Every Thursday night between the hours of 7 and 10, the Staples field house is an eclectic collection of skill, swag, jokes, and competition. It is the home of recreational basketball.

The games last just three hours of each week, but rec basketball is eternal.

It lives on through the wee hours of the night and the school-filled hours of the day in the rec basketball Facebook group. This group is the home of everything rec basketball: demeaning trash talk, thousand word game predictions, and, once in a blue moon, a topic actually related to basketball.

“Rec basketball isn’t just a sport. It’s the reason I get out of bed every Thursday, it’s a lifestyle,” fourth year player Adam Dulsky ’14 said. Dulsky’s remarks are echoed by each and every one of the athletes that take the floor to participate in rec basketball. And I use the word “athlete” loosely.

The passion for rec basketball is intense; it’s not like anything else out there for any other sport.

“I’ve played through some pretty gruesome injuries,” explained Mike Moritz ’14. “Badly sprained wrists and ankles, broken fingers, and bloodied knees, injuries that definitely would have sidelined me had I been playing something less important – like a Staples school sport.”

Each Thursday, over 100 Staples boys enter the field house with one goal in mind, winning. “If it meant winning a rec game, I would have no problem taking an F on a test,” Jason Chaskin ’14 boldly said. “It isn’t even a question.”

Rec basketball? It changes lives.

“My mood every Friday morning is directly related to how well my rec team played the night prior,” explained Sam Ellinwood ’14. “Winning isn’t a sometimes thing, it’s an all the time thing.”

Players share a single, common dream: their names etched into history as rec basketball champions. “I’ve never woken up easier than the Friday morning after I won the rec championship my junior year,” Ellinwood said. He added that he was so pumped that morning that he still can’t remember what happened his first few periods.

This is why the intensity is so high, especially in the junior and senior league. Players fill with determination, drip in sweat, and scream expletives all night long. Players know that their time as a rec basketball superstar is almost up. And they all want to be the one team left standing as March Madness concludes.

“I’ve never played a second of basketball in all my life, but the intensity in the air at school is palpable every game day,” said Jess Riniti ’14.