Kermit Alan Washington (born September 17, 1951) is an American former professional basketball player. Washington is best remembered for punching opposing player Rudy Tomjanovich during an on-court fight in 1977.Robbins, Liz. Inside the N.B.A.; Three Decades Later, Washington Still Feels Effects of His Punch , The New York Times, January 30, 2005, accessed November 17, 2010.*Zirin, Dave. Kermit Washington reaches out to Oregon RB LeGarrette Blount , sportsillustrated.com, September 8, 2009, accessed November 17, 2010. Washington was not a highly coveted player coming out of high school. He averaged four points per game during his senior season at Coolidge Senior High School. He improved rapidly once at American University, and became one of only seven players in NCAA history to average 20 points and 20 rebounds throughout the course of his career.
A big defensive forward, Washington was known for his ability to gather rebounds. He averaged 9.2 points and 8.3 rebounds per game in ten National Basketball Association (NBA) seasons and played in the All-Star Game once. Washington was drafted by the Los Angeles Lakers with the fifth overall pick in the 1973 NBA draft. He played sparingly his first three seasons, and sought the help of retired basketball coach Pete Newell before his fourth season. Under Newell's tutelage, Washington's game rapidly improved and he became a starter for several teams. He played for the Lakers, Boston Celtics, San Diego Clippers, Portland Trail Blazers and Golden State Warriors.
Early life Kermit Washington's mother BarbaraFeinstein pg. 110 graduated from Miner Teachers’ College (later subsumed into University of the District of Columbia); his father Alexander was an X-ray technician.Halberstam. pg. 256 When he was three years old, his parents had a fight in which his uncle was violently attacked with an iron. His parents soon divorced, with his father awarded custody of the children. His mother, who suffered from bipolar disorder, then took custody of him and his older brother Eric from their father. Struggling to find money to feed the children, she eventually called their father, who took them back; his stay with his father did not last long however, and he and his brother were passed around to various relatives on both sides of the family.
Washington was a shy child.Halberstam. pg. 257 The only time he recalled feeling a sense of self-worth was when his great-grandmother on his father's side had the pair for a while. According to Washington, she loved the boys but was extremely strict, domineering, and at times, physically abusive.Feinstein. pgs. 111–12 After his father remarried, the children moved back in with him and his new wife. Washington felt a sense of optimism for the first time, saying "I thought it was our dream come true. All our lives we had seen nice families on TV. Real ones. Now we were going to be a real family."Feinstein. pg. 111 However, he again felt unwanted this time by his stepmother. As a small child, Washington said that he had no recollections of ever being hugged, and only felt close to his younger brother, Chris. Washington was a poor student who hated school throughout most of his childhood.Halberstam. pg. 258 He had to retake many of his classes in summer school to raise his grades.Feinstein. pg. 121 When he entered high school he played football merely so he could be around a close friend, and have someone to walk home with at night as he was terrified of walking home alone.
As a senior in high school, Washington stood but weighed a mere 150 lbs. After some rare positive feedback by his biology teacher, Barbara Thomas, he began to study and put forth a greater effort in that class.Feinstein. pg. 115 He quickly became a solid student in biology but poor in all other subjects.Halberstam. pg. 259 When Thomas became his home room teacher and saw his grades in other classes she encouraged him to try hard in all of his courses.Feinstein. pg. 116 Washington rapidly improved his marks, making the honor roll in his senior year.
His basketball performance in high school was unimpressive.Feinstein. pg. 114 He came off the bench to average four points per game (ppg).Feinstein. pg. 122 His stepmother informed him that when he graduated from high school he would be thrown out of the house. He trained for three hours a day toward the end of his senior season, and showed up uninvited at a playground game featuring top high school players from Washington and Pennsylvania, where he talked his way into the game.Halberstam. pgs. 259-60Feinstein. pgs. 116–8 Tom Young, who had recently left his job as an assistant coach at the University of Maryland to become head coach at American University, saw him play there, and although Washington did not perform particularly well, Young was impressed by his hustle and how he ignored the poor treatment he received from the people who organized the game.Halberstam. pg. 260
College years During the summer between his senior year of high school and his freshman year of college, Washington grew four inches.Halberstam. pg. 261 He began weight training, and ran the steps in his seven-story dormitory building wearing a weighted vest to improve endurance. Washington became more extroverted in college, so much so that he later said his life could be separated into two parts—his pre-college life and his life after college. He has frequently described his college years as "the happiest time in my life". He began dating his future wife Pat when he was a freshman. They met after she noticed him accidentally scoring four consecutive points for the opposing team in a freshman basketball game. She pursued him even though he often remained silent when she spent time with him. A lot of the emergence of Washington's personality is credited to Pat, who encouraged him to be more outgoing and overcome his low self-esteem.Halberstam. pg. 262 Washington spent a lot of his free time practicing in the gym. He played playground basketball in the summer, and was on several Urban League teams. He averaged 19.4 points and 22.3 rebounds on his freshman team at American.Kermit Washington , basketball-reference.com, accessed October 9, 2010. Pat helped him with his grades—despite the fact that he had done well his senior year of high school he was still far behind; he did not even know what a paragraph was when he entered college or how to write a report.Halberstam. pg. 263
He averaged 18.6 points on 46.8 percent shooting and 20.5 rebounds in his first year of varsity basketball. He still played a somewhat unaggressive or "soft" brand of basketball, and it was hurting his chances of being drafted by a professional team.Halberstam. pg. 264 Between his sophomore and junior years he began lifting weights with Trey Coleman, a former football player from Nebraska who was studying as an undergrad at American.Feinstein. 137 Coleman encouraged him to be more aggressive on the court, and Washington told him that it was not in his nature. Coleman admonished him, telling him he could not afford to be "cool" on the court given his talent level if he wanted to join the pro ranks. Washington was named an academic All-American his junior year. He averaged 21.0 points on 54.4 percent shooting and an NCAA rebounding leader 19.8 rebounds in his junior season.2009–10 NCAA Men's Basketball Records , ncaa.org, accessed November 23, 2010. He was drafted after his junior season by the New York Nets of the American Basketball Association (ABA) and offered a four-year contract for $100,000 a year, which astonished him.Feinstein. pg. 145 He decided to stay at American with coach Young for his senior season because he felt he owed the school which had given him a chance when he was coming out of a difficult period in high school. He was offered an invite to try for the 1972 Olympic basketball team after the season, but did not make the squad.Feinstein. pgs. 147–9
Washington was one of the best players in the country going into his senior season. He marveled at newspaper reports in the Washington Post that mentioned "coaches of opposing teams and how they were planning to stop Kermit Washington".Halberstam. pg. 265 He led the nation in rebounding again in his senior season. He was a second team All-American, and helped American into the National Invitation Tournament (NIT). In the last game of his college career, Washington needed to score 39 points to average 20 points and 20 rebounds a game for his career in college. He became extremely nervous before the game and could neither eat nor sleep.Feinstein. pg. 150 The game set American University attendance records, and Washington felt light on his feet when he was introduced before the raucous crowd. He managed to score 40 points and in so doing, became just the seventh player to reach the 20/20 mark. He was thrown a party, and there was a campus wide celebration after the game.Feinstein. 152 He graduated with a 3.37 GPA and a degree in sociology.Moore, Matt. Words on Pages: "The Punch" by John Feinstein , hardwoodparoxysm.com, accessed October 9, 2010. Washington was a two-time Academic All-American, who taught courses in social sciences his senior year.
Professional career
Los Angeles Lakers (1973–1977) Washington was drafted fifth overall by the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1973 NBA draft. A week before the team began training camp, Pat and Kermit were married. They invited neither of their families; they just drove together to LA's city hall for the ceremony.Feinstein. pg. 180 He had a difficult time making the transition from college center to NBA power forward.Halberstam. pgs. 265–266 Washington also had played in a primarily zone defense system in college and was not versed in man-to-man defense, which is more common in the NBA.Lazenby. pgs. 170–171 He arrived on a team which had legend Jerry West, who was in the waning stages of a career that would result in his becoming the silhouette seen on the NBA's logo.Jerry West bio , nba.com, accessed December 16, 2010. Washington admits that he was terrified of West, and felt anxiety every time he made a mistake in front of him.Feinstein. 180 Though healthy,Halberstam. pg. 266 he played in only 45 games and averaged 8.9 minutes a game his rookie season. He hurt his back that year but kept quiet about it, fearing he would be "labeled soft".Feinstein. pg. 181 The injury would bother him the rest of his career. He continued to struggle in his second season, and discovered that finding individual coaching in the professional game at that time was difficult.Feinstein. pg. 187 Between the rigorous schedule, and the coaches assuming players already knew how to play for the most part when they entered the league, no one, including head coach Bill Sharman, was willing to work with him on a one-on-one basis.