She enjoyed it as if we’d gone to a Five-Star restaurant. I knew right then and there that I wanted to spend my life with her. We’ve been rolling together ever since.”

Willie III, who the family calls “Junie”, was the last of their six children, all of whom excelled in sports. And he seemed determined to follow that path even prior to making his worldly entrance.

“When I was five months pregnant with Willie, he was already in position to come while still in my womb,” said Dr. Burnett. “And he was always busy and moving around. I had to sleep upright in a chair with him because I couldn’t sleep on my back.”

The fighting spirit of both mother and son was evident six months into the pregnancy after a terrible accident. 

Dr. Burnett had exited her vehicle in the family driveway to pull the garage door down when the car, with one of her daughters inside, started rolling down the steep incline. She sprinted to grab a hold of the car door and was swiftly dragged across the busy street and into a neighbors yard, where she crashed into a porcelain toilet that was sitting outside. 

She fell violently and rolled continuously on her belly. Her left ear was severed. 

In and out of consciousness, she remembers an E.M.T. saying, “We gotta take her ear,” while whirring blades reverberated above as a helicopter arrived to airlift her to a shock-trauma unit. 

In grad school completing her Master’s Degree in Mental Health at the time, she asked about her unborn baby upon regaining full consciousness.

“The doctors couldn't believe he made it intact,” said Dr. Burnett. “They said the way I fell, he was moving and bouncing around and the accident shifted him in my belly. They were shocked that his heart rate was fine and hadn’t experienced any life threatening injuries.”

That constant movement continued from the moment he was born. He dribbled a basketball all over the house as a toddler, to the consternation of his mom. 

Her husband, sensing her frustration while noticing how advanced his young son was in handling the ball, told her, “Leave him alone, let that boy dribble, it’s gonna be worth it one day.”

“Young Willie was hyper, he couldn’t sit still,” said Burnett, Jr. “You had to keep an eye on him at all times because he was always into something.”

They attempted to tire him out with organized soccer and flag football, to no avail.  

“He had so much energy, I had to make him lay up underneath me at night because he wouldn’t go to sleep,” said Dr. Burnett. “He’d come home from practice and would not be tired, running and bouncing the ball all over the house.”

When he was sitting still, he was watching highlights of Kobe Bryant, God Shammgod, Jamal Crawford and streetballers like Professor and Hot Sauce.

“I loved watching guys handle the ball who had a different type of confidence and swag,” said Burnett. 

By the age of six, his dribbling skills were so advanced that one of his rec league coaches kept telling him to tone it down in order to stop embarrassing the other kids. 

A ref pulled his dad aside and recommended playing him up against older competition. By the time he was in the third grade, he was holding his own against junior high school kids. As a sixth grader, he was playing in high school summer leagues. 

Willie Jr. would take his son over to the rough side of town for pickup runs as well to forge his toughness.

“I stayed on him and pushed him because the guys I played with growing up that had the most success were aggressive in wanting to dominate every aspect of the game,” said Willie Jr.

And with a set of parents and five older siblings who excelled at athletics, there wasn’t much sympathy around the house when things didn’t go well in practices or games.

“Sports was life in our home and our kids did not get babied,” said Dr. Burnett. “When challenges presented themselves, we simply said, ‘Step your game up.’”

And even when Burnett flourished, his parents kept him grounded.

“His dad knew how to balance being critical with being supportive,” said Gillion. “He’d tell him things like, ‘You scored 35, but you weren’t rebounding.’”

The Moment Everything Changed

After transferring to West Oaks, Burnett was hesitant during his first runs with his new squad at the Florida State team camp in June of 2024. He was passing up good shots, being too unselfish.

Gillion pulled him aside, looked him in the eye and said, “Empty your clip. Shoot the ball.”

Burnett hasn’t looked back since.

Playing in the New Balance Grind Session his junior season, he took that directive to heart while averaging 27 points and shooting 38% from deep on a circuit featuring a crop of current NCAA freshmen sensations like Kansas’ Darryn Peterson, BYU’s AJ Dybantsa and Louisville’s Mikel Brown. 

“At the end of his sophomore year, he had zero offers,” said Gillion. “By the end of his junior season at West Oaks, he had high major offers and cracked the ESPN list as a top recruit in the Class of 2026.”

During his junior campaign at West Oaks, Burnett scored over 30 points eight times, including a season high 44-point outburst against Daytona Beach’s DME Academy.

Building Gillion Academy — Together

After the season, Gillion informed him that he was heading to Northern Virginia to start up a new program with his brothers and other stakeholders that would debut this season.

“I didn’t want to leave Florida, but coach Kenny and I believed in one another and I felt like I needed to go with him,” said Burnett. 

His parents fully agreed.

“It was a hard decision to let him leave, but coach Kenny was the factor,” said Burnett, Jr. “He loves my son, he knows his game, and he knows what’s right for him. He’s a great coach, a great person, and Willie loves him back.”

On December 5, in a 92-87 win over Tampa Catholic, Burnett and Ponder, the 7-footer he first met at that initial Team Breakdown tryout when they were freshmen, proved why they're one of the nation’s premiere perimeter and interior combos. 

Ponder dominated with 32 points and 30 rebounds. Burnett scored 30 while connecting on 57% of his shots, snagged five rebounds and dished out six assists.

Initially, the thought of leaving sunny Florida and moving to Virginia to complete his high school basketball career was not appealing to Willie Burnett III. His faith in Gillion Academy co-founder and coach Kenny Gillion, however, convinced to make the move. / Gillion Academy

During a recent morning, a visiting coach who was utilizing a separate area of the gym walked over to observe Willie working out. The coach, unaware of the flu symptoms he’d been fighting off, mentioned that Willie was coming off  some sub-par scoring performances at the prestigious City of Palms event.

Gillion pointed out that Burnett had averaged 20 against two of the country’s top teams at the event.

The visitor said, “Yeah, but you’re Willie Burnett, that’s nothing!”

The Joy, Swagger and Heart Behind Burnett's Game

With a disposition that’s always energetic and upbeat, some might mistakenly misconstrue Willie’s unabashed expressions of happiness as arrogance. 

“When you see him on the court dancing, he’s not trying to showboat,” said Gillion. “That’s just who he is, an upbeat kid that’s always having fun.”

His parents, long accustomed to his constant movement and buoyancy, embrace and cherish their youngest son’s cheerfulness.

“I love his personality,” said Burnett Jr. “He’s extremely smart. And he has common sense to go along with book smarts. He’s still hyper and funny like he was when he was younger. He’s just a big kid at heart.”

But when confronted with his prep career soon coming to an end, Burnett’s tone takes on a slight seriousness as he thinks about his journey with coach Kenny, leaving Florida with Ponder and his other Team Breakdown homies to help launch Gillion Academy and a future that will soon see them separated from one another.

“This is our last year with coach Kenny, playing together,” said Burnett. “But when we’re in college and beyond, wherever life takes us, we’ll always be in each other’s corner, challenging one another, pushing each other to succeed.”

But before that, there are a few more games to play and a season to finish.