'When Thigpen was 14 years old, he was at the wheel of a van that careened into the woods and smashed into a tree. The girl in the passenger’s seat, his first girlfriend in elementary school, Lacrecia Daniels, was killed. That traumatizing night still replays through Thigpen’s mind daily. Through eight teams and two leagues over six years, Thigpen has played for Lacrecia because he knows when one life was lost, another was saved: his own.'