Diamondback Online - The University of Maryland's Independent Daily Student Newspaper

Issue date: 3/27/08 Section: Sports

Crystal Langhorne may look the part, but she does not act like a typical star.

A senior forward on the Terrapin women's basketball team, Langhorne is soft-spoken, genuine and kind, and it would never dawn on her that she's better than anybody else simply because of her monumental talent on a basketball court.

The daughter of first-generation immigrants who always valued education and religion over basketball, Langhorne will leave the Terps after their current NCAA tournament run as not only the best player in the history of the program, but also as one of the game's - and the university's - most interesting and successful people.

"As talented as she is on the floor, what she's accomplished, the records she's broken, she's just even a better person," coach Brenda Frese said. "I'll miss the grace and dignity and the poise that she carries herself with each and every day."



'All about academics'

An honest-to-goodness example of the American Dream, Langhorne's family and its values has shaped her into the person she has become.

Langhorne's parents - father Cryhten and mother Juel - are natives of Guyana, the only predominantly English-speaking colony in South America.

Basketball, as well as the more popular soccer and cricket, exists there, but sports were never more than a very casual interest for the Langhornes.

When the hard-working couple moved to New York City 34 years ago, they did so for the economic and educational opportunity, certainly not for the sports.

"My husband went to school in New York," Juel said. "We came really for the opportunities here."

But Crystal's older brothers, Cryhten and Chris, both loved basketball - both would also end up playing in college - and Crystal learned to love the game from them.

Growing up in Willingboro, N.J., where the Langhornes have lived since Crystal was less than a year old, the Langhorne brothers would play ball in a nearby park nearly every afternoon after school, and Crystal would often tag along.

"They didn't really know how good she was until she started giving them some problems," Juel said.

But basketball was never the most important thing at the Langhornes' house.

Crystal made sure to take out her books and start her homework as soon as she got home from school every day, and wouldn't do anything else until she finished.

Both she and her parents preferred it that way.

"Now they are, but at first my parents weren't big about me playing basketball," Crystal said. "It was all about academics."

Continued...

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