SuburbanOneSports.com recognizes a male and female featured athlete each week. The awards, sponsored by Univest, are given to seniors of good character who are students in good standing that have made significant contributions to their teams. Selections are based on nominations received from coaches, athletic directors and administrators.
Univest’s SuburbanOneSports.com Featured Female Athlete for week of April 11, 2022.
Noelle Wood – playing with a new-found confidence – was poised to have a strong senior year. At least that was the plan. In her first at-bat of the team’s season-opening scrimmage, the Council Rock North senior drew a walk to lead off the second inning. Coach Susan Yee gave the speedy outfielder the steal sign. It was a no-brainer. After all, running the bases had been Wood’s specialty since she was a swing player on the varsity as a freshman, and two of her teammates had already successfully stolen second. “They made it easily, so I stole,” Wood said. “I was running, and I remember seeing the shortstop at the last second appear right in front of me. I was like, ‘I don’t know what to do,’ so I dove headfirst early and right into her leg. My arm bent backwards.”
Wood’s wrist was broken, and the most optimistic prognosis for her return is six weeks. “It’s like this kid – each time she takes that step forward, she has another hurdle she has to get over,” Rock North coach Susan Yee said. Wood’s latest hurdle robs the senior of not only her final high school season but the opportunity to step onto the diamond with a confidence that had been lacking in her previous three years. Confidence that came through the most unexpected circumstances for an athlete who never believed in herself but became a player that is committed to continue her softball career at Montclair State University.
To understand the transformation, it’s important to understand where Wood came from. This is her story. Wood came from a family that was very involved in sports. She has two older brothers and says she was always competitive. At the age of five, Wood began playing soccer and softball. She also played basketball and ran track in middle school. “Once I got to high school, I ended up focusing more on softball,” she said. “I get injured pretty often, and that’s one downfall. I ran track in middle school, and I pulled my hamstring, so I think softball was the best option.” Wood was happy competing at the community intramural level. “I played on three softball teams, but they were never highly competitive,” she said. “The reason why is I always felt I wasn’t good enough. My parents were very supportive, and my dad would always say, ‘If you want, we can get you hitting lessons, but I was always so scared to, so I never agreed to that.” Wood did a one-year stint with a travel softball team, the Langhorne Lightening. “I could only play for one year because I aged out of it,” she said. “I tried out for two or three other travel teams, but I never made it. At that moment when I was 12 or so, I thought, ‘I’m just not good enough and I should stop trying.’ I tried out for one other travel team, but I was just too scared of failure, so I stopped doing that.”
Then came the summer of 2021. Wood, who still had her share of self-doubt, was attending voluntary practices for her high school team over the summer. “I remember there was this one practice that none of my friends that I’m close with on the team were going, but I was like, ‘Okay, I’ll go anyway,’” Wood said. “Coach Yee pulled me aside and said, ‘What are you doing this weekend? We need another player for my travel team, and if you want, we’re practicing after this and you can practice with us.’” Yee’s travel team, Vypers 18U. was minus several players who were still playing for North Penn in the PIAA 6A state tournament. Wood – with some reservations – agreed to go. “I’m scared when I don’t know girls and what they’ll think of me, but it actually ended up being fun” she said. “I remember that practice – I played pretty well in the outfield, and I was kind shocked in my abilities at the time. I wasn’t caring as much as I would be because it wasn’t a tryout. I knew the coach, it wasn’t anything crazy, and I was like, ‘This is kind of fun.’ All the girls were so nice, and I felt really comfortable.”
“The girls in practice fell in love with her,” Yee said. “They ended up asking me if they could ask her to join the team. They convinced her she was good enough to play travel and they would help her learn and grow.” Wood was stunned by the invitation but ended up saying yes. She played for the Vypers, which disbanded at the end of summer. She tried out and earned a spot on Rock 18U Hutchins and this fall committed to Montclair State where she will major in film making with a minor in psychology. “It was just a lot because I went from July to being ‘I can’t play in college,’ and then I was committed,” she said. Wood, elected captain by her teammates, is at every game and practice helping in any way she can with the hope she will be able to return to the field for Senior Night.
To read Wood’s complete profile, please click on the following link: https://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/female/noelle-wood-0099796.
Univest’s SuburbanOneSports.com Featured Male Athlete for week of April 11, 2022.
The 2006 book The Blind Side — and the subsequent film adaptation three years later starring Sandra Bullock — brought to life the role athletics can have in helping young people overcome extraordinary adversity. Everybody with a Blind Side story features different circumstances. The subject of the book and movie, Michael Oher, used football as a vehicle to escape a horrible home life ravaged by poverty, drug abuse and parents that were emotionally and physically distant. By the grace of God, Oher is taken in by the Tuohy Family, who provided him with the stable home life he never got to experience himself. With their love and support, Oher made it to the NFL, and even to this day serves as a beacon of hope to those like him.
Rayhan Islam is not Michael Oher. Islam, an 18-year-old senior at North Penn, plays volleyball and likely has no idea who Oher even is. And while their backgrounds and paths have been decidedly different, Islam has also endured similar struggles that, at the time, may have seemed impossible to overcome. Not only has Islam overcome his own challenging past — he is thriving in spite of it. Over the course of the last four years, Islam has become one of the most beloved figures in the North Penn community. There are many reasons for this, but the simplest distillation is that he has become a beacon of light for so many others despite the fact that he has experienced struggles most could never imagine or comprehend. All of this is building to an incredibly bright future in the United States Army, where Islam is eager to give back to the country that unconditionally accepted him when those closest to him refused to.
Islam was born in Bangladesh, a country in South Asia that shares borders with India and Myanmar. It is the eighth-most populated nation and one of the most densely packed countries in the entire world. As a result, Islam’s parents emigrated to the United States before his second birthday, chasing their own version of the American dream. For them, this meant arriving in their new home in suburban Philadelphia, building a new life through hard work while maintaining their own Bengali culture and traditions at home. Islam’s version of the American dream was vastly different than his parents. He instantly was exposed to a world of new possibilities, suddenly having options his parents didn’t understand or support. As he grew, he wished to experience more of what America had to offer; his parents, despite moving to a new country, made their new home feel too much like the old one, driving a wedge between child and adult. “Coming from an immigrant family, life inside the home and the outside world are very different, drastic ends of the spectrum,” Islam said. “There was always conflict inside my home because my family had a hard time relating to what I was feeling and experiencing. They grew up in a third-world country and didn’t have as many opportunities as I do now. It got to a point where the conflict was so great that it became toxic and dangerous for me. In middle school, they sent me to an all-boys Islamic boarding school in New Jersey. My mental health deteriorated, and I went through a lot of adversity having nobody to support me.”
After an extremely difficult experience at the Islamic boarding school, Islam ended up back at North Penn as a freshman. It turned out to be the best thing to ever happen to Islam. Fast forwarding to junior year, Islam found himself on the North Penn jayvee volleyball team, which is the first time he encountered Eric Headley, then the jayvee coach and now the leader of the varsity program. Headley could see right away that Islam would be a long-term project but was struck by how hard the kid was willing to work to improve his rudimentary skills. Above all else, Islam was a sponge, willing to listen and was coachable in terms of fixing his mistakes. He learned the value of a good pass, and in time figured out how to move and find the right spots he needed to be on the court.
In addition to his own volleyball exploits, he was the manager for the girls’ team that plays in the fall and immersed himself into that ecosystem, crediting the experience with helping his own volleyball skills improve. Perhaps the most impactful family outside of boys volleyball is the North Penn ROTC, which laid the groundwork for his interest in a career in the U.S. Army; Islam is also an anchor for North Penn’s television station that is broadcast in the school as well as the surrounding district; he also makes student announcements, is a part of the school robotics club and even runs the boys volleyball team’s Instagram page. There are likely even more things on his plate, but for now, this gives a sense of how Islam has his hand in almost everything that is happening on campus.
Headley, Islam’s volleyball coach, had no idea a kid from Bangladesh would become such a big part of his own life. He has only known Islam since last year, and it’s clear the player has had a profound impact on the coach. “It’s unbelievable how much he’s done,” Headley said. “He exemplifies that trust bridge almost immediately just by the way he shakes your hand and smiles. I’m 48 years old, and I just want to make sure I appreciate all the things he does. He is so proud of everything he’s been given in his life. He just has this thing where he’s always in the moment, and I’m jealous of that. He appreciates the moment, conversations with people and he just listens — the type of person people gravitate toward because they want to be around this guy. The amount of love he gives, it doesn’t matter who you are. He loves all and is the same way with everybody, and sometimes it takes you aback because this is the way it should be. He helps everybody and does not discriminate. He’s helped me stay open and positive and never assume, and he’s really opened my eyes to his pride of being an American. Him being so excited to join the U.S. military is so eye-opening to me. I grew up in Los Angeles in the 80s during the racial riots, then I moved east to Newark, N.J., so I’ve seen a lot, but I’ve never before experienced what Rayhan has taught me. It might take four kids to replace one Rayhan next year. Selfishly, I want to stomp my feet as a coach, because I don’t want to lose him. What he brings, you just can’t measure it. It will take a village to support what he is leaving behind.”
To read Islam’s complete story, please click on the following link: https://www.suburbanonesports.com/featured-athletes/male/rayhan-islam-0099795
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