Woods NF Blog

This started as a playful story. It took a turn down a dark alley. The end is just a rant .... but I'm turning it in on time and it's close to 650 words so whatever. I started consistently playing pickup basketball when I moved to Champaign in 2014. This was when I first gained access to the Stephens family YMCA, more commonly known as “the Y”. During the school year, you can find me at the Y Friday night, all day on Saturday, and all day on Sunday. When school’s out, I’m pretty much at the Y for 6 hours a day (Sidenote: I’m mostly playing basketball during those hours, but I can also be found lifting weights, waiting for a court to open, or trying to talk to some girl that’s out of my league). I truly feel like it has made me a better basketball player in a way that no drill, film review, or workout routine can. However, my friends and I have noticed that kids are really straying away from pickup games. People from my grade play pickup at the park or the Y, and so does the gra...

An Indian anthropologist studied a tribe called the Asu. The tribe worshipped a rare, strong, bull-like creature called the “Rac”. From the outside looking in, the rac is only detrimental to the tribe. It breeds at such a rapid rate, overcrowding is becoming a problem. The tribe spends excessive amounts of money and effort to pave roads for the racs to walk on. To make matters worse, the racs are prone to racing and crashing into each other. Since only a few people in the community have the right training and selection of charms, treating the rac is expensive. Through all of this, the Asu people still see the rac as essential to their tribe. At the age of sixteen, it’s seen as a rite of passage to appeal to a high priest and receive a rac. In fact, wealthy families own herds of racs to display their prestige. Members of the society without a rac are considered lower esteem. After reading this story, most would agree that the Asu tribe would be better off without the rac. Most people r...

About a year ago, I was halfheartedly doing work during my free period in the senior lounge when my friend, Charlie, challenged me to a game of foosball. I, being my overly-competitive self, accepted his challenge. After winning 2 games at low intensity, Charlie started to get cocky. He made a bet with me that the first person to win 3 games would get a medium basket of tater tots from the "Cracked" food truck. This was his first mistake. Charlie and I had been friends for a while and he knows that I would never agree to a bet that I couldn't win. He won the first game but I won 3 games in a row. A medium tot was waiting for me whenever I wanted it. Instead of taking the loss and leaving with his dignity, Charlie asked for a rematch. He said, "If you win the next game, I'll get you 2 medium tots from Cracked. But, if I win, you don't get anything". After taking a serious butt-whooping in the firs "high-intensity" games, he should've rea...

This essay was written more as a "train of thought". It's definitely still in the rough  draft form. Keep that in mind while you're reading. Nobody expected the black boy in a class full of gifted children to win the spelling bee. Nor did they expect that same kid to stand up in front of his whole church and proudly say that he wanted to be a scientist when he grows up. Yet still, I crushed both of these expectations before entering the 4th grade. The main challenge that comes with being black in school is fighting against assumptions and expectations based on race. Knowing about all of the expectations, more commonly known as stereotypes, helps and hurts me. First off, it pushes me to do better in school and prove people wrong. I use the stereotypes that are placed upon me as motivation through hard times. As a black male especially, I’ve constantly been told my peers that I’m “not supposed to be here”. Phrases like these serve as constant reminders that I’m an...

From fourth grade to sixth grade, I played tackle football for the Bloomington-Normal Fighting Irish, a team apart of the local pee-wee football league. In fourth grade, I was the star running-back. While I only recorded two touchdowns in our nine games, I had countless fifty-to-sixty-yard runs that put my team in a position to score and our team went undefeated. The next year we steamrolled every team that we played against and continued our legacy as “the undefeated”, but something was different. After every game, practice, or scrimmage I noticed my body aching. I sometimes had to limp off the field. I had to stretch more often to fight my soreness. My 4’7”, twig-like frame was not enough to keep up with the other kids whose bodies were more developed. I watched professional and college football, and I knew how easy it was for those massive, hulk-like men to get a career-ending injury, but I never thought that it could happen to me. Quickly, the joy I got from football was witherin...

            Sidenotes: 1. I'm sitting at about 530 words. What do you guys think I could add? 2.Just f.y.i., the majority of this essay written before this week (when all I could think about was Friday's game). 3. I didn't want to come out and "heavy-handedly" say which prompt I was responding to. I wanted it to be more evident in my writing. What can I do to improve that or should I just do away with it completely? (This is the "Moment that you could go back to prompt")             Our team had suffered all kinds of adversity earlier in the season: Key player injuries, close losses, and even a short period without a head coach. During the first half of our game against Judah Christian High School though, none of our previous misfortunes mattered. Our plan was to slow the pace of the game, take smart shots, and play together on defense and we’d done just that. When the halftime buzzer sounded, the score was 16-16 and we were...