Courting success: University of Tennessee finance major balances hoops excellence with academic achievement - Top female student-athlete: Kara Lawson - Biography

Black Issues in Higher Education, April 10, 2003 by Kendra Hamilton

Appalling. It's the only word that even comes close to describing the 2002-2003 college basketball season--a season that began amid such high hopes and ended with such a lurid litany of scandals, involving welding certificates, fake grades, petulant players and cheating coaches.

And then--just as you were ready to write the whole system off as irredeemably corrupt ...

Amazing. It's the only word that even comes close to describing Kara Lawson of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, a standout scholar, ace athlete and this year's Arthur Ashe Jr. top Female Sports Scholar.

Lawson draws nothing but superlatives from the adults who surround her. "A coach's dream" is how Pat Summitt, the legendary women's coach who's led the Lady Volunteers to a record six NCAA tourney championships, describes her.

"As good an athlete as she is, I can testify that she's an even better person. She's old school," says Bill Gibson, her coach at Virginia's West Springfield High, where Lawson led the squad to an 83-2 record and two consecutive state AAA championships.

Lawson appears to be that rarest of rare birds: a top player at a top-tier program who takes her studies as seriously as she does her statistics.

On the basketball side of things, she is a star. She's averaged 19 points per game in her last seven games and, as the No. 1 all-time free-throw and three-point shooter for the storied Lady Vols--not to mention No. 5 on the all-time scoring tally--she's a serious contender to follow up her Naismith High School Player of the Year honors with the college award.

Lawson won her Tennessee scholarship with stellar grades and a 1370 on the SAT. She'll be graduating as a finance major with a 3.75 GPA--and this at a time when NCAA's own statistics note that only 60 percent of Black female and 35 percent of Black male college hoops players graduate from their programs.

Lawson also has a long list of community service activities. Since 2001 she's been showing up weekly both at Knoxville's West Hills Elementary School to help the kids with their reading and library skills and at the Love Kitchen, a meals-for-the-needy program. She's also been active with the Race for the Cure and she's been an honorary executive and tutor with the D.C. and Fairfax, Va., Special Olympics, to name just two more on her laundry list of involvements.

"When I was a young kid, growing up, doing sports, I really benefited from a number of programs that were put in place to help young people, so I really want to give back to my community, too," Lawson says.

Asked how she manages to find the time, Lawson chuckles. "It's all about priorities and commitment," she says. "My parents taught me that if you want something done, then if it's important, you find a way to get it done."

Lawson--affectionately known to Lady Vols fans as "The Law"--makes it sound easy.

While most college students tend to drop out of demanding activities as they focus on the fun and freedoms of college, Lawson thrives on taking on more. Calling it "stress relief," she took up piano as a junior and practices diligently.

"It all goes back to her self-discipline," adds Summitt. "Kara has a clock, it's always ticking and she doesn't miss a minute. She's got everything planned out, and she's always on time. In fact, she goes crazy if everything around her isn't on time, too.

"She has unbelievable focus and discipline for a young lady of her age."

And apparently she's always had it.

One of Lawson's earliest memories is of watching the 1984 Olympics with her father. She was only three years old, but her father was explaining to her what the Olympics were--that "all the countries sent athletes and they all competed for gold medals. And I remember my favorite event was the 100-meter dash, because my father explained to me that the person who won that race was known as the fastest man or woman in the world."

That year, Evelyn Ashford won the gold, "and I remember watching and saying to myself, `I want to be the fastest woman in the world.' So the next day, my father said, I walked out to the corner where the street sign was, and then over and over again I'd put my hand on the pole, wait for a car to turn the comer, and I'd try to beat it to my driveway."

The middle of three siblings, all girls, Lawson recalls that her parents--her mother, who worked in guidance in the school system, and her father, who worked in the White House, beginning in the Carter administration and ending her junior year in high school--were sports mad, but "all about academics."

"I remember coming home," Lawson chuckles, "and wanting to play with my friends. No way. Homework came first." Indeed, that was so much so that "when I came home with a B in fifth grade, I wasn't allowed to go to basketball camp that summer!"

Lesson reinforced, Lawson never again allowed her grades to slip as she set about turning herself into a bona fide sports phenom. She developed into a standout "peewee football" running back and linebacker, leading her team in rushing, scoring and interceptions. When she began to make her mark in basketball, she never looked back.