During the winter schedule, students choose a sport or activity to participate in from Tuesday to Friday. There are two main reasons why Xu Li ‘21 chose to join basketball team.
Firstly, and maybe most important, students in basketball team do not need wake up early like the snowboarders. During our first year at Northwood, Xu and I were roommates. After he chose snowboarding, he needed to wake up at 7 am and start to bring his equipment to the first floor while wearing his large snowboard boots. The noise always woke me up, which made me very mad, because I did not choose snowboarding, and I just wanted to sleep more. The second year, the roles were reversed. I chose snowboarding and sometimes the noise woke him up. After those things happened, we decided to choose the basketball team because at least we can sleep one more hour.

Mr. Weaver motivated the basketball team at the US Olympic Training Center in 2019 (Photo: Matthew Shanklin ’19)
Another reason Xu chose basketball was because the basketball team left school at 3pm on Fridays to go to the gym. Sometimes we played games against North Country School. Although Xu did not usually join in the game actively, he really enjoyed watching the game. When the game ended, Xu always asked Coach Mr. Weaver to drop us off at Starbucks or Hunan.
That is the reason why Xu Li choose basketball at Northwood: sleeping in, watching the game, and enjoying the food.