Khadijah Whittington, now a senior forward on the N.C. State women's basketball team and the fifth leading rebounder in the nation, followed her first rebound in organized basketball with a traveling violation.

She laughs about it today, tickled at the memory of being the tallest girl in seventh grade without any game.

"Everybody would pick on me because I was horrible," she said.

Back then, the native of Roanoke, Va., asked to quit basketball and return to cheerleading.

Her aunt, Juanita Whittington, had other ideas: "I wouldn't let her quit. ... It's too much in life to give up on anything."

In the years to come, life challenged Khadijah Whittington to live by those words. As obstacles set up before her like an opponent boxing out on the basketball court, she decided that she would go through, over or around them.

As an 11th-grader, she attended class and played basketball while caring for her father, who, stricken with ALS -- Lou Gehrig's disease -- relied on her assistance to function.

When her father first became ill, there were days she and her three brothers went without lights and other provisions.

Those who watched her play basketball, watched how she exhausted herself, noticed there wasn't any quit in the gregarious teenager. She kept on rebounding and flashing her radiant smile.

Whittington's time at N.C. State provided another example of her fortitude, with her record-setting rebounding a metaphor for her self-determination.

With N.C. State facing North Carolina on Monday, she is considered among the candidates for ACC player of the year and Naismith national player of the year.

"She refuses to get boxed out," UNC senior Erlana Larkins said. "The love for the game is just incredible. You can see it."

Everyone sees it. The stories are the same.

In them, the broad-shouldered woman nicknamed "KD" is always hustling, hustling, hustling.

"She plays bigger than what she is," former N.C. State guard Ashley Key said on a return visit to Reynolds Coliseum this month.

At 6-foot-1, Whittington is undersized to play power forward or center, though that has yet to slow her down.

She was the epitome of stamina against Miami on Feb. 14, trucking back and forth across the lane to post up on the low block.

She set a high-post screen, then ran inside to rebound the shooter's miss. She dived on the floor for a loose ball. She hit the floor again and landed in a scrum.

Whittington hit the floor so often, an unofficial tally of her falls were kept each game. Her high was 14.

With such physical play, her body has taken a pounding: Sprained ankles. Jammed thumbs. Torn ligaments. Her right knee has been tender all season. The list goes painfully on.

"Sometimes it hurts so bad," Whittington said. "But I'll forget about it."

Who has time for injuries when you're playing 3,353 career minutes? She has never missed a game in four seasons.

In that time, she's moved to second place on the school's career rebounds list with 1,062. She's become only the fourth player in school history to score 1,000 points and grab 1,000 rebounds.

She is the second player in ACC history to compile 1,000 points, 1,000 rebounds, 200 steals and 100 blocks.

It's that combination that has brought WNBA scouts to Raleigh this season.

"Rebounding came with not always being as talented as the other girls," she said. "You find what you're good at. So if you're good at rebounding, why not work just as hard ... as maybe a shooter would work at a shot?"

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