Bench Warmers Basketball and Rap Battles

Basketball has been super fun lately. I started out having trouble making a left handed layup but I have gotten a lot more consistent. We started out with the Turkey tournament over thanksgiving break. I wasn’t there for the first game but apparently we won by 9 against Villa Grove, a solid start. Two days later we played a bad Decatur Christian. We were expected to destroy them but we ended up going 0-5 down. After we woke up we started to come back and we beat them by 20 or so. This always sucks for me because I warm the benches for others and only go in on games where we are up by a lot. Even though most games I sit out the whole game, I really get a special type of thrill handing out water bottles to the sweaty athletes who put their life on the line for their team. While the game goes on, however, it’s fun because we start chants and talk crap about the other team, yelling out funny remarks. We also have a freshman on the varsity team who we designate to take stats, many times he is the butt of jokes and some people, not naming any names, take it too far sometimes. But the bench is a fun place to be, we always make jokes about how we might go in or it might be our chance to make our impression on coach!

                The next couple games we lost to Clinton, a 3A school, 54-60, it was a good game and we had a comeback going on, and later that day we beat Blue Ridge. That concluded our tournament and we are now going into the regular season, 1-1, with a loss to Arcola and a win against Villa Grove again. The Arcola loss was bad and a game where we weren’t playing well at all, but I believe we bounced back against Villa Grove. Speaking of Villa Grove, I scored my first basket their!! I went in with 4 minutes to go and I made a layup but I think I made a good cut to get into the position to shoot. I dedicate those two points towards the bench squad for believing in me. Hopefully one day I can be like Paul and Noah who brag about how many girls follow them on Instagram after every game. It’s really just not fair because no one followed me after soccer games.

                Although it can be disheartening to not play at all some games, on away games specifically, the bus rides back make it all worth. The upper classmen go to the back of the bus, pull up a beat, and start rap battles, which if I may say so myself, can get pretty heated sometimes. Yesterday, Tony was attempting to rap and the bus driver interrupted and roasted the LIFE out of him. It was bad and I don’t think Tony will have the courage to rap any time soon.

                Hopefully there will be many more highlights to the season and a regional plaque to remember it all.

The Fall and Revival of My Basketball Career

I feel like I talk about sports way too much, but at least this blog isn’t about soccer.

                I started playing basketball when I was in 5^th grade. The local YMCA league was where my brother and I joined our first team. I remember on the first day of practice when we were the first 2 there and Omeed took his first shot and it went over the backboard. We had 2 coaches, and I think they were more impressed by Omeed having enough power to get the ball that high, than his accuracy. Prior to this practice, we sucked at basketball, a large part due to the fact that we focused mainly on soccer. Outside of playing at our cousin’s house occasionally, we had no experience with the game. We turned out to be one of the worst players there, but what made it worse was that there was 2 ball hogs on the team that thought they were the stuff, when they actually weren’t that good. I remember one of the kids’ names was Dustin and there was a period in the season where he couldn’t go to practice because he was suspended from school and we had practice at his school. Anyways, we ended up having a bad season, and I really didn’t gain anything from it.

The next time I remember playing basketball was during recess in Edison Middle School. Every day there would be one or maybe two basketballs with 40 kids who wanted to play basketball. Every day would be a 10v10 on one court and it was WILD. Every time someone would get the l there would be nails flying and everyone scramming for the ball. There were always some people got the ball every time and only shot, but that was something that just came with middle school. It was fun though.

                That next summer I joined the YMCA basketball league again but this time I was placed up an age division. I was definitely very intimidated and again, my brother and I were one of the worst players. A lot of my teammates ended up playing varsity at central or centennial when they went to high school later on so we were really outclassed. Being bad at basketball really wasn’t fun for me because no one ever passed to me and I can see why they wouldn’t want to. I scored maybe 8 points the whole season, but I had a really clutch moment towards the end of the season. We were tied with 20 seconds left against one of the best teams in the league, the ball fell to me and I chucked it from way out. It really wasn’t a smart shot considering how much time we had left. Yet even with my horrific form, it bounced against the glass and went in. I remember right after that shot, when we were transitioning to defense, my teammates looked at me in disbelief, as if to say “where did that come from”. That was my proudest basketball moment and I received a lot of compliments from parents who probably thought I was actually good.

                Since then I have taken a 7 year break from basketball, which is a very very long time. I decided that since it’s my senior year in high school, I wanted to have the high school basketball experience so I tried out for the Uni team. I made varsity (because I’m a senior) and I think it’s going to be fun. I can now focus on getting better at basketball since I’m tired of being bad.

Learning Farsi

           When I was a kid my mother always tried to teach me Farsi, the Persian language. When I was a baby she would read books to me in Farsi while I went to sleep. My first word was kooh, which meant “where” in Farsi, and she always speaks to me in Farsi in the household. I even partook in Farsi festivals where my brother and I joined other children who dressed up every week and learned dance routines.

When I was in 4^th grade my mom and 4 other Persian families, with kids around our age, got their kids together to start a Farsi class. I hated it because it was right after school on Friday and I just wanted to get home and relax. During the Farsi class we worked on reading and writing, every week we had homework to translate text. In class we would act out Persian plays where we each had our own roles, and since it was right after school on Fridays we would all have short attention spans. So there were many times where we forgot our cue and our teacher would get really mad. The rest of my memory from my Farsi class is limited, however I do remember that it was long boring hours. But at the time I didn’t value the importance of it.

After 5^th grade I stopped taking Farsi class because I went to middle school and ever since my Farsi speaking ability has declined. Although my Mom would always talk to me in Farsi every day I would always reply in English, and what I have noticed is that I have all these words in the back of my conscious but when I want to say something in Farsi I can never find the words for it. This is a big regret especially when I’m around my aunts and uncles from my mother’s side. I can always understand what they are saying, but because I cannot speak Farsi well, it makes it look like I don’t understand anything. As a result I feel like a lot of the times there’s a social disconnect between my family members from my mother’s side and me. I can still communicate with them in English but conversations in Farsi are much more genuine. Of course I know all the basics words but every other sentence there are a couple of words that are at the tip of my tongue but can never come out.

All in all, learning a language is hard. I know a lot of people who don’t speak fluent in their native language even though they’ve went to Chinese school or their parents have talked to them in a language around the household. Becoming familiar with a language is all about practicing and learning. As a result, words become engrained in your memory and in my case, I have the perfect scenario to practice by speaking back to my relatives and mother in Farsi. Becoming fluent in Farsi is something that I definitely want to learn before I get too old, and eventually pass down to my children.

100

Before I get into anything I would like to point out that by writing this I’m not trying to rant about how good I am in soccer, but more of a look into my side of the story. Recently I’ve scored my 100^th career varsity goal in soccer and I feel like it’s attracted a lot of attention, so I just wanted to share my awesome experience with Uni’s Soccer program and all fun moments leading up to my 100^th goal, hopefully with more to come.

                Before I came to Uni I knew they had a good soccer program, when I was in 7^th grade I was informed that they got 2^nd in state, and I was impressed. So during my Freshman year before tryouts, I didn’t really expect to be placed straight onto varsity and later on start. I remembered playing very well during tryouts, even chipping the 6ft tall Noah Blue at one point (Hehe), but I still thought I would probably split JV and Varsity. But even with that glorious moment in the back of my mind, there was one moment from that tryout which I vividly remember. On the last day of tryouts Louie Siegel comes up to me and tells me that one day I’ll break the goal scoring record, I ask what it is and he says “The number on your back” and coincidentally I’m wearing my club team’s practice jersey #99. That was the moment when I was informed of this goals scoring record which Patrick Wong held and why he didn’t score 100. Which, fun fact, he could have scored on a penalty kick in the state finals, but George Voulgaris took instead. I realized that I just had to break that 99, it was meant for the breaking, 100 was just so perfect and round.

                My Freshman Year I went on to break the area freshman scoring record with 16 goals yet unfortunately we were knocked out in the first round of playoffs undeservedly to STM. Sophomore Year was a big year for us because we had a great group of Senior guys including Panos who had a mutually beneficial relationship with me. We would always assist and score off of each other and I definitely miss playing with him. That year, mostly because of how good the team I had around me was, I had 23 goals 24 assists, and we had some very clutch moments throughout post season, beating STM, and coming from behind against Beecher to get 4^th in the state. For my Junior year, since we had went to state twice in the past 4 years, our school was bumped up to 2A, meaning that we would compete against schools with the population of central and Urbana. Although, it didn’t really matter to us since we usually beat teams regardless of school population. Junior year soccer was more about building team chemistry because we weren’t expecting to go far in post season, and since the best players on the team were Juniors, I learned how to become more of a leader. That year I scored 29 goals 11 assists. Coming into my senior year, I knew that one of my goals was to definitely try and beat the scoring record, I knew that I would have to score 32 goals (more than I ever had), which is about 1.5 goals per game. No easy task. But everyone I talked to, including myself, thought it was achievable. I got off to a really slow start this year, scoring 10 goals in 12 matches. I was doubting myself, but I had a week where I went off and scored 19 goals in 6 games, putting me back on track. This all lead up to just 2 days ago when I scored my 100^th goal.

To those who are curious about how I felt, I guess over the past 3 games I knew it was coming, and of course I was excited over it, I’m finally a part of Uni history, and in the sport that I love. However, throughout the season I was focusing more on making sure the team plays well, which is more important. So I have been trying not to force shots just to get my stats up. Currently I have 32 goals and 16 assists, and I think we have a very good shot at making state once again this year, we know we are the best team in the section, we just have to prove it.

My Brazilian Trip

Over summer I visited Brazil for 3 weeks, and like the sons and daughters of most professors at the U of I, many of the places they went were payed for them by the University so they could study abroad. This time they had found a way to tag us along, meaning that it would basically be a vacation for my brother and I. Even better though was the fact that one of my best friends, who goes to Brazil every summer to visit family, would meet us in Fortaleza (the beach town we were staying at.

                One of the aspects which interested me as I arrived in Fortaleza was how unique the structures were. Each building was at least 20+ stories high but spread out over a large expanse of space. I wasn’t curious enough to ask why, although I had some guesses that it would prevent robberies or save ground space. Anyway I was astonished because the city looked three times as large as Chicago with the amount of high rises, but the population is only 1/3 the size. As we arrived to our hotel I was joyful to realize that it was right next to the beach, so we could walk out and be surrounded by the Brazilian culture. On the down side, since all the businesses knew that the Fortaleza beach was a place tourists went, everything was twice as expensive. But there were a lot of activities to do without money, many fitness programs were going on at the beach in addition to dozens of people playing beach soccer. Every time Omeed and I would stare in awe at the beach soccer players, partly because of the fact that they were Brazilian and in arguably the greatest Soccer nation in the world. But also because of this new style of soccer we had never seen before. The sand made the ball inconvenient to dribble, so frequently players would pop the ball up in the air and juggle or volley it. This style looked really elegant and I wanted to join with them. The only problem was that I didn’t know how to speak Portuguese so my friend became my official translator. We ended up getting in on a game of pickup soccer and I even scored a goal.

                The rest of the trip was fun and I did learn a lot about the socio-economic inequalities Brazil has been facing for the past couple years, by being dragged along to my parents’ activities. But other than that one major highlight would have to have been dune boarding. One day we were taken on a 4 wheeler and I had no clue where we were going but the parents said it would be fun. Before I knew it we were in this desert oasis that faded into a grassland. More specifically, I was on a 100 feet sand dune that inclined down into a lake. It was so pure, yet so hard to describe. The people I went with brought with them a boogie board and Omeed being the most excited jumped head first down the dune. It looked cool because of the splash he made, but we later out found that it was super dangerous, because you are going so fast, the water slapping you hurts badly, and it is really easy to lose your balance. So I don’t know how Omeed didn’t end up injuring himself.

                There is so many more activities to describe on this trip but I don’t have enough space to explain it all. The main point to take back from it was that it was a success and really fun, I learned how to surf, kite board, while being educated about the politics and history going on in Brazil at the time. 

The Sk8 Park

I’ve been living on Hill Street for 8 years and I’ve always known that there was a skate park in Spalding Park next to my house which is also right next to Franklin. I used to only go to Spalding Park to play tennis, which I’m actually pretty decent at and got 2^nd in a Labor Day tournament but don’t quote me on that. Anyway, Spalding Park was a pretty normal park with the average amount of utilities and facilities, except that in the far corner you can see a pretty well rounded skate park. I was super surprised when I first saw it, and whenever I was young, I would pear over the fence to watch the skaters and admire how deep the pit was and the courage skaters had to go down it. But I would never go inside because I didn’t want people thinking I could skate and some of the people there were pretty sketchy and looked like weirdos. In addition, one day I went to Spalding Park with my friend and Omeed to play tennis, and soon enough two kids come up to us trying to act all macho even though they were at least 2 years younger than us, and they tried to steal our bikes. After a little bit of awkwardness figuring out that they weren’t just “trying to see your bike” but steal it, we just left because they weren’t going away. From then on I tried to stay away from that park because I assumed that the people there were all weirdos and wanna be tough guys who tried to steal bikes.

It wasn’t until last week that I started to visit the park again, it was out of boredom but my friends and I thought it would be a good idea to grind some rails and shred the course on the down low. I had drove past the skate park earlier and there had been about 2 dozen people there and they all fit the description of the people I saw a couple years ago. So we decided to go at like 10pm with 3 scooters 1 rip stick and a BMX bike. Funny thing is, there were still 4 kids there in the pitch dark smoking weed, so we tried to act casual walking in with everything but a skateboard to the skate park that late. We used our headlights on the car to shed light on the course, and when Tony Li came in with his scooter, one of the kids said “I’m tired of seeing Mother F***ers coming in here with scooters”. I found it really funny and we just ignored them. The next hour turned out to be really fun, I was finally able to go in the course which I had been peering through a fence hole for years. None of us were actually able to do anything, but just riding around on ramps and slopes was thrilling and motivated me to one day be the best sk8r in the streets, I have played skate 3 on the PlayStation 3 for a couple years so I think I would be pretty decent to be honest. I have visited the park once after that but I plan to visit the park more often from now on, regardless of whose there because you’re always going to get judged and you have to start somewhere.

Here’s a go fund me for a buying a skateboard for me and my super poor friends, any amount of cents donated is welcomed.

https://funds.gofundme.com/dashboard/7xx6w-skate-board

Edison Cross Country

I miss Edison to be honest, it was a fun two years at the school where I met a lot of friends which I have still kept in touch with in high school. I remember how nervous I was on the first day of school, sticking next to Isandro, Omeed and my other friend Daniel Giger, during the opening assembly. I was bummed that middle schools didn’t have soccer teams, so I joined the cross country team with my friends to get to know a lot of the kids there, and because I thought I was a fast kid. There I realized just how much stamina I had.

                Compared to other schools, I’m pretty sure Edison had one of the toughest cross country programs, we would run about 2 miles around the neighborhood every day after school, and on good days once in a while we would go on ice cream runs. We would have to be careful though because there had been recent kidnappings of middle school students and one group of Edison runners had reported a car following them during practice.

                The meets were what we worked up to, and they were fun. Dozens of schools putting up there 7 best runners, to see which team and individual would be the best. It was exciting because you felt that you mattered since every person you passed would mean an extra point for your team. Right before the race started you could sense how nervous everyone was, stretching, constantly moving and having unnecessary nervous laughter, was what kept everyone together. Everything built up to the announcer shouting through a speaker phone, to a crowd of runners in their starting positions, “On your marks” followed by a gunshot. After the gunshot all hell would break loose, with runners jostling for position, and it could be dangerous sometimes when there was a narrow entrance, because all the runners would get crammed and when every runner has spikes it can get dangerous, especially if you fall. I remember one race when Isandro was spiked and bleeding from the kick of the person in front of him. Isandro and I would always stick next to each other and finish right after each other, I believe by the end of 7^th grade we had beat each other an equal amount of times, but by the end of 7^th grade my PR was 11:30 compared to his 11:33. Just saying.

                All in all Cross Country was one of the highlights of middle school for me, and I still regret missing running in state for a soccer game. Believe it or not, I was not actually that enthusiastic about going to Uni the next year and if you were to ask me what Uni was at the beginning of 7^th grade I wouldn’t have known what you were talking about. I was barely persuaded to go and it was only because Omeed and Isandro were going too. I say this because I was super pumped for 8^th grade cross country in Edison because we would have a varsity team that would have gotten all times under 11:30 by the end of the year, and having a solid team like that would definitely guaranteed us a spot for being one of the top 3 teams in the state.

Although going to Uni meant leaving that dream aside, I knew it was better in the long run, and unfortunately subbie year Doug didn’t let me do Cross Country along with club soccer and that was the end of the line for me and Cross Country.

(Follow @roid_squad on Instagram for more pics and stories about my childhood and Edison Cross Country!)