{"id":3673,"date":"2017-12-04T17:45:40","date_gmt":"2017-12-04T17:45:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/athletics\/?p=3673"},"modified":"2017-12-12T14:07:30","modified_gmt":"2017-12-12T14:07:30","slug":"basketball-star-abood-abuissas-comeback-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/athletics\/2017\/12\/04\/basketball-star-abood-abuissas-comeback-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Basketball Star Abood Abuissa\u2019s Comeback Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jake Durocher ’18<\/a>, Staff Writer, The Willistonian<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"Aboooood! This is how senior basketball player Abdulraheem Abuissa is greeted everyday as he walks to class with a smile on his face.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is hard to find Abood not in a good mood,\u201d Senior Jack Phelan said. \u201cWith a constant smile and same greeting every time, \u2018what\u2019s up man?\u2019 there is nothing you can\u2019t like about him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williston is a long way from home for the basketball standout; Abood is from Doha, Qatar. \u201cEvery break I am lucky enough to go home and see my family,\u201d Abood said. \u201cAt the very least I will be able to see my dad in New York on the weekends, because he works there a lot.\u201d Abood knows how lucky this is for an international student, and does not take this for granted.<\/p>\n

Despite the distance from home, Abood\u2019s path to Western Massachusetts was pretty simple. \u201cI was recruited for a school in Florida but I wanted something stronger academically,\u201d he told The Willistonian. <\/i>\u201cThe scout knew coaches at University of Hartford where the connection with coach Farmer was made, and therefore lead me to Williston\u201d<\/p>\n

Abood has made the most of his time here at Williston by taking part in athletic performance in the fall, basketball in the winter, and track in the spring.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love track,\u201d said Abood, who does high jump and serves as the team captain. \u201cIt\u2019s quiet and fun and a step back from basketball. Starting with no experience, it was fun to see myself grow, because I don\u2019t see that in basketball as much anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is Abood\u2019s second year at Williston, and he has plenty of motivation going into this season; after missing half of last year with a knee injury, he is more than ready to get things going.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was bad but I think it helped me a lot,\u201d Abood said of his injury. \u201cI took a step back and was able to grow a lot from it.\u201d After tweaking his knee, Abood was out on crutches for the last month of athletic performance and the first half of the basketball season.\u00a0 \u201cI could see a lot of the things on the court that I applied to my game,\u201d he noted. \u201cWith plenty of time in the weight room recovering, I feel a lot more strong and skilled for this season.\u201d<\/p>\n

Duncan LeXander, one of Abood\u2019s closest friends and teammates, had great things to say about his old roommate. \u201cWe have the same personality,\u201d Duncan said. \u201cWe are both laid back and easy going, but there is never a dull moment when we are together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abood and Duncan\u2019s first interaction came over social media the summer before they both came to Williston. \u201cHe found out that I was his roommate,\u201d Duncan said, \u201cso he DM\u2019d me on Instagram and our first time meeting was move in day. Right off the bat we could be ourselves around each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their friendship off the court is just half the story. This bond is put to the test; as teammates for all three sports seasons, Abood and Duncan interact quite a bit. \u201cAbood is an awesome teammate, one of the best supporters at this school,\u201d Duncan said. \u201cEven during his injury, he played a huge role for the team.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jake Durocher ’18, Staff Writer, The Willistonian Aboooood! This is how senior basketball player Abdulraheem Abuissa is greeted everyday as he walks to class with a smile on his face. \u201cIt is hard to find Abood not in a good mood,\u201d Senior Jack Phelan said. \u201cWith a constant smile and same greeting every time, … Continue reading Basketball Star Abood Abuissa\u2019s Comeback Season<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[381],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-athlete-profile"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/athletics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3673"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/athletics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/athletics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/athletics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/athletics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3673"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/athletics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3685,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/athletics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3673\/revisions\/3685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/athletics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/athletics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willistonblogs.com\/athletics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}