A Pillar Of Strength

VIVIAN STRINGER had heard about the 6-foot sophomore who got straight A's, played multiple instruments and was so admired in her hometown of Paterson , N.J. , that parents of opposing players routinely asked for her autograph. She had seen the smooth athleticism, the dizzying elevation, the 6'4" wingspan. Standing before future McDonald's All-American guard Essence Carson after a basketball camp in the summer of 2002, the Rutgers women's basketball coach knew she'd have to do something extraordinary to land this prospect.

"I hear you play the piano," said Stringer . "So do I. When you come for your official visit next year, I'll play the first movement of Beethoven 's Moonlight Sonata for you. If I miss one note, you don't have to consider coming to Rutgers . But if I play it perfectly, will you promise to be a Scarlet Knight?"

Carson remembers chuckling; Stringer remembers hearing a yes. She ran out and bought a metronome, a CD and sheet music. Stringer had played an abridged version of the piece for a fourth-grade recital decades earlier, but she had never tackled the original. Out of an already bulging schedule she carved five hours each week to practice on the white baby grand in the living room of her Princeton, N.J. , house.

When Carson arrived on campus for her official visit in November '03, Stringer played the piece for her. She didn't miss a note. Carson acted nonchalant at the time, but she now admits she was stunned. "I couldn't believe this busy, important woman wanted me that badly," she says.

In Stringer 's view Carson, who ultimately passed on Texas , Connecticut and Duke to sign with Rutgers , has been worth every minute spent with Beethoven 's lamentation. A two-time Big East Defensive Player of the Year, the senior forward has been her team's best defender and its most versatile offensive weapon, playing every position but center. Says sophomore forward Myia McCurdy, "When you want to learn how to do a drill or run a play, you watch Essence."

But the full range of Carson's value wouldn't become apparent to the world until last April. After rebounding from a 2--4 start, the Scarlet Knights won the Big East tournament and, with a series of upsets, battled all the way to the NCAA championship game, losing to Tennessee 59--46. They had little time to bask in the glory of their run: The next morning radio host Don Imus , having glanced at the title game, called the Rutgers players "a bunch of nappy-headed hos." His words came as a shock to the team, but their response was admirably measured. In a press conference that aired live on CNN , Carson served as the team's de facto spokesperson, calmly and eloquently conveying her teammates' hurt, and condemning the racism and sexism in Imus 's comments. "I know that rap and other music has desensitized America to some of [those] words," she said. "But it doesn't make it right to say [them]."

"It was appropriate that Essence spoke for all of us," says Stringer . "She is thoughtful, reflective and well-spoken. You would have thought she had been doing this kind of thing for 20 or 30 years."

In truth, the naturally shy Carson—who wrote out her statement and nervously read over it just moments before the press conference—had been "terrified" of public speaking. But her high school coach, Ed Black, had told her, "No matter what the situation, present a calm, confident face."

Moreover, Carson has never been one to back down from a challenge. At the Rosa L. Parks School for the Fine and Performing Arts in Paterson , she had a rivalry with a fellow student that evolved into a multi-instrument epic of one-upsmanship. "We'd go back and forth about who was better at piano," says Carson, who also played alto saxophone in the school jazz band. When the boy brought an electric guitar to school, Carson talked her grandmother into buying her one. When he took up the bass, she taught herself to play that, too, eventually becoming the bassist for the jazz band. And when he let slip that he was playing the drums in a band? Carson quickly became a percussionist for her church group. "Essence's musicianship is a direct reflec tion of her personality," says Vladimir Zaitsev, her piano instructor at Rosa Parks. "She wants to do it all."

Carson was eight when she was introduced to music by her paternal grand mother, Betty Cooper, who played an upright piano in the basement between loads of laundry. Because Carson's mom, Stacey Robinson, worked an early morning shift as a depot clerk at New Jersey Transit, Carson lived with Betty and her husband, Robert. It was Carson's father, Joe, a schoolteacher and former forward at John C. Smith University in Charlotte , who encouraged her to play hoops. The two spent hours on the Coopers' front porch developing her shooting form. "He must have had me practice my follow-through 50 million times," she says.