Brooks: 'I’m Going to Miss Him'

Havre de Grace football and basketball coach Johnny Brooks has a with Darin Washington.

As of Wednesday, the relationship between cousins is no longer one of the coach-player variety.

, Washington—the star quarterback of the state runner-up football team—transferred to Edgewood.

“I’m going to miss him because he’s family. I’m used to seeing him every day,” Brooks said.

Brooks said Washington has transferred because his family has moved into the Edgewood High School district.

“Parents move, you’ve got to go. He lives in the Edgewood district,” Brooks said. “For all those talks of illegal residency and all that, he rides the bus to school. That’s what it came down to. He moved.”

Washington will be in his third school in less than 12 months.

He attended Havre de Grace as a freshman, and began to as a sophomore before he was deemed academically ineligible the day of the Warriors’ first game. He subsequently transferred to West Lake High in Atlanta.

Washington returned to Havre de Grace to open the 2010-2011 school year, and by all accounts had his academics in good shape through the football season.

The 6-foot-3 quarterback was named second-team All-Metro by The Sun, passing for 2,312 yards and 27 touchdowns against 12 interceptions. He also rushed for nine scores.

On the basketball court, he was arguably the best athlete on the team. But his abilities and contributions transcended the stat sheet. He often did the grunt work. Brooks called him the team’s second-best rebounder—he was averaging 7.4 per game—and his offensive game was just coming into its own before Wednesday’s news.

“He was starting to get his game together. He was missing a ton of lay-ups early on,” Brooks said. “He was getting his game together.”

It’s safe to say the rust was wearing off from football season.

And the Warriors—barring injury, ineligibility or any other unforeseen incidents—seemed poised to make another deep playoff run in the basketball tournament.

But Washington is now at Edgewood. Brooks said it is Washington’s intention to focus on academics to finish out his junior year. He has no intention of playing basketball for the Rams.

It's unknown whether Washington will remain at Edgewood for football season.

Washington’s departure raises a bevy of questions in Havre de Grace. Not the least of which is: who plays quarterback for the Warriors in the fall.

Brooks wasn’t willing to look that far ahead. And—in the event that more students move up or down Route 40, like Washington’s family did—it’s impossible to predict how much turnover will take place from June to August.

“I don’t even think about football [at this point],” Brooks said. “You really can’t prepare for it. At a small school, with the economy the way it is, you cant say what you’ll do.”