Do you have BaSKeTBaLL FeVeR?!

"Fever is having so much love for the game that you sleep with your ball and give her/him a name. Fever is going to an empty park at 1am just to play 1-on-1 for bragging rights when you can barely see rim. Fever is practicing before the sun rises because you know someone is working on their game and trying to take your scholarship. Fever is dribbling in your house even though those downstairs hate it. Fever is wearing basketball shorts underneath whatever you're already wearing for emergency games. Fever is playing in two or more tournaments a day. Fever is playing ball, going home taking a shower, and playing ball again later. Fever is not leaving the court until you make your last shot."

"What motivates a player is not so much any thrill involved with winning, but instead tha wrenching dissapointment--the agony--of losing. You think about losing, about that feeling of walking into the locker room, taking a shower, stayin awake that night going over every play and sitting in classes the next day, still unable to get it from your mind. It hangs on you like a sickness and makes you feel like you are suddenly less of a person. Maybe it shouldn't... but it does: to winners." -Diana Taurasi

"People don't play sports cause it's fun. Ask any athlete, most of them hate it, but they couldn't imagine their lives without it. It's part of them, the Hate/Love relationship. It's what they live for. They live for the practices, parties, cheers, long bus rides, invitationals, countless pairs of different types of shoes, water, Gatorade, and coaches you hate but appreciate. They live for the way it feels when you beat the team next to you by 1 point in overtime, and you know those 2 extra sprints you ran in practice were worth it. They live for the way you become a family with your team and the countless songs you sing in your head when you're running ALL those suicides. They live for the competition. They live for the friends, the practices, the memories, and the pain. It's who they are. It's who we are. WE ARE ATHLETES."