Darnell Washington’s journey from foster care and sleeping in a U-Haul to 2023 NFL Draft

Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

The UGA product is about to realize his lifelong dream of playing in the National Football League.

Georgia’s Darnell Washington is a tantalizing tight end prospect with extraordinary potential, but what’s even more remarkable than his exceptional physical gifts is the miraculous journey that he has taken to get to this point.

At 6’7 and 264 pounds, Washington put on a dazzling display at the scouting combine, highlighted by a 4.64 40-yard dash time that is nearly unheard of for a player his size. But his potential as a player isn’t limited to physical ability. His experiences growing up have positively shaped his work ethic, attitude, and perspective.

I had the opportunity to sit down with Washington for a one-on-one interview, where he detailed the inconceivable amount of adversity he has had to overcome in his life and how it has helped shape him as a man and as a football player.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Foster care and homelessness shaped Washington’s early years

His story starts with some background on an extremely unstable living situation that he was subjected to at a very young age:

“My dad left when I was really young. All I remember was waking up in a foster home, and I was in a foster home until I was in the third grade; thats when I started living with my mom. It was crazy, I just remember being asleep, and then I kind of remember being inside of a car, still to this day. But I’m a heavy sleeper so I stayed asleep, and when I woke up I looked around; I didn’t see any of my brothers or sisters, it was just other kids. I just didn’t know what it was. I was bouncing around foster homes — can’t even tell you how many I’ve been in, give or take around seven.”

Washington comes from a big family with a total of eight siblings, including himself. He has four brothers and three sisters, and he was separated from all of them but his brother Ezekiel once he was moved into a foster home at such a young age:

“All the girls, I’m not sure where they went, but they weren’t with us. The last four in our family [are] boys. So it’s me, I got a brother who is one year older than me, then a brother that’s a couple years older than him and another thats a little bit older than him, so they’re back to back, and then me and my brother who is one year older are back to back. So me and the one who is one year older, we have always been together, we’ve always been in the same home.”

Throughout the turbulent early stages of Washington’s life, he still maintained belief in a dream that he would one day play in the National Football League:

“I always wanted to play football. My mom didn’t allow me to play football, so I didn’t start playing football until I was 11. Before 11 I was allowed to play soccer, so I was playing soccer before I played football. Played ever since then, but I always wanted to be in the NFL as a little kid. Some kids want to be a police officer or a firefighter; I wanted to be in the NFL. I always wanted it and if that’s what God has planned for me, then soon I will be living the dream.”

While we discussed his love of the game from such a young age, I asked Washington if there were any players he idolized growing up who may have led to the strong passion he had for the sport of football so early in his life:

“We didn’t have cable so I didn’t watch football, but my favorite player growing up was Calvin Johnson, AKA Megatron. I was playing receiver so I always wanted to be like him and play like him, and plus I was a tall receiver. I was always tall; taller than mostly everyone on the field. So I for sure wanted to model my game after him. The chances I did get to watch football growing up was [on] YouTube, so I’d always watch his highlights.”

Once Washington did start playing the game he loves so much, many of the struggles that he endured in his home life continued to follow him into his adolescence. That included a stretch during the beginning of his high school years when he and his family were homeless for a period of time.

He explained in detail what the living situation was like during this period of his life, including a point where he and his family were left with no other option but to sleep in a rented U-Haul:

“We had just been evicted from our apartment. So at that time we didn’t have anyplace to go. Then we started staying with our mom’s friend for a little bit, us three in the living room. So I’m on the couch, my brother is on the couch, my mom slept on the floor at that time. So we stayed there for a little bit and finally got a U-Haul and we had all of our stuff in the U-Haul, and then we actually slept in that U-Haul for a couple days or so. Then we ended up moving to a motel, and after that we ended up getting an apartment closer to the school.”

Washington also explained how a felony conviction in his mother’s past made it difficult to find stable housing for the family, in large part due to a system that is unforgiving to those with a criminal record in their past:

“My mom, she’s a felon, so most apartments we couldn’t get because of her criminal background and lack of employment. As a felon you can’t get every job, most jobs don’t wan’t to hire you because of it — same thing with finding a place to live because of the background check. So our living options were limited; we had to move into either a single-owned apartment which were definitely not in the best neighborhood and lacked up-to-date compliances.”

The transition to tight end was a turning point for Washington

It was around this point in time that he first crossed paths with coach David Hill, who has since served as a prominent role model and mentor for Washington.

“I had seen Darnell for the first time when I was a coach at Desert Pines High School,” said Hill, “We had this seven-on-seven high school tournament, and he played for another local high school. He was playing wide receiver, and I was like, who is this big dude? I had never seen him before, I’d never heard of him before, but I was very impressed by his skill set.”

Coach Hill’s reputation as someone who was very active in the community preceded him, and Washington voiced his desire to play for Hill at Desert Pines High School.

It was under Hill’s watch that Washington made the transition to the tight end position, transforming himself into one of the most coveted recruits in the entire nation. He spoke a bit about what led to the switch and what it was like for him making that transition to an entirely new position at that point in his life:

“What really led to my transition was my size, and then also I started putting on weight as well. I started filling out my body, as you get older you put on natural weight, as well as the weight room which caused me to be a little bit too heavy to be a receiver. The transition from receiver to tight end was easy for me, just being the person I am. I feel like it was mainly a mindset thing — clearly you’re going to be in the trenches, and you have to stack up against physical players in the trenches on every snap, but you still have to have that savviness as a receiver in the pass game. That’s why I feel like the biggest thing I had to work on was being in the trenches, because the pass game I always had from growing up playing receiver most of my career.”

Given how efficient Washington was as a blocker during his time at Georgia, I was curious to learn what led to him having so much success in the area of his game that he felt needed the most work when he made the initial position change.

What stood out was his answer when discussing the feeling he gets after executing a key block compared to making a big play with the ball in his hands:

“That feeling is actually even greater for me, maybe even twice as great as having the ball in my hand sometimes. Like, wow, I just dominated somebody and put him in the dirt, or even just covering someone up and making that key block. You can just feel it in your blood, you get this cool little feeling in your stomach. It feels good to make that key block.”

Washington’s heart is as big as his NFL potential

This should come as no surprise to anyone who has had the chance to watch Washington play, but what truly separates him is the fact that he has a heart that’s as big as the massive 6’7 frame he uses to bulldoze opposing defenders.

No matter how much adversity and struggle he experienced growing up, he always maintained a generous and kindhearted personality that shines through. As one example, during his time at Georgia, the players were gifted pairs of Beats headphones through a sponsorship deal. Washington immediately gave his to one of the equipment managers who otherwise wouldn’t have received a pair.

As someone who grew up with luxury items being a foreign concept, Washington hasn’t allowed the prominence or fame that he has attained to prevent him from being the caring and giving person he has always been.

Many of us, myself included, take for granted the everyday amenities we have with things like cell phones, television, or the internet. To give you an idea of just how different things were for Washington growing up, I’ll share with you a story from one of his recruiting visits during high school.

During a player development session at Florida State University, Washington was shown a couple of pictures of famed musician/businessman/media mogul Jay-Z. One when he was young, and another when he was older, in an attempt to help illustrate what growth looks like.

The only problem with this? Washington had no clue who Jay-Z was.

When I asked Washington about it during our discussion, he candidly explained why he was unfamiliar with one of the more recognizable celebrities on the planet:

“Growing up, I didn’t have cable and I didn’t have a phone. So I didn’t know Jay-Z — I just didn’t know who he was at the time. I don’t think I even heard of Kanye until high school. I’m just clueless when it comes to the celeb world; I just focus on myself.”

As we continued talking, I asked Washington if there was any advice he would share with kids who might have grand aspirations that seem impossible due to the same kind of adversity that he faced when he was growing up.

“I would just say, anything is possible if you truly want it. Everybody is going to mess up every now and then, but you’re going to choose the right path to go down. Keeping your nose clean, as clean as you can instead of going down a path where it’s dark. If you truly want to live your dream, you should choose to do everything you can to stay on track.”

He then went into detail explaining why it is so important to be kind to others, as you never truly know what another human being might be going through in their own life:

“I’d also say treat people the way you want to be treated. Like myself, growing up I didn’t have anything name brand, never had Jordans until I got to high school, and that was way late during my time in high school. I never had anything up to date; I don’t even think I had a cell phone until I got to high school. So at that time when I was going to school I’d see kids making fun of other kids that didn’t have whatever up-to-date things like a phone or whatever it may be. I looked at those guys like, I was that kid once too, so I never judge anybody for what they have or don’t have, because I didn’t have it at one point in time. People might judge me because of what I have now, and they might think everything was just given to me, but in reality I worked from nothing. Literally, I was homeless. So really just treat people how you want to be treated and just go for it. Choose the right path and don’t let anybody influence you otherwise.”

For someone who has dealt with so much hardship in their life, I was curious to learn if that kindness was something he developed over time or if it was an innate quality that he has always possessed:

“For me, as a person, it’s always been there, I’m a warm-hearted person. It may not look like it because I’m super big, so to some people I might be scary looking, but I am 100 percent a nice person when it comes to things like that and treating people right. That’s just who I am and I’ve always been that way growing up; that’s just me.”

As we continued talking, I asked him how the misfortune he has dealt with in his life has shaped him not only as a football player, but also as a human being:

“What I experienced and what I went through helped me just to be the player that I am today. I just look at it like, whatever I face that may be difficult today, whether it’s football or life in general, I just look at it like I don’t want to go back to that. So if it’s me having to study, I’m going to study so I don’t have to go back to what I went through as a kid. Even in games, like when it is a close nail-biting game like when we played Missouri, I just tell myself I’ve been through way more difficult times than this. Like when I missed tons of meals, or can’t eat on the weekends because we didn’t have food, or being in the house without power, or only having cold water. So whenever I face hard times I just think back about where I came from and what I faced, and that just motivates me even more to handle whatever my current assignment might be.”

Washington will achieve his lifelong dream of playing in the NFL

I was eager to hear if Washington has had the opportunity to reflect on his incredible journey now that he is knocking on the door of achieving his lifelong dream of playing in the NFL after overcoming so much adversity to get here:

“Me and my brother, we joke around a lot, so he will always be like ‘Isn’t it crazy that in a few months you’ll hopefully be on an NFL team?’ That’s when we start laughing at all the funny moments or the times we had growing up. We just would be like, yeah who would have ever thought that things like this would be possible, especially coming out of Las Vegas, because there aren’t a lot of guys from Las Vegas in the NFL. We’d just be like dang, our chances of actually making it are like 0.00000001 percent, because we weren’t as fortunate to have the resources that other people did. I reflect on it, but the job is not finished and I am going to continue to grind until I get to where I want to be.”

As we wrapped up our conversation, I asked him if he had anything special planned for the upcoming draft where he is all but certain to hear his name called:

“Nothing officially mapped out — looking forward to the moment just to be with family, the people I grew up with, the loved ones I should say. Just to get them all in one spot, and cherish one of the biggest moments of my life and be able to celebrate it together, I just think that would be epic. If it’s possible just all go out and get a bite to eat somewhere, and just talk and enjoy our moment together.”

Wherever Washington is and whoever he’s with when he hears his name called during draft weekend, it will be the culmination of a lifetime of hard work and overcoming adversity and the realization of a lifelong dream.