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Brooklyn native and basketball star Dwayne ‘Pearl’ Washington, who played college basketball at Syracuse and pro ball with the New Jersey Nets and Miami Heat, has died at the age of 52. Washington had been battling a brain tumor, which had recurred last summer.
Washington was one of the most heralded players to emerge from New York City in the 1980s — he was a superstar while he was still in high school — and he shined at Syracuse. Check out the half-court buzzer-beater he hit to beat Boston College in 1984:
Washington’s college career at Syracuse helped epitomize the glory days of 1980s Big East basketball, when Syracuse battled it out with the likes of Georgetown, St. John’s, and Villanova. This era was the subject of the excellent 30 for 30 documentary Requiem for the Big East, which chronicled the upstart league through its rise to basketball dominance. The rivalry between Syracuse and Georgetown — and between Pearl Washington and Patrick Ewing — was a big part of that film, standing out as one of the most contentious rivalries of the 1980s.
“You can’t talk about the Big East and not talk about Pearl Washington,” sportswriter Michael Wilbon says in the film. “You can’t write the history of the league … he’s in the first paragraph. He’s in the first line.”
“He was the most exciting player that has ever played in the Big East,” Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim said. “People wanted to watch Pearl Washington play.”
You can stream Requiem for the Big East on Netflix.
