WASHINGTON (AP) -They were navigating the streets of the nation's capital, on the way to get their hair done. Nakia Sanford was driving, while Washington Mystics teammate Taj McWilliams-Franklin sat in the passenger's seat talking and playing with her iPod.
``I look up, and there's this restaurant,'' McWilliams-Franklin said. ``Soul Vegetarian?''
Sanford pulled over on the spot. The hair would have to wait.
``We hopped out, went in there, it was awesome,'' McWilliams-Franklin said. ``We had soy mac and cheese, whole wheat pasta, soy cheese, soy milk, and it was fabulous.''
The chance pit stop at the Soul Vegetarian Cafe was a rare moment in American professional sports: Two players from the same team indulging their dietary preferences by sharing a vegan meal.
Prince Fielder of the Milwaukee Brewers made headlines this year when he became a vegetarian, but McWilliams-Franklin and Sanford - the oldest Mystics players - have been steering their diets away from meat for years. Both were on their own among carnivorous teammates until six-time All-Star McWilliams-Franklin was traded in April to the Mystics from the Los Angeles Sparks.
Their common bond quickly surfaced. Recently, they sat outside the locker room after a practice and swapped food stories.
``I'm trying to switch to the fat-free milk,'' said Sanford, 32. ``Soy is a little too much for me.''
``Ever try rice milk?'' McWilliams-Franklin, 37, asked.
``Oh, heck, yes - and no!'' Sanford said with both a laugh and a grimace, indicating the experience wasn't a pleasant one.
``It's awful,'' McWilliams-Franklin said. ``I think rice milk is worse than soy milk.''
Their choices have evolved over the years. Sanford buys organic eggs and milk, while McWilliams-Franklin shuns dairy altogether and has a young daughter who is a complete vegan. Both players take vitamins and say their bodies have changed along with their diets - McWilliams-Franklin has dropped three dress sizes over six years - without any noticeable loss in strength.
``I noticed a big change in my bulk,'' Sanford said. ``I don't know if that's good or bad as an athlete. My strength is there, but my bulkiness has definitely gone down.''
Truth be told, though: Neither is a total vegetarian. Both will eat fish to help keep their protein levels up, even when it's not particularly appetizing.
``Sometimes I can't eat it, but I have to,'' Sanford said. ``Because I don't have enough protein.''
Both players grew up in Georgia - ``ham hocks, collard greens, neck bones, chicken feet, pig ears,'' said Sanford, with McWilliams-Franklin nodding along - but had totally different eureka moments that turned them toward new diets.
Sanford was troubled when she learned how meat was processed - just before being fed a steak-heavy diet while playing for a team in South Korea during the WNBA offseason. She then came back to the United States and twice had an experience in which she bit into some meat and found gristle, bone or something similarly icky to her.
That was more than enough.
``No more red meat,'' Sanford said. ``It started with just the red meat, then the next year I didn't even want to eat chicken. Anything on the bone just grossed me out. Anything where you had to cut and it bled, that type of stuff.''
All McWilliams-Franklin had to do to change her diet was think about her mother, who is overweight with high-blood pressure from a fat and greasy Southern diet.
``I just wanted to make sure I had a healthy body because I wanted to continue playing for a longer period than most of my peers,'' McWilliams-Franklin said. ``I felt like I needed a cleansing regimen and something that was going to keep me healthy in the long run. At the time I didn't eat a lot of meat anyway.''
