Journey To Jadwin - Mike Washington
1/28/2021
Being a great teammate and a great person is essential to being part of the Princeton men's basketball program. Few deserve more credit for helping to carry on this tradition than Mike Washington '16.
Due to his father, Mike Sr., serving in the Navy for 20 years, Washington experienced life on both coasts during his youth. Born in Virginia, Washington and his family moved to Biddeford, Maine, when he was young. They lived there for around eight years, before moving to Brunswick, Maine, which is where he fell in love with the game of basketball. In 2007 they moved to Oak Harbor, Washington, and to this day Washington calls Seattle his hometown.
Mike Sr. is from Atlanta, and many of Washington’s earliest basketball memories were sitting on the couch with his dad watching the 2003-04 Georgia Tech team that made it to the NCAA Championship game. If he encountered several players from that team on the street, he would be starstruck.
We would watch every single Georgia Tech game that was on TV.Mike Washington
“I think the 2003-2004 Georgia Tech team was my favorite team in sports ever, they made it to the Final Four. That team had guys like Jarrett Jack, Luke Schenscher, Isma'il Muhammed, and Marvin Lewis.
Those are the guys that I grew up watching and made me fall in love with the game. Seeing the way that they played together, Jarrett Jack was the guy, but it wasn't like anyone out there was Zion Williamson. They were just a very good team and then they lost to Ben Gordon and Emeka Okafor in the national championship game after they had beaten them earlier in the year. That's a team that I fell in love with.”
Along with that Georgia Tech squad, Washington had several other basketball role models growing up including Antoine Walker, Brandon Roy and LeBron James.
Washington continued to grow in confidence over the years, but when high school came he realized it was not going to be easy. His father took over as head coach and they shared a long-term vision of transforming the program into a winning one.
“Oak Harbor basketball was not a big thing,” said Washington. “We had this vision to change that. As a freshman I came in, started every single game and averaged 16 or 17 a game. We went 1-19 which is not where you want to be at all, but we played with the tools that we had every year and kept getting better. After I graduated, my brother was the guy on the team and they eventually turned the program into a winning program.
My dad went on to coach elsewhere after that but our goal wasn’t going out to win the state championship in year one. We knew it was going to be a long process and that ups and downs are part of that process. I wanted to make kids younger than me love the game and really make Oak Harbor the place that people wanted to be at.”
When discussing the key to Oak Harbor’s turnaround, Washington stressed one key trait.
“Patience, patience, patience. Me at 14 didn't appreciate it as much as me at 25.”Mike Washington
At Oak Harbor, there was one game in particular that stood out. Led by Washington and his brother, Oak Harbor defeated Shorewood, the fifth-ranked team in the state.
“I think we scored 55 and my brother and I had 46,” proclaimed Washington. “He hit a 35-footer to win the game, it was a complete shock for everyone across the league. For me, that was a testament to all the work that had been put in over the course of those four years. After me, those guys went on to win and continue to win, my brother's senior year they had a winning record for the first time in 20 years."
That win against the number five team in the state was probably what cemented that we were sending this in the right direction.Mike Washington
While he was helping turn around the program’s fortunes at Oak Harbor, Washington was also having success on the AAU circuit for Friends of Hoop (FOH) Seattle. It was here he teamed up with Chicago Bulls superstar Zach LaVine.
It was around this time Washington also had his first brush with Princeton and learned just how powerful the Princeton network is. His coach, Jim Marsh, was a friend of legendary former Princeton head coach Pete Carril.
“He (Jim Marsh) passed away last year and I was very close with him,” explained Washington. “Jim Marsh played for the Sonics and the Blazers back in the day, he had a relationship with just about everybody in the hoops world and actually knew Pete Carril personally."
It was the first realization when I actually got to step foot on the Princeton's campus as to what a network can do for you. I'm going up to a guy like Pete Carril and saying ‘hey, you know my coach Jim Marsh and he told me to say hello.’Mike Washington
As he was making an impact on the court, he was also making an impact off it, excelling academically. Washington’s relentless competitive drive pushed him to be the best he could be at all of his endeavors.
I just wanted to be the best at whatever I was doing. I’ve always been really competitive.Mike Washington
“For some that doesn't include school but for me it did,” said Washington. "I was third in my class in high school, it sets you up nicely. I wasn't doing it because I wanted to go to a certain school, I was just doing it to be good in school.”
Due to the combination of his athletic and academic success, Washington was able to get on Princeton’s radar. He remembers first hearing from the Tigers in April or May of his junior year at Oak Harbor.
“For me it was all about the 40-year plan," explained Washington. “I wasn't worried about what the next four years brought me, how much harder I'd have to work in school.”
The relationships that you build are special, again I noticed that right when I got to campus. Talking to a guy like Pete Carril because of a network relationship that I had previously, so it's all about the 40-year plan when you're choosing Princeton. I’m sure that when you look at it from an investment standpoint, it was the best investment that I could have made.Mike Washington
Once Princeton started to become a reality, Washington and his father caught a red eye out to Princeton. While there were some delays and it wasn’t the smoothest of trips, Washington made it in time for a football game.
“Ben Hazel was my host,” said Washington. “I met Hans Brase right after that, who to this day is one of my best friends in the world, we’ve been roommates ever since. One of the biggest things for me was just seeing the campus and being there, getting a feel for the institution, meeting the people and doing that whole thing.”
Along with the relationships he built, Washington accumulated several treasured memories throughout his time at Princeton.
“As a freshman we beat Harvard at home,” explained Washington. “T.J. Bray dove for a loose ball into the scoreboard and knocked out one of them, saving the ball. We ended up winning that game by five and that was just for me as a freshman, who wasn't getting any playing time, I was looking at that like ‘okay, that's what it takes here.’ I'm going to do things that way, whether it's on the court or off the court, wherever it is.”
Washington flew to Buffalo, New York, to watch the Tigers play in the NCAA Tournament in 2017.
The entire court was all my guys. Seeing all the work that we had done to change the vibe of the program and have everyone buy in, no matter what the circumstance, that was the end result. That for me is probably one of the best memories, as well as the team going undefeated that year.Mike Washington
Being a great teammate and a great person is an essential part of being a Princeton basketball player, and Washington took it upon himself to help ensure that culture continued from generation to generation of Princeton men’s basketball players.
“Hans and I were Coach Henderson's first recruits, we were the first guys that he picked and I think that we took an onus upon ourselves to make sure we had the ability and the power to make the program into whatever we wanted it to be,” said Washington. “The first few years it's more passive, probably junior year I would say it started to get more active for us in a leadership type of role.
"When it was our turn to really take the reigns senior year, we had an open door policy, you could literally only do this at Princeton," proclaimed Washington. "You couldn't do this anywhere else. We had tape on our door so you didn't need a key, didn't need anything to get in. We were paying all these fire safety bills because we had tape on our door, anyone could just walk in at any point in time. I remember coming back and Amir Bell just came back from a class or a dining hall and he'd just be there on the couch, watching TV. That was a very regular occurrence. Devin Cannady would be there playing my Xbox, playing NBA 2k or whatever that it was.
We had tough conversations if we had any sort of issues on the team, all of them happened right there. We got a room right in the center of campus, right next to Dillon. Guys would go there and get shots up, we’d just be there in general all the time. I think that the guys on the team really appreciated having a place to go, having an outlet. If you're a freshman or a sophomore and you're rooming with three other guys that you don't necessarily know or want to be around, just being able to escape and go somewhere where you wouldn't be judged for being there. It’s been transcendent from the years down.”
He had been a leader all of his life, so helping to lead the way and set the culture came naturally to Washington. Leadership is a trait embedded inside of him and he has been captain of every basketball and football team he played on.
“I think part of that is just being bigger than everyone growing up,” said Washington. “I read a book recently called ‘The Outliers’ and it talked about how being older and being bigger is something that sticks with you forever because you're always on the best teams, you're always in the best classes. I always just kind of took it upon myself, I’m not one to get nervous in front of crowds. I really try to command rooms when I get in them, so it was easy when I got there. When you're the oldest and everyone looks up to you, it's a much easier job.”
Leadership did come naturally to Washington, but he felt it was more important than ever to be a leader and continue the strong team culture at a program like Princeton. He praises Ameer Elbuluk and Isaac Serwanga, both seniors his freshman year, for being crucial to his development.
Princeton hoops has legacy, there's a history attached to it and it’s all about the guys that were there before you.Mike Washington
“They’re two guys you probably never heard of but two guys that for me, when I think back to my time and how they guided me, those are two guys that I speak with to this day,” said Washington. "They very much gave me a framework that it's bigger than you, it's bigger than basketball, it’s about your life. This is the place where you're going to craft your friends, this is the place where you're going to find your wife, this is a place that you're going to have your career and all of your life goals for the next 40 years so it's time to start now as a freshman as opposed to looking up as a junior and being like ‘it's time for me to start looking for internships.’ I very much looked up to those two and those two set me on the right path.”
These days, Washington works for Goldman Sachs in New York City. He has been with the multinational investment bank and financial services company for five years now and feels his experience as a Princeton basketball player prepared him for the high-pressure role.
Princeton basketball has prepared me better than any class or any book could to come and do this job because it's a grind.Mike Washington
“I tell prospective interns and interns all the time and when I’m looking at resumes, I'm always looking for athletics whether it's if you're in college or if in high school were you involved in sports, because the grind, the coaching, the real-time feedback and the different things that I've learned in my time within athletics and more particularly at Princeton,” explained Washington. "It translates very well over here, there's nothing that a boss can tell you that is going to resemble 6 a.m. in the weight room with J.D., there's nothing that a boss can tell you that resembles the hardest practices. You have very thick skin that you've built up through athletics and it prepared me for this job.”
An early promotion proved Washington was more than prepared to work at a company like Goldman Sachs. That said, he has never been one to get complacent and has big goals for the future.
I was part of a class of five-to ten-percent that was promoted early.Mike Washington
“Basically, you come out of college in a three-year analyst program," said Washington. "I was promoted after two years, which only five percent of the class does. They’ve now stopped that program, but for me that was a big milestone and something that I want to accomplish. On the side, I've been studying for the CFA which is the chartered financial analyst exam. It’s a three-part exam, two of which I've passed. I'm currently enrolled to take the third exam in June.”
At Goldman Sachs, Washington is also involved with the recruiting of Princeton students as well as diverse candidates from across the U.S., an issue he is hoping to help change. Washington’s senior thesis was on the under-representation of diverse candidates on corporate boards across the S&P 500.
When he’s not on the job, Washington still plays basketball weekly, although this has been put to a halt due to COVID-19. Once again, the bonds he forged at Princeton have helped him.
“I'm mostly on the Peloton these days,” said Washington. “It gets your competitive juices going. Spencer Weisz, Amir Bell, T.J. Bray and I all got on this summer and it was so much fun, it’s like you're back competing with your boys. It was almost like we were back on campus, which was pretty cool.”
Along with Peloton rides, the brotherhood Washington formed at Princeton continues to manifest itself in so many different ways. Pre-COVID, he’d call Spencer Weisz every morning on his walk into work as Weisz would be awake due to the time change.
“I found my fiancé there," said Washington. "I have a network now that if I need something or if I need to connect someone else with someone, it's just a call away and that’s something that's much bigger than anything that I could have imagined it to be. The further on I get and the older I get, the more that I start to appreciate it.”
The brotherhood Washington speaks of extends beyond just the guys he played with, as he has become close with Steve Mills, despite Washington initially not thinking there was a shot Mills would want to speak to him. Washington wants the current and future members of the Princeton men’s basketball team to know that he hopes to be a mentor for them, even if they don’t realize it yet.
I would love it if they would reach out to me. I'll talk to them for an hour, two hours or whatever they need. You don’t always see that as a freshman, you don't always see that as an 18-19 year-old.Mike Washington
Washington’s impact on the Princeton men’s basketball program is felt today, and will be felt for years to come.
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