Street Smarts -- Senque Carey Made A Difficult Journey From The Streets Of East Palo Alto, Calif., To The Basketball Court At The University Of Washington, With Plenty Of Help From Caring People.

Never trust the street. It lies. It corrupts. It lets you down. Friends aren't really friends. People who say they want to help you want something in return. It's a place full of violence and malevolence, savagely real yet full of deception.

Senque Carey knew the hard streets growing up in East Palo Alto, Calif., a 2 1/2-square-mile area where dreams die and despair and hopelessness sit alongside jacked-up, stripped-down cars.

The streets were seductive. They pulled in Carey. He skipped school, he hung out with friends and he watched drug deals go down. Despite the dangers and deceit, he felt comfortable because he carried a perspective few had. He knew where to put his trust - in his mother.

"Growing up on the streets, I never trusted anyone but my mother. That's one thing you knew - always trust your mother," said Carey, a University of Washington freshman who is the point guard of the future for the Huskies. He said that without his mother, Katie Lamb, he wouldn't be playing basketball in Seattle.

"I would be in jail or some way near it."

He trusted her despite the burden she put on him to watch over his youngest sister, Vinetta, and nephew, LaShawn, who lived with them. He trusted her despite moving the family around and her brushes with the law. And he even trusted her when she gave him up to two pairs of guardians to raise and educate him.

Besides his mother, Carey also found another woman in his life he would eventually learn to trust, Jill Smith, from affluent Palo Alto. Smith, a warmhearted but stern benefactor, came into his life when Carey was 9. Her support has changed his live forever.

There was a time when Smith didn't dare enter East Palo Alto. But that changed when her son, Lund, wanted to play basketball, and he knew that the best games were at the Onetta Harris Community Center, where Carey hung out. The community center in East Palo Alto was more than just a sports center, it was a secure facility that offered tutoring, mentors and road trips to museums, libraries and sporting events.

It was an eye-opening and bewildering experience for Jill Smith.

"I just loved these kids. I couldn't understand why they were going to prison and my son was going to college," Smith said. "I wanted to keep track of these kids to see what happens between 9 and 19."

She did more than that. She and her husband, Boyd, began underwriting the private education for some of the center's children through the California Family Foundation.

The foundation still provides financing for 15 students, including Carey, in college, although many of them have received athletic scholarships and one an academic scholarship.

Smith convinced Carey and his mother that he should attend a private junior high school, St. Elizabeth Seton, where his woeful academic background became apparent. He failed miserably until Smith hired a tutor to work with him every day after school for two hours - for the entire school year. Then the light started to shine.

"I had a whole different outlook," Carey said. "Teachers were asking me questions and I was answering them."

Not only was his basketball game clicking in eighth grade (he averaged 43 points a game), but he had become a real student.

Smith wanted him to attend Mountain View's St. Francis High, a prestigious private school. But she figured his home life still was too unstable for him to be successful, so Smith convinced Carey's mother that he should stay with guardians, James and Vickie Carr. His mother knew James Carr, who grew up in Carey's neighborhood and had been his mentor at the community center. She agreed to the plan as long as her son kept in touch.

James remembered what sad shape Carey was in at that time. He would wear the same clothes for days, his personal hygiene was minimal, he wore size 9 shoes on size 13 feet and his pants legs stopped four inches above his ankles. He wasn't eating well, if at all. He used to take Carey out to eat and was uncertain whether he could read a menu.

Carey enrolled at St. Francis and became the first freshman ever to make the varsity basketball team. At the same time, he lost his sense of education. He stopped studying. His coach, Steve Filios, benched him for his first game. Carey quit the team and school and, after an argument with the Carrs, returned home.

"It was like all the stuff I'd worked for I was just about to throw away," Carey said. "I went back to my old self. I was back on the corner with my boys who didn't have worries, other than getting caught by police. I saw all the money, the cars, the clothes."

Smith kept calling. She told him how much she cared and loved him but stressed what he was wasting. She left it up to him. It was always up to him, but his mother provided the push.

She allowed another set of guardians, Nelson and Heather Washington, to take over responsibility for her son. Nelson was an assistant coach and Heather was a history teacher at St. Francis.

"I saw a lot of myself in him as far as the way he grew up," said Nelson, who was raised with a single parent and is raising his younger brother, Rickey, at his home.

"I really was proud of his mother, who loved him enough to let him go in order to improve himself. She trusted me enough to take him in and get him there. Whatever personal demons she had to battle, she didn't allow them to pull him down."

Despite his trust, Carey was puzzled by his mother's decision.

"I thought maybe that my mom was disowning me, that she didn't want me anymore. But she said it was the best thing for me. I believed her."

Carey didn't think it was good at first. He didn't realize that Heather was white. He had little experience with the white community other than Jill. His friends called him a "sellout" and claimed he had forgotten his roots.

He also got another surprise. Heather worked at his school. She saw him between classes, at lunch, before and after school. She used the school's computer to check his progress. Nothing escaped her attention.

"If I didn't turn an assignment in for PE, she'd find out," Carey said. "I was tired of it. We got into so many arguments.

"At first I didn't trust her at all. But she wanted me to succeed in academics more than I did. When it came to the point where you thought she would give up, she never did. As much as anyone, Heather has helped me become the person I am."

Now, as a solid student and a Husky starter, Carey will return to his hometown this week for games against Cal and Stanford. How he got here is a story of a man who made the right choices, with plenty of help from caring people who would not let him go and a mother who did - for his ultimate benefit.

"Whenever I was down, there was always someone there to help me. It's like a blessing," Carey said. "Why would someone help me? Deep down, there is no answer.

"I look back at my mother and thank her for what she did for me. Maybe one day I can pay her back."