Obsessed With BBall

by Casey Jacobsen I have to confess something — I used to have a basketball addiction. I’ve never done drugs in my life so I’m not sure what that is like, but when I was a young man basketball was all that I wanted to do. It made me happy and comforted me when I was sad. I’m pretty sure that this passion for the game originated with my father and older brothers, traveling around the country watching them play. I wanted to be like them, but most importantly I wanted to be better than they were. I became obsessed with practice, competition and results. During my high school years, if I had a good game, I felt it wasn’t good enough. If I had a poor game, I couldn’t sleep at night and I couldn’t let it go until I played again. Around the age of 16, the role of basketball in my life became crystal clear: to get a college scholarship. My two older brothers had already earned full-ride scholarships to play college basketball and there was no way that I wasn’t going to follow in their...