Grand Rapids, MI — The truth, or a version of it, exists in all corners of the internet. As of one year ago, Googling the name “Duane Washington” delivered related results:
“Ex-Net and Clipper Duane Washington, brother of Derek Fisher, charged in hit-and-run of 70-year-old Mich. woman”
“Former NBA player was Jaguar driver in Ottawa County hit-and-run of 70-year-old”
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One name inextricably tied to one incident. Google doesn’t forget. In the early hours of Sept. 18, 2012, Duane Washington Sr. struck a pedestrian walking alongside I-96 in western Michigan. He left the scene of the accident. Nine months later, he accepted a plea and, on July 8, 2013, was sentenced to 60 days in jail, 18 months’ probation and 100 hours of community service.
Today, the episode has slid to the fifth page of Google’s search results. It takes some effort to find it. The first few result pages instead deliver up-to-date news on his son, Duane Washington Jr. — his latest rankings, the newest scholarship offers. Duane Jr. is a 6-foot-3 point guard being recruited by Michigan and Michigan State. Many other schools are involved. His stock has soared in recent months, leading him to transfer this week from Grand Rapids Christian to Sierra Canyon High School, a national powerhouse in Chatsworth, California, an affluent suburb in the San Fernando Valley. Duane Jr. took a red-eye to Los Angeles on Monday night, unpacking his bags at a new home, starting a new chapter.
A week before the move, Duane Sr. and Duane Jr. were side-by-side at the family dinner table. Father and son; teacher and student; ex-player and current player. They sat the same way — hunched forward, elbows on knees. For all of his life, Duane Jr. has loved being his father’s son, a disposition that turned complicated in 2012. Ever since the accident, both have tried to remake the name they share. It’s a common bond that goes unsaid, but reveals itself in everything they do. The goal has been to move forward, they tell themselves. Who they are and where they’re going, though, are products of where they’ve been.
“If all that stuff wouldn’t have happened,” 17-year-old Duane Jr. said, “I don’t know what I’d be today.”
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They’ve long known this part was coming. As young Duane’s basketball profile grew in recent years, Duane Sr. and Therese Washington realized the light would shine on their son and the past would be pulled back into the news. At some point, someone would come asking about the connection between that incident and Duane Jr.
Standing in the living room, Therese Washington, wife to Duane Sr. and mother to Duane Jr., admits: “I’m surprised it hasn’t happened yet. We knew the good and the bad would come. We’ve been preparing him for that for a long time.”
The key, they say, is being honest with their son. From the day Ottawa County sheriff’s deputies came to the couple’s apartment near 60th Street and Kalamazoo Avenue to the day his son had to see an unshaven, unkempt version of his father in jail, Duane Sr. and Therese told Duane Jr. what was what.
“You don’t want to lie to your kids,” Therese said. “He was old enough to know what happened.”
What happened exists in the blue-gray area between black and white.
Sitting in the dining room, Duane Washington Sr. rattled through the particulars like slides on a projector: “It was late. Driving back from Muskegon. On the highway. It was raining. Inside of 75 [mph]. Music up.”
Eyes trained forward, he kept going: “Something flashes in front of me. I swerve. I don’t drink, I don’t drug — wasn’t then and haven’t [since]. I pull over. I get out. Headlights, tires — everything is alright. It’s dark. Everything looks intact. I sat there for a second. I drive home.”
That night, 70-year-old Estella Vitins ran out of gas on I-96 in Crockery Township sometime before 2 a.m. She walked west along a darkened eastbound stretch of the highway. In a blur, she was clipped by the side-view mirror of a passing car. She tumbled to the ground, fracturing her right leg in two places and cutting herself on the pavement. There she lay, crumpled. The car slowed and pulled to a stop, well ahead. The click of a door opening broke the still of the night.
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This is where the murk arises.
Washington said then and says now that he had no idea he struck Vitins. He says that, had he known, he’d never have left the scene. Instead, he drove off, returned home, parked his car in front of the house and went to bed. The next morning, thanks to a Silent Observer tip of the car’s location, Ottawa County sheriff’s detectives arrived at the Washington’s apartment complex. That’s when, Duane Sr. says, he discovered the passenger-side mirror was missing from his 2001 Jaguar. He was arrested and taken in for questioning. Two days later, he was arraigned on a felony charge of failing to stop at the scene of an accident causing injury or death. He faced five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.
According to court records obtained by The Athletic, a witness pulled up to Duane Sr. after the accident, made contact with the driver and asked him “Did you see the body?” at which time the driver stated “I swerved, I swerved.” In his deposition, Duane Sr. recalled the incident and said, “I swerved. Something flashed. There was something in front of me and I swerved.”
The story gained traction in the local news because Duane Washington Sr., born and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas, played parts of two seasons in the NBA — 1988 with the New Jersey Nets and 1993 with the Los Angeles Clippers. He appeared in 19 career games. When asked for the highlight of his NBA career, he says, simply, “Making it.” He was a long shot, a good high school player who turned into a great college player at Middle Tennessee State. He was drafted in the second round of the 1987 draft, but spent most of his professional career overseas in Canada, Venezuela, Israel and Germany; and in the CBA, including a stint in Grand Rapids, where he met his wife, Therese. Duane Jr., their only child, was born in Germany in 2000. The early part of Duane Sr.’s professional career was spent shaking the stigma of a 1988 NBA suspension for testing positive for cocaine use.
All those years later, in 2012, the car accident garnered added national attention because Duane Sr. is the older half-brother of five-time NBA champion Derek Fisher. The two grew up together in Little Rock and have always been close. At the time of the incident, Fisher was in the 16th of his 19 seasons in the league. The connection drew headlines.
When it comes to Sept. 18, 2012, Duane Washington Sr. and Estella Vitins are the only ones who know what happened. Washington, now 52, speaks openly of the accident. He says: “I should’ve stayed [at the scene], but in the same breath, that’s not what I thought or knew.”
The pre-sentence investigation recommended a 30-day jail term. An Ottawa County Circuit Court judge bumped it to 60 days because Duane Washington Sr. was driving without valid insurance. Still, the case was an uneasy one. Even Janis Vitins, Estella Vitins’ husband, told local Fox affiliate WXMI-TV that he felt “sorry for the guy,” and added, “I’m sure he did not consciously do that,” but then at sentencing questioned Washington’s character and said, according to the Grand Haven Tribune, “If no one stopped, my wife would have been road kill.” At that same hearing, Janis Vitins, who died in March 2014, said the accident left his wife as “a shell of herself.”
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According to Amy Vitins Cooper, the daughter of Estella and Janis Vitins, the accident “changed everything in our lives” and created “a living hell” both emotionally and financially. In addition to a fractured leg and other injuries, Estella Vitins was treated for TBI (traumatic brain injury) at Hope Network in Grand Rapids in the months after the accident, according to her daughter, but her health and cognition rapidly declined. In Cooper’s estimation, Duane Washington Sr. was “treated like a star” and her mother never received justice.
Today, Estella Vitins, 75, can’t speak and receives round-the-clock assistance from a caregiver. A civil suit against Washington was explored, but Washington declared bankruptcy, according to Vitins’ civil attorney. Vitins later pursued a civil suit that named as defendants both her own insurance company and Washington (as the uninsured motorist), but that suit was dismissed.
Duane Sr. ended up serving 39 days in jail in summer of 2013.
“Our family fell apart and there are no ramifications,” Amy Vitins Cooper told The Athletic in a recent telephone interview. “Should [Duane Washington Jr.] be punished for what his dad did? No, but he should probably be humble because of it.”
Indeed, emerging from all this, Duane Washington Jr. is and was tasked with being Duane Washington. His name carried weight when he was a kid — his dad being a former pro ball player and all. Overnight, that weight damn-near buckled. The accident occurred in September 2012, early in the school year. Seventh-grade classmates would see Duane’s dad on the local news at night and ask him about it the next day. Sometimes he came home from school and let the tears out. As the winter months unrolled, and sentencing approached, it all became very real — the shadow of a tsunami running along the land.
A son thought about losing his dad for five years.
“That was the worst — not knowing how sentencing would go,” Duane Jr. said.
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Guessing that a jury trial would surely go against him — “Twelve people. Emotions.” — Duane Sr. accepted a plea, partially due to number of character witnesses writing to the judge on Washington’s behalf, and was charged only with leaving the scene of an accident. Though five years was trimmed to two months, a sobering reality remained: Duane Sr. was going to jail.
Duane Jr. wasn’t in court that morning. Therese Washington thought it was too much for her 12-year-old son. She felt the same way about bringing him to the jail for her first visit. He doesn’t need to see this. Questions persisted, though, and Therese, a hair stylist, had a new customer in her chair every 45 minutes of every day, all of them wanting to know the same thing: How did this happen?
When it came to her son, Therese soon decided that reality outweighed ignorance. She brought Duane Jr. to see his father. “Just to make it real,” she explained. “Not in a bad way, but so that he wasn’t in some sort of delusion.” Five years later, she says it remains the hardest thing she’s ever had to do as a parent.
Sitting across from one another that day, Duane Sr. and Duane Jr. looked at each other with welling eyes, trying not to crack. They got through it. They talked hoops. They talked about the end of the previous school semester. They put on blinders and feigned normalcy. After the visit, Duane Jr. processed the visitation by telling himself that a lot of other kids never see their dads again. This is no big deal, he convinced himself. Soon after his dad was originally arrested, Duane Jr. developed friendships with other kids whose dads were absent or in trouble. An only child, he didn’t want to feel alone.
“That’s how I looked at it,” he said of those coping mechanisms. “They helped.”
This was when Duane Jr. took the early steps toward becoming his own Duane Washington. He helped out his mom. He grew up.
“There was stuff that I had to do by myself,” he remembers. “I was the only boy in the house. I needed to do more because he wasn’t here to do it.”
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More than anything, Duane Jr. relied on remembering what his father taught him, instead of having to be told. All the tips. All the advice. Self-reliance often brings out the best in you.
“I’d miss five straight shots and hear his voice telling me to bend my elbow, even though he wasn’t there,” Duane Jr. said.
Duane Sr. was released from jail as Duane Jr. was preparing to begin 8th grade. Later that year, Duane Jr. asked his father to start training him — no more playing; real training. He got better. Then better, still. He went off to high school and, as an underclassman at Grand Rapids Christian, drew Division I attention as a mid-major 2018 recruit. Last season, as a junior, he helped the team go 27-0 before falling to Clarkston in the Class A state championship game.
Duane Sr. says he knew early on that his son could be a college player. He didn’t let his mind go any further than that.
“Knew he’d be DI. High-major DI? That I didn’t know,” he said.
Duane Jr. answered the question this summer with a breakout run through the AAU season. Playing for The Family, a Detroit-based program, he was one of the best shooters in the Nike EYBL. He bent his elbow and made 45.8 percent of his 3-point attempts in 16 games.
Now, everything is different.
On Aug. 7, Michigan coach John Beilein extended a scholarship offer to Duane Washington Jr. Michigan State is still recruiting him. Additional offers have poured in this summer from Butler, Cincinnati, Missouri, UNLV, Clemson, Iowa State, Virginia Tech, a slew of others. The options will only grow in the coming months.
Today, Duane Jr. is in Los Angeles. Earlier this summer, as he blossomed into a high-major recruit, his uncle, Derek Fisher, invited him to move west and live and train with him. Fisher retired from playing in 2013-14, ending a career that netted over $60 million in earnings and included a league-record 259 playoff games played. He coached the Knicks for a stint, going 40-96 in a season and half before being fired, and has spent the time since doing sporadic TV work. In July, Fisher pleaded not guilty to two DUI charges from a vehicular accident in June. He faces up to six months in jail, but Duane Sr. said he’s confident that, as a first-time offender, Fisher and his legal team will “work out a proper solution” and avoid any jail time. Duane Jr., his father said, will be well looked after.
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The Washingtons say the decision to send young Duane west was difficult, yes, but also a no-brainer. Fisher, they say, can offer training facilities and mentorship that Grand Rapids can’t possibly replicate. Duane Jr.’s new high school isn’t half-bad, either. He’ll play as a senior this season at Sierra Canyon, the former home of Duke-bound superstar Marvin Bagley III, joining a cache of Division I prospects to partake in a barnstorming national prep schedule.
“I love Grand Rapids and I love Grand Rapids Christian,” Duane Jr. said. “But I couldn’t turn down this opportunity to learn and prove myself.”
As Duane Jr. explained the move, Duane Sr. and Therese sat quietly and watched him. They’re sad to see him go, but excited where this will lead. Maybe it could come full circle back to Michigan or Michigan State. For now, it’s time for him to go out on his own. The past is dark and complicated and some, notably the Vitins family, remain viscerally allergic to the name Duane Washington, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be remade. Therese isn’t quite sure how she’ll handle not having her son around. She knows, though, that he can handle being his own man. Duane Sr. said he plans to visit often. He’ll always be the voice behind Duane Washington Jr. because he knows what it’s like to not be there.
As the night wrapped up at the Washington house, father and son nodded to one another. It was approaching 10 o’clock, but the night was far from over. Duane Jr. had more work to do. So did his dad. There was still time for another late-night training session between the two. Drills to run. Shots to get up. Grabbing the keys to his 2001 Jaguar off the table, ready to take his son to the gym, Duane Sr., looked back, smiled and said:
“Now I’m known as Duane’s dad.”
