Charlotte's Dawn Staley is set to drag her battered knees through another WNBA playoffs. She's 32 now, and has another full-time job -- coach of Temple's women's basketball program -- and two Olympic gold medals.

	In her U.S. pro career, Dawn Staley has tallied more than 2,000 points and 1,000 assists.

She never won a national championship in college, and the WNBA title that was close-but-not-quite last year seems somewhat far away, despite the Sting being in the playoffs. Hard to say how many seasons she'll keep playing. But, in spite of those knees, maybe she'll be doing it for a long time.

You don't get the feeling that Staley is staying around just in the hope that she wins a WNBA championship. She's still playing because she can, because it's who she's been for so long and there's no reason to give it up while she's still effective.

The physical pain she endures has never been the obstacle to Staley that it might be for some other people. The demands of another job -- during the WNBA season, she relies on her assistants to do a lot of the recruiting work, but it's still something she monitors a lot -- do not faze her.

You may wonder, in fact, what an expression of "uncertainty'' or "surprise'' might look like on Staley. Her emotions always seem in check, her resolve to face whatever the day might bring seems unbendable.

I moved to Virginia when Staley was in her junior season for the Cavaliers, and like everyone else was amazed at the things she could do on the court. As much, though, I was intrigued with the quiet, didn't-give-anything-away persona.

The U.Va. teams that went to the Final Four in 1990, '91 and '92 were full of splendid personalities, from the California goofiness of the Burge twins to the passionate flair of Tonya Cardoza to the flashy showtime of Tammi Reiss to the Texas charm of Dena Evans.

Staley, though, was an enigma. She was the national player of the year in '91 and '92, always in the spotlight but never revealing that much of herself.

We reporters, so many of us white and middle-class, typically write about athletes like Staley with good intentions but little real understanding. So we'll say things like, "Staley came from the hard streets of Philly,'' but we don't really know what the hard streets are. It's rote description. Sometimes we liven it up with details we're told, but they are window-dressing on a cliché.

You don't get the feeling that Staley and her battered knees are staying around just in the hope that she wins a WNBA championship. She's still playing because she can, because it's who she's been for so long and there's no reason to give it up while she's still effective.

It's a world most of us never see. And certainly can't "feel'' the way I can "feel'' when someone tells me she grew up in a little, rural town. Then, the old people, the gravel roads lined with weeds and blackberry bushes, the river drying up in the summer, the gray-brown late-afternoon dusk of winter, the paint peeling off rickety sheds, the smell of cows and hogs and mowed grass -- all of it mixes together in my mind, and I know just where she's from.

I don't know where Staley is from. Not really. I know there are not bullets flying all the time and crack addicts on every doorstep and murders committed behind every building. But those things are part of it.

Also a part of it are caring, hard-working parents who give their children what they need to grow up and move someplace that's different. Staley had such a mother.

So I've talked to Staley, and other athletes like her, and tried to write about what their experiences were like. But I've often felt bad because I thought I didn't really "know'' them, the way I feel I know, for instance, a Jackie Stiles, who grew up in a town of 600 in the middle of Kansas.

I've worried, always, that part of that is that I don't relate as well to black athletes as I do to white, no matter how badly I want to. Athletes like Staley have always been nice and polite, but I typically have come away from interviews thinking all I got was their surface, that they don't really trust that I do want to know them. That inside, there's so much more that they think I either won't understand or am not interested in.

Staley, though, has changed some since her Virginia days. That's natural, of course. She was so shy and wary then, and now she is more open. Now, I sense at least I know her a little bit.

I asked about how she doesn't use euphemisms when talking to recruits. People like to avoid the realities of teen-aged girls, especially poor, black teen-aged girls. Because it's too damned depressing and sad and frustrating for most of us to deal with.

Staley was one of those girls, and they are the people she can relate to the best. No nice talk, no phoniness. She discusses pregnancy, AIDS, predators, drugs, prostitution and violence in terms that are real to them, terms they understand.

Terms some people might take offense to, not realizing that you can't "pretty'' up or clinicize the vileness that's a part of their lives.

"If they grew up in a bad neighborhood,'' Staley said, "I talk to them in a way that reaches them. You have to talk to them bluntly. A teacher is not always going to say the things a coach will say.

"Maybe you save one or two lives that way.''

Few people know that Staley saved a girl's life during her senior year at Virginia. Staley didn't talk about it back then, still doesn't much now. She does say, "That was one of the scariest situations I've ever been in.''

There was a troubled, lonely teen-aged girl on top of a parking garage in Charlottesville who was threatening to jump. Police pleaded with her, trying to find things that were positives in her life.

She finally told them something that did make her happy: watching the Cavaliers, and Staley particularly, play ball. She felt less alone then, more capable of believing there was some joy in the world. It gave her something to look forward to.

So the police called the U.Va. basketball office, and then got in touch with Staley, who came down to the garage as fast as she could to talk to the girl. They chatted for several minutes, and the girl walked away from the edge.

Eleven years later, Staley doesn't know what eventually happened to that girl. This isn't a "Lifetime'' movie where they stayed in touch forever and the girl went to Princeton and is on her way to the Nobel prize.

But for that day, Staley saved a life.

And in every day that she keeps playing ball, keeps coaching, keeps talking to girls about saving themselves, she's still doing it.

Mechelle Voepel of the Kansas City Star is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. She can be reached at mvoepel@kcstar.com.