Crystal Langhorne's perseverance embodies spirit of Washington Mystics and WNBA

A small, elegant trophy was placed inside Crystal Langhorne's locker room cubicle early Sunday evening. The Washington Mystics forward admired the craftsmanship on her Eastern Conference player of the month award and allowed a half-smile. "Pretty nice, huh?" she said, nonchalantly.

Pretty nice?

Imagine if you were the third or fourth player whose name rolled off the tongue of fans who saw you play at Maryland, and you couldn't wait to play professionally to carve your own identity.

And your new coach, a much better NBA player than WNBA coach, kept yanking you after every rookie mistake -- to the point you doubted your ability to play in the league.

"One of the first games I coached her, I remember her coming up to me and saying, 'Thanks for not taking me out of the game,' " recalled Julie Plank, the Mystics' second-year coach. "I said, 'What?' She said, 'Thanks for not taking me out of the game.' I couldn't believe it. I said, 'Lang, you're not coming out of the game.' "

More than two years after playing time was a problem, Plank said, it's more like, "Lang, we need you to start," or "Lang, we need you to play 28 minutes," or, "You're not coming out."

If the Mystics without Alana Beard, sidelined for the season after surgery to repair a tendon in her left ankle, have been a summer surprise, so too has the continued emergence of Langhorne as a bona fide force in the post -- the former Terrapin not named Kristi Toliver or Marissa Coleman (her Mystics teammate) who one moment was sent back to the bench by former coach Tree Rollins and now is fresh off her first appearance in a WNBA all-star game.

"It feels great to be noticed, but if you look around our whole team has stepped up in Alana's absence," Langhorne said of her 12-7 squad, which has hovered near the top of the Eastern Conference this season. "I'm just happy to have finally gotten some consistent minutes."

The addition of veteran guard Katie Smith has added leadership, late-game execution and a general belief that her team can win in the crucible. Monique Currie has been very good in stretches and Matee Ajavon has sparkled off the bench.

But Langhorne needs to be trumpeted by the WNBA more than most. She is a window into not just her team's evolution -- where young players have consistently become more polished and poised -- but also women's basketball in this country as a whole.

One of the often-missed qualities about the WNBA is that many of the players understand their roles. Not rebounding or shutdown defense, but their roles in the landscape of American sports.

As far as cross-promotion, the NBA has all but forsaken them. Even before many teams became independently owned, many NBA owners privately wanted to stop underwriting the WNBA years ago, convinced it was an economic loser.