After a liver transplant and a rough Hepatitis B battle, my father passed away on February 17th, 2011.

I am fortunate enough to have a great support system of family or friends but it hurts very much. I try to ease the pain with memories of good times with my dad and the majority of them are attached to game of basketball.

We heard some sad news this week from a fellow LadyBaller. Elizabeth is leaving the group to pursue her own projects and commitments. Sad, sad, sad.

Liz, thank you. Thank you for being one of the core ladies of this group who really put in a lot of time and effort to get it up and running. Thank you for creating our awesome logo and website! Thanks for your insightful blog posts. Thanks for always being supportive and helpful, and thank you for being our Relay for Life team captain this year.

Most of you have probably seen Black Swan by now (I was a little late on this). Aside from the dark, twisted story itself, I was totally mesmerized by the actual dancers. Dancing has always peaked my interest… bet you didn’t know I was a dancer back in the day, huh? I never got into ballet like the ladies and gents in Black Swan, but I was pretty much the best tap and jazz dancer (at least that’s what my mom says).

Circa 1990: "Grandpa, why are all these mean people saying our home is yucky and full of hillbillies?" "Oh Lisa, honey don't worry about it. It's just because we live in the mountains and are so far away."

When you think of professional athletes, what's the first words that come to your mind? Stud? Beast? Athletic? Cocky? Rich? Charities? Compassion? Poetry? Sound about right? The average fan watches the game, cheers for their favorite players and goes home. Most of the world is just the average fan. Though sometimes fans get lucky and they get to interact with a player or a player puts himself out on the world's stage for everyone to see, then you truly get to see what makes up a professional athlete.

Guest blogger, Michael J. Weathers.

Hello and welcome to a lil segment I like to call "Whatever Happened To..." Every so often I will call out a former athlete who has fallen off the grid. So let's get this party started!

The featured athlete for the first installment of "Whatever Happened To" is none other than Shawn Kemp; also known as "The Reign Man.” Now this is going to hit close to home because I was a huge Kemp fan back in the day. He is hands down one of the top 10 best dunkers in the NBA. I would even dare to say top 5!

Even through all the craziness of the NBA Playoffs, I’ve found myself fondly looking back to my trip to San Francisco, and more importantly my glorious bike ride over the Golden Gate Bridge. =) I have to admit, in my little world, I thought this was going to be a breezy bike ride – nothing too long or too strenuous. Well, apparently, it’s fun being in my little dream world because man-oh-man this was a workout!

The day after Duke won the National Championship I had a fight with a man over the game of basketball. He told me I had no room to join in the conversation because I do not truly understand the game. I told him he needs to learn his audience before he opens his mouth, gave him a business card, and told him to look me up when he needed information on all things sports. The next day he comes into work, apologizes, then proceeds to tell me that I would never understand the true meaning of the game because I didn't come from the "hood." I was still a little fired up because I have played this thing they call "street ball." For crying out loud I broke my face playing "street ball." At that moment I decided that my post was going to be where you would actually find the purest, truest, form of the game.

It's time we got some football action in our weekly featured tweeter post! I've been following Matt Humphrey (@NCAAFootballMan) and Andrea Adelson (@OSaadelson) for quite some time and they have definitely been my go-to folks for anything college football (and more!) If anyone knows me, I am a HUGE Gators fan, and I know I can always count on Matt and Andrea to have all of the most recent news and articles.

Have you ever locked yourself in the laundary room? Have you ever slept on the floor as a punishment? Or how about screamed, yelled, and kicked people out of the house until you were finished? Or maybe cried so hard you made yourself get sick? Or am I the only one? Welcome to my world as an obsessive Duke fan.