Making it count
Darius Washington is one of the few who get a second chance at a last chance. That’s why he was one of the easiest players to spot when the Eastern Washington football team began fall practice this week.
“I’ve been waiting so long for this, I’m the most energetic and excited person out here,” Washington said, flashing a megawatt smile after Tuesday’s initial workout. “I thought my career was over. I tore my MCL at Idaho and I thought I was done.”
That injury in the Eagles’ second game last season proved to be a major speed bump, especially psychologically, but that’s only what it was.
“I didn’t think I was going to get that year back,” Washington said of a senior season that appeared over after just 30 carries and 92 yards. “Once I got that year back, I just kicked it into super overdrive. I’ve been going so hard this summer. I’ve been training hard, eating well, getting rest, and I think I’m going to do some good things for this team.”
The Eagles, picked to finish second in the Big Sky Conference, certainly hope so as they embark on what could equal a school-best sixth straight winning season.
“Right now it’s real big bonus because we need a feature back that has the ability to kind of carry the load, and in some games you can give them the ball and they win it for us,” fifth-year EWU coach Paul Wulff said of Washington receiving a medical redshirt year from the NCAA. “We feel we have some good running backs in the program, but we think right now, based on maturity, he’s a guy that can do that for us.”
That didn’t appear to be the case less than a year ago. After going down against Idaho, Washington threw in the towel.
“After I got hurt I went in the shadows for a long time,” he said. “I didn’t want to come out here. I didn’t answer my coaches’ phone calls. … My strength coach (Darin Lovat), who I really, really love right now, he was trying to get me to work out. I was just thinking I’m done. … Then I started going to the games and standing on the sideline. I was like, ‘I’ve got to try.’ That gave me hope and my teammates were being supportive.”
By the end of the season, Washington had recovered enough to earn Scout Team Player of the Week.
He also had additional motivation – his daughter Jayla Jae Washington, who will be 2 next month.
“At that time I was living (with) my girlfriend and our daughter,” Washington said. “Just looking at her I wanted to do something with myself. I’ll hopefully go on to the next level. … I didn’t want to give up my dream like that. … I wouldn’t want her to give up.”
Washington, who will graduate next spring with a degree in recreation management and a minor in communications, has bulked up to 205 pounds, stronger in everything he does without losing any speed or quickness.
“I think being a redshirt last year was a blessing in disguise, and it was the best thing for our team this year,” Wulff said. “He had another year to reflect and realize that when some people’s backs are against the wall, they have to respond. He realized that for him, this was his last option to play college football. He came into spring ball like a man on a mission. I’m so proud of him and what he’s done to this point.”
Washington has overcome more than an injury to reach the point where he is expected to be the main man on a football team with expectations.
After switching from Kamiak to Mariner High School in the Mukilteo School District before his senior season in 1998, many college recruiters lost interest in a player who would have to sit out a year because he didn’t qualify academically.
Washington postponed school a year to work for Seattle’s Model Guild as a runway model. Then he had to sit the next year for academic reasons. When he finally reached the field for the Eagles in 2001, he was a defensive back and special-teams player before getting switched to running back in midseason despite the presence of two of the best backs in school history.
“He missed two years or so of football out of high school, and you could tell. It kind of took him a year or so to get back into his athletic ability,” Wulff said. “We had Jesse Chatman and Jevon Griffith, but beyond those two guys we didn’t have a proven young player. We knew in high school (Washington) was a talented running back, and we didn’t have a kid in the program that could develop into a feature guy, and so we gave him that shot. It’s really what he wanted to do all along. When it’s your first love, you have more of a passion about it.”
When Washington’s turn came after Griffith graduated, it was almost over before it started. But now he’s been given another chance and he plans to make the most of it.
“I’m not going to put anything on it or say anything I’m going to do, but I have the highest expectations,” Washington said. “I’m going to have the best year of my career, and that includes high school.”
That’s what second chances are all about.