“I love the city of Dayton,” said their father, George Washington Jr., who joined Tamika Williams-Jeter’s new women’s basketball coaching staff at the University of Dayton last month. “It is an absolute basketball city first of all. Everybody there is nice, and it’s a peaceful environment. I love environments that are welcoming, but also it’s not a rat race, you know what I mean? You can relax there, and it’s quiet, and it’s just not a whole bunch of loudness going on all the time. It’s a great city to have a family in.”
George III is ranked No. 46 in 247Sports Composite rankings for the class of 2023. The 6-3 combo guard averaged 23.4 points and 6.8 rebounds as a junior last season at Christian Academy of Louisville.
His brother, Jackson, is also a guard who is pushing 6-4 after averaging 12.9 points as a sophomore last season, and Jayden is a 5-8 incoming freshman.
The Washingtons are without question a basketball family. George Jr. and his wife, Jackie, were both standout players at Abilene Christian, and their daughter Lashann was an All-Big 12 player at Texas before embarking on a professional career in Spain.
George Jr. said the best is yet to come as far as his boys, who were all home-schooled through eighth grade.
“Jackson is the best shooter and physically is catching up because he’s taller than ‘G’ and athletically he’s closing the gap really fast,” the father/coach said. “He may be the best shooter in the country. There’s very few kids that I’ve seen shoot the ball the way he can shoot it. And my youngest is the best. He’s gonna be the best out of all of them.”
He developed the latter point of view after watching Jayden play with older players on his team of fellow home-schooled kids in Kentucky the past two years.
“As a seventh grader, he played on the varsity team and was starting point guard on a team with seven seniors,” George Jr. said. “Three of those seniors went on to play college basketball, so it gives (my sons) an advantage.”
As for the boys’ shooting prowess, the credit goes to the family matriarch.
“My wife was an All-American in college,” he said. “She is a shooting instructor.”
Chaminade Julienne was 17-8 last season and finished second in the GCL Co-Ed behind Alter.
The Eagles’ 2021-22 leading scorer, 6-6 forward Jonathan Powell, is also a Division I prospect with scholarship offers from Dayton, Ohio State and Indiana (among others), but he has transferred to Centerville.
George Jr. said he was not aware of that when the family was evaluating schools, and it had no impact on their decision. “(CJ) was from top to bottom the most impressive in every area,” he said.
“We really like Coach (Charlie) Szabo, and the resources of the high school, the importance of athletics, the importance of academics,” George Jr. said. “We only do high school, and we only do private schools so it kind of canceled out all the really good public school options. And proximity to my job helps also.”
The move will put George Washington III in line to become just the second male basketball player from Chaminade to suit up for Ohio State, joining Daniel Gerhard, who averaged 7.8 points per game for the Scarlet and Gray from 1972-74,
Other Dayton high schools have produce many Buckeye basketball standouts, including Mark Baker and Daequan Cook of Dunbar, Bill Hosket Sr. of Stivers and Bill Hosket Jr. of Belmont.
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