Kermit Washington - Retirement

Retirement

Since retiring, Washington has run restaurants and is a founder and operator of a number of charitable organizations. He ran a restaurant in Portland with former Blazer teammate Kevin Duckworth. He has also served in a coaching role with Stanford University, and worked at Pete Newell's fabled "Big Man Camp" for 15 years. In 1995 he founded The 6th Man Foundation, otherwise known as Project Contact Africa. In August 1994, Washington accompanied a team of doctors and nurses on a humanitarian mission to Goma, Zaire, working in a refugee camp helping victims of the bloody Rwandan Civil War. The stench of death and human waste extended for miles. "It was a sad, sad sight," Washington later recalled, "a sight I'll never forget."

After his career, Washington has complained of treatment he has received in relation to his punching of Tomjanovich. Washington has sought to portray himself as a victim of the fight and appears to have exaggerated some of the misfortunes that came his way as a result of it. Washington told The New York Times that he has been refused work as a coach time and again. However, Tom Davis hired him as an assistant coach at Stanford, and Davis wanted to bring him to Iowa when he went to coach there. Washington stayed at Stanford and later quit his assistant coaching position, and he subsequently worked as strength and conditioning coach for the Portland Trail Blazers.

Washington also claimed that American University cut off contact with him after he punched Tomjanovich. However, this appears to be a misrepresentation of certain events. When he tried to become athletic director of American in 1995, the school offered to hire him as assistant to the athletic director, since Washington had no front office experience. When confronted about this Washington stated: "I didn't see why I couldn't be the AD so they could use my name out front and then have someone with more experience be my assistant." John Feinstein and others have suggested that the most lasting damage caused by the fight between Washington and Tomjanovich has been to Washington's self-image, and his supposed refusal to accept responsibility for his actions in that fight. Pat later said it went deeper than that, as when she met him in college:

It was very hard for him to show affection. Sometimes I would ask him directly if he really cared about me, and he would say something like, "I think you're really nice." It was hard for him to be more open than that. He had never really been nurtured, never really been loved. I came to believe if I nurtured him enough, if I loved him enough, he would get past all that. But I don't believe he ever really did.

Washington currently lives in the Washington, DC area, where he is employed as a regional representative of the National Basketball Players Association.