Denzel Washington: Sports dad

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For a cranky entertainment reporter like me, December means the arrival of the demolition derby known as Oscar season. But as a sports dad, December means the arrival of high school basketball season, when my 10-year-old son and I start hanging out in crowded Los Angeles gyms, watching some of the nation’s best high school basketball talent play in local tournaments. We were at Westchester High last night, watching a great match-up in the school’s Tip-Off Classic between Westchester High and Windward High. Westchester is a perennial powerhouse, having won eight City Section championships and four state titles under current coach Ed Azzam. (As our high school sports expert Eric Sondheimer recently pointed out, Westchester has --count ‘em -- six former standouts playing in the NBA.

It was a kick seeing Windward, a private school not normally associated with the top hoops programs, going up against Westchester. But the real surprise was discovering that one of the team’s best players, Malcolm Washington, is the youngest son of Denzel Washington. (Apparently athleticism runs in the family -- Denzel’s oldest son, John David, played football at Morehouse.) My spies tell me that Denzel comes to nearly all of his son’s games, his famous face often buried in a baseball cap, even when Malcolm was playing in a summer tournament this past July in Las Vegas. I didn’t spot him last night, though he was at Windward’s Tuesday game, wearing sweats and a New York Yankees cap.

Malcolm is a small but solidly built point guard who rarely shoots, but he is easily Windward’s defensive ace. He’s quick and opportunistic, always looking to set a pick or steal the ball. Windward was over-matched against Westchester, which will clearly contend for another state championship, led by their phenomenal senior guard, Dominique O’Connor. However, Windward has its share of talent, with two seniors who going to major colleges -- Anthony Stover, a 6-foot-10 center who’s headed for UCLA and Darius Morris, a 6-foot-3 swingman who’s going to Michigan. How good is Malcolm Washington? I asked my pal, Frank Burlison, the sports columnist at the Long Beach Press-Telegram and a fount of basketball knowledge, for his assessment of Malcolm’s skills:

Frank says: ‘Malcolm understands how a point guard is supposed to play, especially in terms of running the offense and taking care of the basketball. He’s not careless or too flashy, like a lot of guys at the position. He’s a sound defensive player with great fundamentals. They list him at 5’11, which is probably generous, and he rarely shoots, but he has all the intangibles you want from a point guard. He doesn’t over-handle the ball, and he really creates opportunities for the whole offense, not just for himself. From what I understand, he’s going to the University of Pennsylvania, and at an Ivy League school, he could play substantial minutes. He has physical limitations, being short and not especially fast, but he’s a coach’s player, the kind of kid every coach wants to have on his team.’