Federal Way High School graduate Andre Barrington is not only done as a football player at Washington State University, but now faces felony charges stemming from his October arrest in Pullman.
The redshirt freshman linebacker was officially charged Wednesday in Whitman County Superior Court with the manufacture of a controlled substance, specifically marijuana, a Class C felony, according to the prosecutor’s office. Barrington’s first court date was set for Jan. 7.
Barrington, along with another Cougar football player, Jamal Atofau, was arrested in October when Pullman police found 38 marijuana plants in the men’s rental home near the Washington State campus.
The two football players, along with Bailey Woods and Zachary Uttech, who were also arrested in the home at 1745 NE Lower Drive on Oct. 10 and charged Wednesday, face maximum penalties of up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Barrington and Atofau, both suspended from the football team in October, were dismissed from the team Wednesday afternoon, the school announced in a press release.
Barrington, a 2009 Federal Way grad, was already deemed academically ineligible for the 2010 season after not meeting the NCAA’s minimum standards. He never played a down for the Cougars during his tenure in Pullman.
According to reports, police came to the home to serve an unrelated search warrant. While conducting that search, police discovered the marijuana plants growing in a basement room.
“We’re in a college town, it’s not that unusual to find five or six plants growing in somebody’s individual bedroom,” police spokesman Cmdr. Chris Tennant told The (Spokane) Spokesman Review in October. “Thirty-eight plants in a residence is quite a big deal for us,” he added.
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 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 High School star football player to be charged with a felony 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.
