“What is love? Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me no more.”

If you are bobbing your head from side to side a la Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan in “A Night at the Roxbury,” then everything is going as sophomore outfielder Michelle Dettmer planned.

The ISU softball team, like most college softball and baseball teams, allows its players to pick their own song to be played before each of their at bats.

Each player picks her song for her own reasons, and they all seem to become a little attached to their song.

Dettmer has associated Haddaway’s “What is Love” with softball for several years now.

“When I was in high school, we were driving to a tournament in my town [Waterloo], and I had the ‘[A] Night at the Roxbury’ CD in my car,” Dettmer said. “I just blasted it really loud, and it really pumped me up. I just thought it was really funny, and so now before games I listen to the ‘[A] Night at the Roxbury’ song to pump me up.”

So, when she had to pick a walk-up song, the choice came naturally. Dettmer feels the song helps her get into the right frame of mind.

“I feel most relaxed when I’m laughing and joking around, and that’s when I play my best – and so when I picked my song, I thought it would be a good idea to pick a song that made me laugh a little bit and just made me relax,” Dettmer said. “So when I walk up to bat and I hear that, it just kind of makes me smile.”

One of the most popular songs at the Southwest Athletic Complex this year has been outfielder Kelsey Kidwell’s throwback “Too Legit to Quit” by M.C. Hammer.

“It is funny, and it makes me laugh out there and get pumped up before I get up to hit,” Kidwell said. “It makes my teammates laugh and it gets the crowd into it, and after the game I hear people talking about it.”

Her song was a personal favorite of head coach Stacy Gemeinhardt-Cesler before she went on bed rest for the remainder of the season. Gemeinhardt-Cesler, according to Kidwell, used to dance in the dugout when Kidwell’s song played over the loudspeakers.

Senior outfielder Kristy Olsen took a different, slightly more serious approach to choosing her song, Fort Minor’s “Remember the Name.”

“The first time I heard it was in the weight room, and when I listen to the words, it just seems to go with everything that I’m doing,” Olsen said. “I don’t remember exactly how it goes, but it breaks it down like ‘[10 percent luck] 20 percent skill/ [15 concentrated power of will/ 5 percent pleasure, 50 percent pain] and then 100-percent reason to remember the name.’ I just felt that that was a good thing to keep in mind.”

The song has worked its way into Olsen’s routine for home games.

“I really kind of use it as a trigger – as my final thing before I step into the batter’s box,” Olsen said. “[The press box people] probably don’t notice this, but if they don’t play it before I actually get up there, I kind of stand back and wait for it to start at least just a little bit before I step into the batter’s box. It’s just something I use to trigger my brain and say, ‘OK, now I’m ready.'”

Alex Johnson found her gem, Warrant’s “Cherry Pie,” through her favorite video game.

“Honestly, we were playing ‘Guitar Hero,'” Johnson said. “I live with Amanda [Bradberry] and Courtney [Wray], and we always play ‘Guitar Hero [II]’ – and that’s where I heard it for the first time. I thought it was pretty cool – it is kind of ‘rocker-ish,’ and I wanted to have something that nobody else had that I had heard before.”

Johnson knows firsthand what it is like to not hear her own song before her at-bats.

“At the beginning of the year, they weren’t playing my song for some reason – they were playing elevator music, like in a hotel, and I was like, ‘This sucks,'” Johnson said. “[Cherry Pie] just gets me in the zone and pumps me up.”

Regardless of whether their song is focused on remembering a name or making a grown man cry, every player’s song works its way into their softball identity.

“All my teammates, including myself, relate [my song] back to me,” Kidwell said. “Just like everybody’s walk-up song.”