Born January 14, 1947, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Gene Alden Washington was raised in California and attended Long Beach Polytechnic High School in Long Beach, where he excelled as a multi-talented quarterback. He led the team to a league championship in 1964, earned Back of the Year honors, and was selected to the All-City team while also playing forward on the school's championship basketball team. In 1965, Washington was elected the fifty-year-old school's first black student body president, becoming an academic and athletic leader who was rated the number-one football recruit coming out of high school in Southern California.