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." 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. He had to retake many of his classes in summer school to raise his grades. 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. He quickly became a solid student in biology but poor in all other subjects. 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. Washington rapidly improved his marks, making the honor roll in his senior year. His basketball performance in high school was unimpressive. He came off the bench to average four points per game (ppg). 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. 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. College years During the summer between his senior year of high school and his freshman year of college, Washington grew four inches. 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