On Labor Day, Olympian Kara Lawson Talks Hard Work

By Kecia Bailey: SPM CA Writer
Posted Sunday, September 7, 2008

Kara Lawson on the floor with teammate Chelsea Newton. Photo by George Young.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Over a week ago, Monarchs guard Kara Lawson was perched atop a podium in Beijing with a gold medal draped around her neck while the National Anthem played. Capping a perfect Olympic tournament run for Team USA, she saved her best game for last with a perfect day of her own– scoring 15 points going 5-for-5 from the floor and 4-for-4 from the free throw line against Australia in the gold medal game. She led the tournament field in three-point field goal percentage (.571) and assist to turnover ratio (3.67). She ranked second in total assists (24) and fourth in assists per game (3) - also leading Team USA in both categories.

Kara sat down with SPM after a Labor Day practice to share thoughts on her Olympic experience, and the hard work and support she's very thankful to have had along the way to help make it happen.

SPM: When we talked with you at the USA Basketball training camp at Stanford, you talked about imagining the moment you won the gold and were sharing that moment with your teammates, family and friends. Was the actual moment like you expected?

KL: Yeah. I think the best part was after the game, knowing that we had played our best game in the biggest game - the championship game. I’ve been fortunate enough to have played in a lot of different types of championship games and even sometimes when you win, you don’t always play your best game though you’re happy that you still won. But for us to be able to put it all together and everyone play so well in that last game, I think was really fulfilling for all of us. And to dominate…that’s not an easy thing to do at that level and we pretty much dominated the whole tournament. That was a really really good feeling. I didn’t expect that, I didn’t expect us to have the gold medal game in hand by the start of the fourth quarter.

Then, just being with my teammates and stepping up on the podium together. I don’t know what it feels like to win an individual medal but I can’t imagine it’s a better feeling than the feeling of winning a team medal because you’re so dependent on everyone else’s performance in order to succeed. So when you do succeed you feel not only your joy but everyone else’s joy on the podium. That was very special for us to win the gold and hear the National Anthem.

SPM: You’ve talked a lot in the past about the Olympics being something you’ve dreamed about since you were really young and about working getting there. Is that how you would describe this process? That your seeing it and dreaming it helped you to achieve it?

KL: Yeah, it’s been a long road for me as a player … not that I feel like I’m “there” or I “arrived.” I don’t think there were many people when I first came into this league in 2003 that thought I would get there, to the Olympic level. So it’s been a lot of patience and hard work through the offseasons and just trying to improve my game every year. For me to make that team and be someone that helped contribute to the team winning was a tremendous amount of validation for me as a player. Just knowing where I came from as a player and just trying to get better and grind it out every year. I mean it’s a grind for me to try to keep improving and try to add new things to my game and always trying to climb and keep jumping people as far as elite status in this league and just try to jump a few people every year.

Starting out my rookie year I played a few minutes and my goal was to just try to play more. Then my goal was to become one of the better guards on the team, then my goal was becoming one of the better guards in the conference … then becoming one of the better guards in the league. A lot of times people see finished product and think “Oh, it comes easy.” It’s never come easy for me, it’s always been a lot of hard work. But I think I appreciate it more.

SPM: You’ve also talked this past week about being very grateful to the Monarchs organization for helping you get to Olympic level. What do you mean by that? Have they been part of that same growth process you just talked about?

KL: Yeah, I think so. I’ve only played here in Sacramento, so for me to make the leaps I have in my game, I’m in my sixth season now, a large part of the credit I think goes to this organization and the people here for making this such a positive experience for me. Professional basketball is not always a positive experience for everyone. Coach Whiz [ John Whisenant] brought me in as a player. When he came in as a coach in the middle of my rookie year, I wasn’t playing a lot. He gave me an opportunity mid-way through my rookie season to play. Sometimes when you’re a young player all you need is a chance – you just need an opportunity to play. The Monarchs had a veteran team with a lot of players in front of me and he gave me that chance and that gave me a lot of confidence as a young player.

Also, just being able to work through the offseasons with this staff … I’ve worked with [assistant coach] Steve [Shuman] for the last four or five offseasons now, every day just me and him in the gym. I worked with [head coach] Jenny [Boucek] last year. A lot of people don’t see those things or know those things about this organization. I’ve been able to do Kings [television broadcast] stuff here and that’s allowed me to train here and work with the strength coaches every day in the offseason here. That’s how you get better and improve. We identified skills that I needed to get better at as a guard and just worked on them every day. You don’t get that type of commitment from every part of an organization everywhere and I’m thankful for that here.

I’m also thankful for my teammates. We have a system here that started with Coach Whiz where everyone is equal. It’s an equal opportunity offense and defense and you have to pull your own weight. It’s about getting the best shot for the team and not necessarily having a best shot for a certain player. Because of that framework, I’ve learned how to play - I learned how I played with everyone at Tennessee too - but I’ve learned how to play at this higher level with other great players. I think that’s a key attribute to have as a player - learning how to play with other great players, helping to make them successful and using other great players to help your game as well.

SPM: It seems like that philosophy or framework plays into the national team concept where you are playing with a lot of different elite players.

KL: Yeah, it definitely carries over. A lot of players, depending on the system, don’t know how to do that or the transition isn’t as smooth because they’re used to having the ball in their hands every time for their team and maybe don’t know how to play without the ball as well or maybe don’t know how to make someone else better without having the ball. There are a lot of nuances to the game. I mean if you think about how many times during the course of a game you have the ball in your hands - it’s not very many. To be a great player you have to be able to do stuff without the basketball – spacing, cuts and picks to open other players up so they can be successful.

SPM: It seems like Tennessee also played a role in helping you because there is a long legacy of Olympic players coming out of that program as well.

KL: I definitely think I was born with [and at an early age my parents embraced] my mentality and my personality as a player – working hard, being tough-minded and competitive, wanting to do more and to be the best. Tennessee helped me focus that in the right areas. Coach [Pat] Summit demands that of her players every single day. She makes you dig down deeper than you think that you can every single day and brings it out of you. And once you realize what you can do, once you realize you have mastered it? It’s just like the whole world opens up to you because you know you can’t be defeated mentally. If I could pick one thing that Tennessee players have when they come out is that mentally they are so tough and they can push through anything, whether it's fatigue, injury or a run of another team during a game. I think that’s why Tennessee players have been so successful coming out. It was a lot of fun playing with Catch [Tamika Catchings] and Candace [Parker] on this team this year. Those two players, epitomize more than anybody, toughness and being able to push through things.

SPM: Since you’ve been back, you’ve talked about, like you did after you won a championship here in 2005, that the feeling associated with winning a gold medal is addicting and it makes you want to win another one. But it also doesn't seem like it’s a given that players who were part of the gold medal team in Beijing will be part of the team that goes in 2012 to London. What would you say would be the key for you or any other player for that matter getting back on another Olympic team?

KL: Four years is a really long time. It’s kinda hard right now to sit here and even think where I’ll be in four years, I wouldn’t have guessed that I would be here four years ago. But for me, it goes back into that grind. You get a chance to reap some benefits from the hard work you’ve put in and now I’m excited. I’m excited to finish this season, don’t get me wrong, but I’m so excited for this offseason. Playing at that level every day with that caliber of player really exposed some things to me of where I need to improve my game and where I feel I can get even better. I'm excited to think about where I'll be four years from now when I look at the improvements I made in the last four years. That’s all you can do is hope to get better every year. And with the system that we have here in Sacramento it translates very well to the USA system; if I get better within the [Monarchs] team concept, I get better prepared for what I’ll face working with the national team.

SPM: How about shortening the time frame...when does the process start for USA Basketball towards putting together the team for the 2010 World Championships?

KL: This offseason there are no USA Basketball commitments, so we have the offseason off. It’s the first time in three years that I won’t have USA Basketball commitments so I’ll get to spend a lot time working on my game. We won’t reconvene until probably the spring of 2010 – the World Championships would be after the WNBA season so training camp will probably be in the spring. Then it’s back to the drawing board, because like you said, it’s not a given just because you were on this team that you’ll be on it two years from now. I mean look at the talent that we have coming up. There are a lot of great young players in our league. But I love the training camps … I’ve said this before, I wanted to make the team don’t get me wrong, I would have been disappointed if I didn’t make it. But the camps I think as much as anything over the last three years have been instrumental for me improving. You’re getting to go up against the best players all the time. I love the camps, I love training and going at it in practice with all these players because I feel like I get better.

SPM: How aware were you of the questions some people had about your inclusion on the Olympic roster? Do you feel like your play throughout the Games silenced those questions?

KL: I knew I was on the bubble and I knew there were a lot of deserving players that they could have picked. There’s more than twelve Olympic caliber players in the WNBA and so they could have picked any number of guards to fulfill the spot that I was ultimately given. We’re all different. To me it wasn’t a matter of ... if someone else made it they were better. I’m better at some things and they’re better at some things. I couldn’t have complained if they had picked a Katie Douglas, Candice Wiggins or Lindsey Harding or Alana Beard – you can’t go wrong, they’re great players. I’m a fan of those guys.

I knew that I wasn’t probably the most popular decision to a lot of fans. But what I did know was that I was a popular decision with the right people - with the committee that ultimately chose me and with the coaching staff. Coach [Anne] Donovan said to me, “You’re the player I wanted. I told the committee that I do not want to go to China without you. I want you on this team.” So that gives you confidence as a player - knowing that if those people are behind you, it doesn’t matter what other people say. I never played the games to try to prove people wrong, I played the games trying to prove people right. I played the games trying to validate the decision and the chance I was given to try to thank the people who had confidence in me to put me on the team.

SPM: It seemed like, watching the first game out the gate against the Czech Republic, you came in and defensively put the clamps down. That was a sort of signature moment for you and your play throughout the Olympic tournament.

KL: We’re playing in the first game and I don’t know what my role’s going to be going in as far as how many minutes I was going to play, but I knew what coach wanted me to bring. I mean, I was as surprised as anybody, first sub of the game, she turns and looks and tells me to get into the game. At first I thought she was confused or something and meant Catchings or Parker or [Sylvia] Fowles or somebody else (laughs). Going in there trying to change the game defensively, it’s a little different mindset because you don’t know how many minutes you’re going to be out there. So for me, it was just trying to play as hard as I could because I knew I wasn’t going to have to play 30 minutes for that team. I knew I could give even more effort having to play just 10-15 minutes.

SPM: Is defense an underrated element of your game? Is that another area that maybe you’ve grown in with the Monarchs' system?

KL: Yeah, I’ve definitely improved on it because there’s such a big emphasis here on playing defense. I’m just a different type of defender I think than a lot of the players we have here. I’m not long. I’m not as athletic as Scho [Scholanda Robinson] or Chelsea [Newton] or DeMya [Walker] or [Rebekkah] Brunson so it might not always look as pretty, but I’m confident in the effectiveness that I have on the defensive end.

Maybe it was an eye-opener to some people watching me defend on the ball and being one of the better perimeter defenders that our team had. It’s something that I think I proved in the training sessions. The coaching staff knew and had confidence in me. I just do it a different way. I really think that so much of defense is mental and about smarts - knowing a player’s tendencies, knowing what the play is going to be, knowing what the team wants to do. It doesn’t matter how quick you are if mentally you don’t know when to move first. I can beat the quickest person if I know what’s going to happen before they start. Some players, like a Deanna Nolan, can just rise up over you and when she gets going like that it’s hard for anybody to stop her. But as far as staying in front of the player I’m defending? I feel confident about the defensive part of my game.

SPM: It’s been a big year for you personally and winning the gold medal added to that. Have you had time to let it all sink in yet or will that happen more in the offseason? You didn’t have much time to celebrate the gold because you were back on plane headed home right after that.

KL: That’s one of the things we talked about as a group when we were staying up that night after we won. We wished we had a couple of days to enjoy it and hang around each other and be with one another a little bit longer. Every day it sinks in more and more because people here are excited to have me back. People want to congratulate me everywhere I go in this city. Everyone watched and is proud of what the United States was able to do. When you get that everyday, a heavy dose of people being excited, then that kind of helps you see that it had a little bit bigger impact on people than a normal game or tournament.

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