New challenge brings Little Joe back to Sooners New challenge brings Little Joe back to Sooners
By Scott Wright
Published: April 6, 2007
NORMAN — Standing only a few feet in front of a mural portraying his most famous moment as an Oklahoma football player — when he leaped over the head of a would-be tackler — "Little” Joe Washington talked about his life-long challenge to do big things.
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Coming back to Oklahoma presents another of those challenges. On Thursday, Washington was named special assistant to the athletics director and executive director of Oklahoma's Varsity O Association.
"You want to find other challenges, other things that you want to do,” said Washington, who made a successful professional life for himself both on and off the football field. "Until the day they throw dirt on me, I want to continue to try to do something big.”
Washington steps into a newly created position, part of a restructuring effort to place added emphasis on outreach to former Sooner student-athletes in all sports.
"We are once again placing the ball in the hands of Joe Washington,” OU athletic director Joe Castiglione said in a statement released Thursday morning. "Like many times before, we believe he will make some very special things happen.”
Washington, who played at OU from 1972-75, ranks No. 2 on the Sooners' career rushing list and is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame.
Washington has worked for companies bearing his name since 1986, when he opened Washington Consultants and Advertising, now known as Washington Financial Consultants.
In his private life, he has been involved in community service as chairman of the Ann Arundel County Association for Retarded Children, and has been involved with the MarylandSpecial Olympics.
Washington, who will relocate to Norman from Lutherville, Md., will begin his new duties at OU in May.
Washington said he and Castiglione had discussed the position previously over the course of a year or two, but Washington had not been interested.
"It was something that was talked about, but I never thought that I would take it on,” he said. "Knowing that I'm a Texas and Oklahoma kind of boy being in Baltimore, you probably have a tendency to think that you want to eventually get close to home because family is there.
"You're always open to the right situation and this sort of seemed to be the situation.”
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