Gene Washington

Born January 14, 1947, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Gene Alden Washington was raised in California and attended Long Beach Polytechnic High School in Long Beach, where he excelled as a multi-talented quarterback. He led the team to a league championship in 1964, earned Back of the Year honors, and was selected to the All-City team while also playing forward on the school's championship basketball team. In 1965, Washington was elected the fifty-year-old school's first black student body president, becoming an academic and athletic leader who was rated the number-one football recruit coming out of high school in Southern California.

Washington played three years of varsity football at Stanford University from 1966 to 1968, where he was one of only twenty-five black students in a population of 10,000. He became Stanford's first black quarterback, playing that position as a sophomore before moving to running back as a junior and wide receiver as a senior. As a senior in 1968, Washington led the Pacific Eight Conference with seventy-one receptions, 1,117 receiving yards, and eight touchdowns while earning All-American honors. He set Stanford career records for receptions with 122 and receiving yards with 1,785.

The San Francisco 49ers selected Washington with the sixteenth overall pick in the 1969 NFL Draft. Strengths included exceptional speed that made him a devastating deep threat, remarkable big-play ability evidenced by his career 17.8 yards-per-catch average, consistent touchdown production, and intelligent route-running that maximized his athletic gifts.