Federal Way High School graduate Andre Barrington was among two members of the Washington State University football team arrested early Sunday morning after Pullman police found 38 marijuana plants growing in a house they rented with two other people, according the The Spokesman Review.
Barrington, a redshirt freshman linebacker for the Cougars, was already deemed academically ineligible for the 2010 season after not meeting the NCAA’s minimum standards.
Jamal Atofau, a redshirt freshman backup linebacker from Bellevue High School, was also arrested along with non-football players Bailey Woods and Zachary Uttech, according to the police report.
Police came to the home at 1745 NE Lower Drive, just north of Beasley Coliseum in Pullman, to serve an unrelated search warrant, according to police spokesman Cmdr. Chris Tennant.
While conducting that search, Tennant said, they discovered the marijuana plants growing in a basement room, according to The Spokesman Review. They obtained a drug-related warrant, searched the room, found plants, manufacturing equipment and paraphernalia. The four residents were arrested.
“We’re in a college town, it’s not that unusual to find five or six plants growing in somebody’s individual bedroom,” Tennant told The Spokesman Review. “Thirty-eight plants in a residence is quite a big deal for us,” he added.
The four were taken to Pullman Police Station, booked and released on their own recognizance, Tennant said.
All four were charged with a violation of the uniform controlled substance act, the severity of which depends on the weight of the marijuana seized. That will be determined when the plants are dry, according to Tennant.
Atofau has been suspended from team activities while coach Paul Wulff gathers information concerning the incident, a WSU spokesman told The Spokesman Review. Because Barrington, a 2009 Federal Way grad, is ineligible and has not been practicing, suspension was unnecessary.
The 6-foot-1, 231-pounder was the Mirror’s Male Athlete of the Year during the 2008-09 school year after excelling in three sports at Federal Way High School.
Barrington’s senior year started by leading the Federal Way football team into the 16-team Class 4A state playoffs for the first time in 32 years, continued by earning all-tournament honors and helping the Eagles win the program’s first-ever state basketball championship, and culminated with a trip to the state track and field meet, where he finished third in the triple jump and sixth in the long jump.
Barrington is now the second Federal Way star football player to suffer legal problems this year. His Eagle teammate Andru Pulu, also a 2009 Federal Way graduate, was suspended indefinitely from the University of Washington football team after being sentenced to six months in jail for breaking a man’s nose during an off-campus fight in March. Pulu pleaded guilty to felony second-degree assault in April.
Pulu, a defensive end, punched and stomped a man who tried to break up a fight between the football player and another man during a house party just north of the UW campus. The victim was knocked unconscious and suffered a broken nose, requiring treatment at UW Medical Center, according to a police report.
Unlike Barrington, Pulu saw the field for the Huskies as a true freshman. Pulu played in 11 games last season as a backup defensive end and on special teams. He was expected to contend for a starting job in 2010, before his arrest.
Barrington and Pulu were the first Federal Way High School football players to sign with Division I programs since wide receiver Lake Dawson inked with Notre Dame back in 1990.
