Washington Repping H-Town at Lamar U

LU's Washington: 'We're Looking to Establish Ourselves'

Onazeen Vital

When people have speculations about a team's productivity, integrity, and will to win, the easy thing to do is blindly assume or question these things based off of what we see on the surface.

Vype Magazine interviewed James Washington, starting linebacker for the Lamar Cardinals, to get a feel for what the Cardinals are really about heading into this 2012 spring football session.

Due to a large number of junior college transfers who came to Lamar with Head Coach Ray Woodard from Navarro,Washington will be part of the first group of players at LU to both start and finish their collegiate career in that program since 1989, the year the university decided to drop football.

"One of the things Coach Woodard first told us when we got first got on campus is that all of us have played football before," says Washington. "It's not like we're jumping into anything new that we've never been exposed to."

James played his high school ball at Houston Madison under Coach Ray Seals along with Cardinal teammate Jeremy Kirt (see Kirt feature).

"It's been great playing with Jeremy. We both have always had good chemistry with one another, on and off the field. It's just great watching each other grow and become more experienced human beings as well as football players."

Washington was forced to sit out the majority of last season with an ankle injury.

"Initially, rehab was pretty hard," Washington adds. "But I've been with the team since we first reported back from winter break."

Despite the 4-7 finish of last season, Washington asserts that the Cardinals intend on being a serious Southland Conference threat, "We've put alot of things behind us, now we're looking forward to establishing ourselves as a power-house team in our conference."

@BeaumontVypeGuy