Roz Washington is a recurring character on Glee. She is the coach of the Cheerios and the Synchronized Swimming team at McKinley High in Lima, Ohio. She made her first appearance in Yes/No, the tenth episode of Season Three and her last appearance was in Jagged Little Tapestry, the third episode of Season Six.
She is portrayed by NeNe Leakes.
Biography[]
Roz is first seen after what is presumed as Sam's first meeting with the team. She was an Olympian and won Bronze at the 2008 Beijing Olympics for Individual Synchronized Swimming. It can be assumed that she is quite a strict coach.
Roz is first introduced as the new coach of the synchronized swimming team at William McKinley High School. Later it seems that she let her students and New Directions perform We Found Love in her pool for Will's proposal to Emma.
Principal Figgins enlists Roz to help coaching the Cheerios, much to Sue Sylvester's dismay. Claiming that Sue's cheerleading routines are far too outdated, Roz instructs the group to perform a more modern style, and the cheerleaders, including Becky Jackson, seem to prefer this new approach. Later, Roz discovers that Sue intends to raise a child, which she opposes, insisting that Sue is "too old" to be a mother.
Principal Figgins informs Sue that he is instating Roz as Co-Coach of the Cheerios due to Sue's lack of effort to make it to Regionals. This adds to the rivalry between the two women, and Roz makes another remark about Sue's baby to be born in adulthood and with a profession.
Roz overhears Santana making a comment about Shannon's black eye, gossiping that it comes from Cooter, her husband, beating her. She tells the girls off because domestic violence isn't a matter to joke about. She teams up with Sue and together they give the girls an assignment to perform songs that empower woman to get out of an abusive relationship. But she is shocked by their rendition of Cell Block Tango, saying that they're crazy and she agrees with Sue in saying that they've failed to understand the reality of abuse and the point of the assignment. She is present when Shannon confesses that Cooter hit her, and she asks why she didn't get out of the house because she could easily have beaten him back.
Roz is shown to be angry because, since the New Directions won their competition, Sue gets to stay head coach of the Cheerios.
Roz congratulates Sue on helping the glee club win Nationals, as well as the Cheerios. She then proposes that the two of them make it their goal next year to get Principal Figgins fired because he's growing corrupt. As she leaves her office she makes another joke towards Sue's age and the baby.
Roz Washington returns to McKinley, from training the North Korea swim team with Dennis Rodman, in order to take over the Cheerios after Sue's departure. She begins to become suspicious by the fact that Blaine is now co-captain, and assumes that he was the one who caused the gunshot to go off, causing Becky to become defensive. Roz then makes the two sign an oath to not to do anything to get on her bad side and/or make her look stupid.
In this episode, Roz is first seen talking to the Cheerios about things like rib removal, which concerns Blaine because of her dubious manner. Meanwhile, when Becky tells Sue she wants her to return as a coach, she is hurt by the way Roz treats her individually. Roz is seen yelling at Becky, and is still convinced that Becky is Sue's adult child. She is present during Sue's solo, Little Girls, training the Cheerios. Roz is seen infuriated as she takes Becky into Principal Figgins' office when she mentions that Becky calls her "Coach Chocolate Pie" and churlishly demands Figgins to do something about it as she storms out of the room.
Roz is seen in her office as she hears loud banging on the door, yelling to tell the person to come in, but when she opens the door, she sees Brittany banging on the wall with a hammer, as she is nailing 95 reasons of why she is quitting the Cheerios. Roz looks concerned and decides to read the reasons herself. She then looks at Brittany, curious to what she is doing, as she soaks her Cheerios uniform and sets it on fire, causing Roz to cower and worry about her trying to set her hair on fire. She splashes water to slack the fire.
After having been promoted to principal, Sue calls both Roz and Will into her office. Roz fears that Sue will fire her, seeing as she took over the Cheerios after Sue was fired. She admits that there are a lot of things Sue could call her out for, like taking performance enhancing drugs in order to get her bronze medal, committing credit card fraud and stealing her car, a Lexus. When joining them in her office, Sue reveals that she wants the Cheerios and the Glee Club to be successful and won't fire either Roz or Will if they manage to win another National Championship.
The day after prom, Roz grabs Bree's ponytail and brings her to Sue Sylvester's office. While she thinks the stunt Bree pulled on Tina was highly entertaining, she requests for her to learn that such behavior has consequences and suggests her to be suspended. When instead Sue promotes Bree to Head Cheerio, offers to buy her a Le Car and praises her for finding an entirely new way to terrorize the Glee Club, Roz is shocked and states that only last week Sue wanted the New Directions to win Nationals. Sue explains that the Glee Club was always at its best when they had an enemy, previously herself, at this school.
Roz returns from the Cheerios' Nationals competition with a first place trophy, which she triumphantly brings with her to Principal Sue's office. Sue admits she didn't think Roz had it in her to take the Cheerios to Nationals and pull off a first place win. Roz tells Sue she isn't the only reason for the Cheerios' success. Sue thinks Roz is being a little arrogant at this point and tells Roz she can only be so smug after she has won 16 more National competitions. However, as a result of her win, Roz is permitted to continue coaching the Cheerios. Roz wheels her trophy out of Sue's office and tells Will she will be celebrating this summer at her cottage in Saint Tropez.
In Sue’s office; Roz, along with Sue, Tina and Quinn are interrogating Becky's boyfriend Darrell. Roz confuses Becky, and Sue's daughter's Robin. When Sue explains that they are not the same person, Roz looks stunned. When Sue continues about how her sister, Becky (her best friend) and Robin have Down Syndrome, Roz repeats what she said, astonished by how the closest people have Down Syndrome. She sits down and listens, portraying a variety of emotions as the interrogation happens.
This episode marks her final appearance on the show.Appearances[]
Glee: Season 3 | |||||||||||
"The Purple Piano Project" Absent |
"I Am Unicorn" Absent |
"Asian F" Absent |
"Pot o' Gold" Absent |
"The First Time" Absent |
"Mash Off" Absent |
"I Kissed a Girl" Absent |
"Hold on to Sixteen" Absent |
"Extraordinary Merry Christmas" Absent |
"Yes/No" Appears |
"Michael" Absent | |
"The Spanish Teacher" Appears |
"Heart" Absent |
"On My Way" Absent |
"Big Brother" Appears |
"Saturday Night Glee-ver" Absent |
"Dance With Somebody" Absent |
"Choke" Appears |
"Prom-asaurus" Absent |
"Props" Absent |
"Nationals" Appears |
"Goodbye" Appears |
Glee: Season 4 | |||||||||||
"The New Rachel" Absent |
"Britney 2.0" Absent |
"Makeover" Absent |
"The Break-Up" Absent |
"The Role You Were Born to Play" Absent |
"Glease" Absent |
"Dynamic Duets" Absent |
"Thanksgiving" Absent |
"Swan Song" Absent |
"Glee, Actually" Absent |
"Sadie Hawkins" Absent | |
"Naked" Absent |
"Diva" Absent |
"I Do" Absent |
"Girls (and Boys) on Film" Absent |
"Feud" Absent |
"Guilty Pleasures" Absent |
"Shooting Star" Absent |
"Sweet Dreams" Appears |
"Lights Out" Appears |
"Wonder-ful" Absent |
"All or Nothing" Appears |
Glee: Season 5 | |||||||||||
"Love, Love, Love" Appears |
"Tina in the Sky with Diamonds" Appears |
"The Quarterback" Absent |
"A Katy or A Gaga" Absent |
"The End of Twerk" Absent |
"Movin' Out" Absent |
"Puppet Master" Absent |
"Previously Unaired Christmas" Absent |
"Frenemies" Absent |
"Trio" Absent | ||
"City of Angels" Appears |
"100" Absent |
"New Directions" Absent |
"New New York" Absent |
"Bash" Absent |
"Tested" Absent |
"Opening Night" Absent |
"The Back-Up Plan" Absent |
"Old Dog, New Tricks" Absent |
"The Untitled Rachel Berry Project" Absent |
Glee: Season 6 | |||||||||||
"Loser Like Me" Absent |
"Homecoming" Absent |
"Jagged Little Tapestry" Appears |
"The Hurt Locker, Part One" Absent |
"The Hurt Locker, Part Two" Absent |
"What the World Needs Now" Absent | ||||||
"Transitioning" Absent |
"A Wedding" Absent |
"Child Star" Absent |
"The Rise and Fall of Sue Sylvester" Absent |
"We Built This Glee Club" Absent |
"2009" Absent |
"Dreams Come True" Absent |
Trivia[]
- Won Bronze Medal for Individual Synchronized Swimming at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
- Had a threesome with Michael Phelps.
- Had noodles with the president.
- Had an aunt who was in an abusive relationship. (Choke)
- Thinks she's a better coach than Sue.
- Like Sue, she usually calls people by aliases.
- Calls herself a "child of the ghetto." (Sweet Dreams)
- Allegedly took performance enhancing drugs when competing at the 2008 Olympic Games. (Love, Love, Love)
Quotes[]
“ |
Coach Roz Washington: Sam Evans? I'm Coach Roz Washington. And you are one strange looking kid. I've never seen lips like that on a white child, and one of your nipples is higher than the other. I bet you've had to overcome a lot with those crooked nipples. Well, I know a thing or two about overcoming. When I was growing up, they said that black folks couldn't swim. But I had a DREAM! that one day I would get to the promised land. So I swam out there and got my forty acres and a pool. |
” |
—Coach Roz Washington, Yes/No |
“ |
Roz: Oh my god, hold up. Maternity leave? Are you pulling my leg? |
” |
—Roz Washington, The Spanish Teacher |
“ |
Roz: Oh, I know. The doctor had to shine a flashlight in your va-j-j to get all the bats to fly out. I understand, that keeping bats out of your womb is an important part of having a baby when you're older than God. |
” |
—Roz to Sue, Big Brother |
“ |
Shannon, write these names down as placeholders: Hat Rack, Asian Horror Movie, Little Oprah, Rojo Caliente, Salsa Caliente. |
” |
—Roz about Brittany, Tina, Mercedes, Sugar and Santana, Choke |
“ |
There’s a cheerleading coach at their school who’s old as dirt and still trying to have a baby who they know is gonna come out looking weird with rabies and wings and it’s gonna fly right out of your hat box and straight back into hell. |
” |
“ |
You girls are cray-cray! You were supposed to pick a song that gave women the self-esteem and courage to get the hell out of an abusive situation. But, oh no! You picked a song about crazy women in their panties killing their men for chewing gum! How is that supposed to help? |
” |
—Roz about Brittany, Tina, Mercedes, Sugar and Santana for singing Cell Block Tango, Choke |
“ |
Sweetheart, You're as big as a house. Why don't you turn around and kick his ass? |
” |
—Roz Washington to Coach Beiste about Cooter, Choke |
“ |
Honey, please, I am a child of the ghetto. I can't sleep at night unless I hear at least two gunshots. |
” |
—Roz Washington to Shannon Beiste and Will Schuester, Sweet Dreams |
“ |
We like our protein shakes to taste like human food and not some crazy peanut butter stem cell sauce you cooked up on your island of Dr. Monroe. |
” |
—Roz Washington to Becky Jackson, Lights Out |
“ |
Sue's adult baby has been a belligerent pain in my booty and I am not gonna take it anymore. First, she started making fart noises every time I bent over, then she started making fart noises every time I blinked. Ain't nobody fart every time they blink, that is crazy! Then Robin Sylvester called me "Coach Chocolate Pie," I marched her down here so you can decide what to do with her. It's YOUR problem! |
” |
—Roz to Principal Figgins about Becky, Lights Out |
“ |
Oohh! Lord! Jesus! This fool done tried to set my hair on fire! |
” |
—Roz Washington about Brittany, All or Nothing |