By Will McLernon
Medill Reports
At Nazareth Academy, CJ West didn’t just wreak havoc on the football field as he helped lead the Roadrunners to the 2018 Illinois 7A state championship; the 6-foot-1, 316-pound defensive tackle also wowed crowds on stage with his voice in the Catholic school’s musicals.
“It really helped me step out of my comfort zone,” West said about playing Moonface Martin in the musical “Anything Goes” and Kristoff in “Frozen.” “Your voice is really powerful depending on how you use it, and it really helped me with being able to talk to people and the media.”
That theater experience prepared West for the media attention he received for helping bring Indiana University to its first-ever appearance in the College Football Playoff in December and being picked 113th overall by the San Francisco 49ers in the 2025 NFL draft.
West celebrated the news at a draft party in suburban Lemont filled with family, former Nazareth Academy teammates and coaches. Playing in the NFL has been a dream for West ever since he started playing football in the eighth grade.
“It’s a celebration of CJ elevating himself and literally setting his mind to a goal and accomplishing it,” West’s mom, Richelle Barnes, said days ahead of the NFL draft.
“Going to the NFL is definitely an amazing thing, the icing on the cake, but the cake is CJ. He’s put in all of this work so we just want to celebrate him doing exactly what he set out to do,” she said.
Another Roadrunner in the NFL
Nazareth Academy football coach Tim Racki attended the draft party to celebrate his former defensive lineman, whom he described as the ultimate team player during his time at the suburban Chicago high school.
“He would draw so many double or sometimes even triple teams that would allow his teammates to make a lot of plays, that’s (something) really only a coach could appreciate,” Racki said. “But there are many times where we either needed a big sack or on a third down he would make a play.
“He would always be there in those big moments when you needed that play the most on the defensive side of the ball.”
Racki said he appreciated that West, who graduated in 2020, would come back to Nazareth when he was playing in college to help the Roadrunners work out and talk about playing at the next level with “a smile that lights up the room.”
West is the third player from Nazareth Academy to be drafted in the NFL in the past decade as he joins his former teammate Minnesota Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy and 2016 graduate Julian Love, who plays safety for the Seattle Seahawks.
Proving people wrong
Unlike McCarthy, who went to Michigan, and Love, who went to Notre Dame, West opted for the Midwest Athletic Conference (MAC) to help him develop into a future NFL draft pick.
In four seasons with the Kent State Golden Flashes, West had 110 tackles, 19.5 tackles for a loss and seven sacks in addition to being named third-team all-MAC in 2023, but he said playing for a Power Four school in his fifth year of eligibility would improve his chances of getting drafted.
“Me transferring (to Indiana) was to come and put everybody on notice that I could do that at every level,” West said in his post-draft interview with Bay Area media.
West instantly became a force on the Indiana defensive line, where he had 40 tackles, 7.5 tackles for a loss, in addition to two sacks while opening up plays for his teammates during his sole season as a Hoosier. This earned him an honorable mention in the All-Big Ten Conference and an invite to the NFL combine.
The highlight of the pre-draft process for West was running a 4.95-second 40-yard dash, making him only the ninth interior defensive lineman weighing at least 315 pounds to break the five-second mark at the NFL combine since 2003, according to Athlon Sports.
“A lot of people wouldn’t project me to run that fast, but I knew I had it in me if I worked hard and took my steps the right way,” West said. “It’s just another time I proved a lot of people wrong.”
Could make a quick impact for 49ers
Going into the draft, solidifying the interior of the defensive line was a priority for the 49ers after releasing tackles Maliek Collins and Javon Hargrave this offseason. Those departures open opportunities for West and fellow rookie defensive tackle Alfred Collins, who was picked in the second round, to compete for starting roles in training camp.
West starred as a nose tackle at Indiana but told reporters he can play other positions on the defensive line.
“I’m multiple, I can do it everywhere,” West said. “My bread and butter is at the 1-technique. I just abuse centers, punch them in the face, be as violent as possible, just create havoc down there in the middle.”
Will McLernon is a graduate student at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism specializing in sports media. You can reach him at willmclernon2024@u.northwestern.edu.
