During a road trip to St. Joseph's when Kara Lawson was a freshman at the University of Tennessee, Lady Vols coach Pat Summitt walked off the team bus and into the hotel lobby, and confronted West Springfield coach Bill Gibson, who'd traveled to Philadelphia to watch his former player.

A year earlier, when Summitt was recruiting his star guard – from a team that finished 82-2 during Lawson's three years and won a pair of state titles – Gibson gave his honest evaluation of someone who was truly an extension of himself.

"I told Pat that [Kara] isn't going to be one of the best athletes she ever got," Gibson remembers telling Summitt. "But she will be the smartest kid on the court, and she'll be a coach on the court."

At Tennessee, Lawson became truly an extension of Summitt. In four years, Lawson totaled 456 assists, which ranks her fifth in the fabled program's history. After joining the WNBA's Sacramento Monarch's in 2003, Lawson has built on her cerebral reputation and is considered one of league's smartest players.

On July 10, the U.S. Olympic women's basketball program announced that it would rely on that savvy. Lawson, who's been to Beijing three times before, will join 11 others on a team that has 25 straight Olympic wins and three gold medals since 1992's semifinal loss in Barcelona.

"I'm just excited to compete against the best players in the world," said Lawson, who's averaging career-best marks in points (11.1) and assists (2.3) per game for the Monarchs this season. "I think if we can jell together quickly, we'll have a great chance to bring home a gold medal."

Should Lawson and her teammates grab yet another gold, it would only seem appropriate for the former Spartan to talk about it. Not only has she played at perhaps the country's most prestigious women's basketball school and currently gets a paycheck to play, but Lawson also became a women's college basketball analyst for ESPN in 2004.

In high school – not to diminish the quality of the food in West Springfield's cafeteria – Lawson would often eat lunch in Gibson's classroom, which housed a sports marketing/broadcasting class taught by the veteran basketball coach.

Whether it meant dissecting last night's high school game, the previous day's lesson or even the status of Gibson's beloved New York Yankees, sports analysis was never too far off Lawson's radar – even if she dismissed an early prediction from her coach.

"I told her that she should think about broadcasting, and she laughed at me," Gibson said. "I give her a hard time about it when I see her, but I think she's excellent."

With a roster that includes WNBA superstars such as Lisa Leslie, Diana Taurasi and Candace Parker, playing time for Lawson could be sparse, though the Fairfax County native remains confident with what has gotten her to this point in her career.

"The same things that make you successful as a collegiate player or as a WNBA player are the same things that would make you successful [in the Olympics] and that's how hard you work, how competitive you are. ... Those things transcend at every level," Lawson said.

"From that standpoint, it's not going to be any different. The team that works the hardest and competes will eventually come out and win the gold medal."

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