[Vision2020] Carson is a Leader Speaking Up for 'What's Right" (Aditi Kinkhabwala)

[Tom Hansen]

>From the North Jersey Register at www.northjersey.com -

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Carson is a leader speaking up for 'what's right'      

Thursday, April 12, 2007 

By ADITI KINKHABWALA
STAFF WRITER 
  
She didn't groan out the exaggerated sigh. She didn't tag her teammates with
the familiar eye-roll either.
 
No, on Tuesday, in front of the dozens of cameras and microphones, Essence
Carson played it straight. She sat tall and she expansively answered every
query lobbed at the stage. And unlike all season, when the Rutgers junior
regularly -- and endearingly -- protested that some other Scarlet Knight
should speak, she didn't let a soul know how not-fun she usually finds all
this.

"You don't get too many opportunities," Carson said, "to stand up for what
you know is right."

Naturally reserved, the 20-year-old out of Paterson has long been ragged by
coach C. Vivian Stringer for her preference to text message instead of
converse. Carson's a veritable musical prodigy who's a master on four
instruments, and yet insists she wants to be a "behind-the-scenes" producer.
She has a gorgeously expressive smile, but rarely pumps a fist and only
occasionally lets slip one of her dry witticisms.

And yet, in the aftermath of radio host Don Imus' inflammatory
characterization of her team, it's Carson who has gamely sat alongside
Stringer on morning news shows and radio programs, earning raves for her
measured, mature articulacy.

"Essence Carson," a New York Times editorial read Wednesday, "was
particularly eloquent in her remarks and in her responses to questions."

Carson became the Scarlet Knights' reluctant spokesperson this season,
assuming the role because half her teammates are freshmen, the only other
junior who played started the season hurt, and because she's just so darn
agreeable. Stringer needed a leader on the court and so the lanky 6-footer
was it, consciously forcing herself to talk and prompting Connecticut coach
Geno Auriemma to commend her "unbelievable job of pulling that team
together."

Off the court, the Scarlet Knights needed a go-to talker and even as center
Kia Vaughn giggled "Essence does not like attention," Carson was it again,
saying in the early winter, "I'll do whatever it takes."

As the Scarlet Knights progressed from 2-4 afterthoughts to the postseason's
defensive clinicians, Carson grew enough into the role that, at season's
end, point guard Matee Ajavon affectionately called her "Little Vivian."

Now the country is seeing that.

A straight-A student who Ajavon said "is always in her books," Carson made
sure her homework was done before Tuesday's news conference. She's never
been an Imus listener (Stringer's practices are during his airtime hours),
but she made sure she knew his history with black slurs and his history of
mea culpas, smilingly saying, "There's been a lot of cleansing going on."

She gracefully guided her teammates to agree to hear Imus' apology in
person, and she generously said they wouldn't weigh in on calls for his
firing -- which MSNBC did Wednesday. She rationally refused to condemn
political candidates who've said they'd continue to appear on his show,
pointing to Imus' "ratings." She diplomatically shrugged off charges that
the Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson were co-opting Rutgers' story,
explaining that the lack of personal contact was fine because "I like my
privacy."

Carson lost her father when she was in elementary school and the grandmother
who raised her last summer. She's a middle child, with an older sister and
younger brother and a mother who so valued all her endeavors she took a
night shift at New Jersey Transit so she'd never miss a practice, game or
recital. Carson's a USA Basketball regular, a two-time Big East Defensive
Player of the Year, and may be the best leaper in Division I basketball.

Which is what this has been for Carson, a leap into another arena. And as
publicity shy as she may be, even she had to say, "I believe there are a lot
of positives that can come from this." And then, without even looking to
pass the microphone, she went on, "I'm glad we're speaking up."

E-mail: kinkhabwala at northjersey.com

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"As more and more heathens 'choose' to not have children the number of Godly
souls will increase. If the number of Christian births out number the number
of Islamic births the battle will be over in 3 or 4 generations."

- Doug "No-Clue" Farris (March 10, 2007)