For Mystics' Vaughn, Graduation Day Is Better Late

Determined to make Vaughn take school seriously, Hargrove sought help from Delora Walker, the girls' basketball coach at Lake Clifton-Eastern. If Vaughn didn't come home at night, if her grades slipped or if she simply couldn't be found, Hargrove called Walker, who would kick Krystal out of the next practice and slam the gym door in her face.

Vaughn wanted to be like the college and professional women's basketball players she saw on television growing up, but if she wasn't on the court there was no way that would happen. Basketball "was my only ticket to being happy," Vaughn said. "I'd do just about anything to keep playing and they used it to teach me to not to be a product of Baltimore City. They taught me how to look people in the eye when I talked to them, how to control my anger and how to become a young lady."

Said Hargrove: "Krystal has always had her own mind and wanted to do what she wanted to do. But when you laid something out on the line for her -- like that she had to do her homework to play basketball -- she understood and she listened."

In her senior year, Vaughn averaged 24 points and 13 rebounds per game and caught the eye of Cunningham, VCU's newly appointed coach, who was looking for a younger player she could develop and offered Vaughn a scholarship. "There was this sincerity about her that made me realize she really knew how important this opportunity was and could be to the rest of her life," Cunningham said.

VCU and Richmond were nothing like the life Vaughn knew in East Baltimore. People spoke properly, they were respectful of one another and they offered her unconditional friendship. Unsure of how to act, Vaughn devoted most of her freshman year to studying game plays and completing class assignments in her room.

Despite her initial discomfort, Vaughn told Cunningham that she couldn't go home often, and when she did go home she couldn't stay long. Although she worried about her young half sisters, Jessica, now 15, and Jennifer Jones, now 12, Vaughn knew that the best way she could help them was by focusing on school and completing her degree in sports management. She worked and saved money for the times that she did visit to buy her half sisters new clothes, school supplies and groceries.

Since becoming the first Ram in program history to be drafted by a WNBA team and making the Mystics roster in May, Vaughn hasn't seen much playing time. She's averages about five minutes per game while transitioning from power forward to small forward. But she has largely recovered from a nagging hamstring strain she suffered in training camp and interim head coach Jessie Kenlaw likes the energy she exhibits on the court.

Vaughn has started to visit her old neighborhood more since moving to Washington, including a trip home recently during the WNBA's month-long Olympic break. She still doesn't stay too long, but she spends time with her ailing mother, goes to Saturday evening Mass at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church with Hargrove and, before taking the family out to dinner, she checks to make sure that Jessica and Jennifer are keeping up with their schoolwork.

"They don't want to disappoint me," Vaughn said. "That's important. All the kids in East Baltimore need guidance, they need someone to see the potential that my aunt and Coach Walker saw in me.

"It took a while but I finally understood that the bad stuff, the violence around me, wasn't my fault. . . . And I will go back to see my family until I can get them out of there. Especially the little ones, they're who can't provide for themselves. I don't want them to suffer the way I did."