N.Y. Times Article:L.Washington

Jets? Washington Is Able to Make Things Happen

By KAREN CROUSE

Published: October 6, 2006

HEMPSTEAD, N.Y., Oct. 5 ? From the time he was plucked from the projects to play football, Leon Washington has stood out in his Jacksonville, Fla., neighborhood. In New York, he may be hard to pick out from the other runners in the Jets? revolving backfield, but where Washington grew up, in the shadows of the Jacksonville Jaguars? Alltel Stadium, he is worshiped as a patron saint of success.

?Leon is an icon in the neighborhood,? said Sgt. John Mike, a police officer in the Jacksonville Sheriff?s department who recruited a 10-year-old Washington to his Pop Warner team after watching him win a neighborhood footrace. ?They say he?s the Chosen One.?

Washington, 24, grew up knowing that his eastside neighbors were living their collective dreams of prosperity and possibility through him.

?It?s a lot of pressure,? Washington said. ?When I go home a lot of people tell me keep up the good work. The way I handle that is if I keep my nose clean and do the right thing, then I?ll be able to lead by example.?

His football career has followed the same zigzag path as one of his signature runs. Washington, 5 feet 8 inches and 202 pounds, had to be coaxed into playing football. He was a wisp of a child, weighing no more than 75 pounds when he was discovered by Mike. Although Washington was tough enough to spend some nights in total darkness when his family?s electricity bill was late getting paid, he was turned off in the beginning by football?s brutish nature.

You watch the game of football, you see how physical it is,? he said before a recent practice. ?Maybe I was a little nervous about physical contact. It took Sgt. Mike a long time to convince me to actually come out there and play. Then, I remember one of the first couple of practices I wanted to quit and go home.?

Washington stuck with the sport because he quickly figured out that players could not hit him if they could not catch him. He became a Pop Warner wonder because of his natural speed and his instinctive feel for the game. Despite having had no instruction, Washington was able to dissect defenses the way a musical prodigy can break down the notes of a song after hearing it for the first time.

During a game in Washington?s second season of organized football, an official who was running along the sideline slowed when he got within earshot of Mike and said: ?When No. 28 grows up, I want to be his manager. That kid?s going places.?

Those words would reverberate in Mike?s mind many times during the ensuing years: in 2001 when Washington was named Florida?s Mr. Football after his senior year at Andrew Jackson High; in 2002 when Washington broke into the starting lineup of the Florida State Seminoles as a freshman; and in the 2005 Gator Bowl at Alltel Stadium, when Washington, then a junior, was named the most valuable player after rushing for 195 yards and a touchdown in a victory against West Virginia.

?I never doubted that he would beat the odds and make it to the N.F.L.,? Mike, who also coached Washington at Jackson High, said in a telephone interview, ?because I always recalled what that official said that day.?

Years later the instincts Washington showed as a child would impress Jets Coach Eric Mangini and Curtis Martin, the Jets? future Hall of Fame running back. Both have talked about Washington?s ability to make something special out of nothing, as he did at Buffalo last month when he turned a screen pass into a 47-yard gain.

But on his way to the N.F.L., Washington reversed field a couple of times. He eschewed playing football as a sophomore in high school to take a job at a Hanes packaging warehouse. The bills were piling up at home and Washington, the fourth of Diane Washington?s six children, wanted to help out.

He would choose paying work over football again in the summer of 2005, between his junior and senior years at Florida State. He opted out of the Seminoles? off-season conditioning activities to work odd jobs in Jacksonville, a decision that he said cost him the team captaincy and maybe even a few carries during his senior season.

?That?s what I?m supposed to do,? he said. ?All that stuff was hard then, but now I look at it, it definitely paid off because I can appreciate what I did for work then and what I?m doing now.?

Diane Washington, a single mother who works as a chambermaid on Jacksonville?s southside, said Washington was always running interference for his family.

?If food was getting scarce, he?d go rake a lawn or pick up garbage for a few dollars and then go to the store and buy the biggest box of cereal,? she said Thursday morning in a telephone interview.

She was speaking from the lobby of the hotel where she was about to begin her shift. It is no use trying to reach her at home this week. Her voice mail filled up days ago and she has not had the time to sift through all the ticket requests and messages from people wishing her son well on Sunday.

Alltel Stadium is visible from the apartment complex where Diane Washington raised Leon and his siblings. It is possible to stand at the corner and watch replays on the stadium?s Jumbotron.

As a teenager, Washington sold sodas in the stadium. That he is returning Sunday wearing a Jets uniform is ?something that won?t seem real until I see it,? Diane Washington said.

?It took years for me to come to the conclusion that Leon loves this game,? she said. ?I didn?t really understand, why would he be smart and play a game where people knock you up in the air? I?d ask him and he?d say, ?Football will help us out and maybe some day you won?t have to work anymore.? I told him, ?I don?t want you to think that you have to go through all this just so I don?t have to work, because I like working.? ?

Washington has tried to repay his mother for all she has done. After signing a contract that included a $429,000 signing bonus, Washington, who was drafted in the fourth round in April ? 117th over all ? asked her what she needed. ?Nothing,? she said.

His contract means that Washington?s loved ones will never have to live in darkness. ?The lights won?t get turned off again,? said Washington, who makes sure that the electricity is paid and that his youngest brother, Jeremy, has nice clothes for school.

And every time the Jets play on the road, as they will Sunday, he tells his teammates not to leave their hotel rooms a mess. He often makes his bed on the road, and he usually leaves nice tips for the maids. Washington does not have to travel to Jacksonville to be reminded of where he comes from.