ATLANTA — The SIAC is mourning the death of Willie Washington, Benedict College‘s director of athletics and a member of the SIAC Hall of Fame, whose career left a lasting mark on the conference, the college, and generations of athletes, coaches, and administrators. Washington died Monday.
Washington was among the most respected administrators in conference history, known for building competitive programs and developing student-athletes.
“We are deeply saddened by the passing of Coach Willie Washington,” SIAC Commissioner Anthony Holloman said in a statement. “Coach Washington was held in high regard at Benedict College, throughout the SIAC and among the many people whose lives he touched during his career. His leadership, wisdom and commitment helped shape generations of student-athletes, coaches and administrators. His induction into the SIAC Hall of Fame and the award that now bears his name speak to the respect he earned and the legacy he leaves behind.”
Washington took over as Benedict’s full-time athletics director in the 1998-99 school year and oversaw the school’s move back into NCAA Division II and the SIAC, growing the athletics department from eight sports to 14, including the revival of football.
Under his leadership, Benedict won more than 50 SIAC championships and claimed five men’s and five women’s SIAC Commissioner’s Cups, sweeping both awards in four separate years.
In 2024, Washington became just the second Benedict representative — after Dr. Leroy Walker, whom he called a mentor — inducted into the SIAC Hall of Fame. This past July, the conference introduced the Willie Washington Athletic Director of the Year Award in his honor; Tuskegee University’s Reginald Ruffin was its first recipient.
Washington also chaired the SIAC Athletic Directors Council and served on several NCAA committees, including the Division II Men’s Basketball Committee, the Division II Management Council, the Honors Committee and the Diversity and Inclusion Committee.
Before taking the athletics director role, Washington spent a decade as Benedict’s head men’s basketball coach after arriving in 1988. He’d previously spent 12 years at Allen University as head basketball coach and athletics director. At Benedict, his teams never had a losing season; he won nine straight Eastern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference titles, was named EIAC Coach of the Year eight times and took Benedict to four NAIA national tournaments in the 1990s. He picked up his 200th career win during the 1997-98 season. In 1999, he was named the NAIA Southeast Region Athletic Director of the Year.
Off the court, Washington emphasized academics — Benedict’s athletes maintained a cumulative GPA above 3.0 during his tenure, and the school produced its first Academic All-Americans in 2015. He also helped Benedict land NCAA grants for student-athletes, and in 2010 the school received the NCAA’s Division II National Community Engagement Award of Excellence.
Washington’s work reached beyond athletics: He received a Presidential Citation Civic Leadership Award from the South Carolina NAACP in 2012 and chaired the board of the Laurinburg Institute, a historically Black preparatory school in Laurinburg, North Carolina. He was inducted into multiple halls of fame beyond the SIAC’s, including the EIAC (1998), Benedict College (2004), the Laurinburg Hall of Fame and Allen University’s athletic hall of fame (both 2016), and the Renaissance Foundation’s Finney Hall of Fame (2018).
A 1974 graduate of Tougaloo College, where he played basketball, Washington later earned a master’s degree from Jackson State University and played professional basketball for the Carlos Basketball Club in Brussels, Belgium.
The SIAC extended condolences to Washington’s family, friends, colleagues, former athletes and the Benedict College community.
