{"id":6502,"date":"2023-02-15T23:31:53","date_gmt":"2023-02-16T03:31:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/?p=6502"},"modified":"2023-02-16T16:46:08","modified_gmt":"2023-02-16T20:46:08","slug":"fordsons-bazzi-is-student-athlete-of-the-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/fordsons-bazzi-is-student-athlete-of-the-month\/","title":{"rendered":"Fordson\u2019s Bazzi is Student-Athlete of the Month"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Omar Thabet<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">OZ Media\u2019s\/The Yemeni American News\u2019 February rising star high school student-athlete of the month is Celina Bazzi out of Fordson High School. Celina is a multi-sport athlete who plays both basketball and volleyball for the Tractors. Celina also carries a 3.9 grade point average, which means she is not only dominating on the courts, but in the classrooms as well.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Celina was shocked but excited when she first heard that she had won the award.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIt\u2019s kind of always exciting to be recognized that way especially when you\u2019ve been playing for a while now,\u201d Celina said. \u201cEspecially after all of the work you put in, for it to be recognized is a good feeling.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Salah Abazeed, who is the Girls Head Varsity Basketball Coach at Fordson High School, said the best attribute about Celina\u2019s game is her shooting.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI think she is one of the best shooters in our league,\u201d Coach Abazzed said. \u201cWhen she has her feet set and she has a clean look, more times than not the shot is going in. She has a pretty nice form too. Coaches in our league know that if you leave her open she will make you pay.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_6504\" style=\"width: 307px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-6504\" class=\"wp-image-6504 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/02\/Celina-Bazzi-is-the-starting-shooting-guard-for-Fordson-High-School.-297x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"297\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/02\/Celina-Bazzi-is-the-starting-shooting-guard-for-Fordson-High-School.-297x300.jpg 297w, https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/02\/Celina-Bazzi-is-the-starting-shooting-guard-for-Fordson-High-School..jpg 659w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 297px) 100vw, 297px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-6504\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Celina Bazzi is the starting shooting guard for Fordson High School. Photo Credit: Alex Muller Press and Guide<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><b>School Comes First<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To be OZ Media\u2019s\/The Yemeni American News\u2019 Rising Star Student-Athlete of the month you must not only take care of business on the playing fields, but you also have to handle your work in the classroom.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As Celina will tell you, that\u2019s something she doesn\u2019t take lightly, especially playing for a guy like Coach Abazeed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI think coming into Coach Abazeed\u2019s program it was always instilled in us that if you do good in the classroom you will do good on the court,\u201d Celina said. \u201cI think school has always been our top priority. School comes first then basketball.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Coach Abazeed added, \u201cFirst off lets understand that being an athlete is a privilege. You got to be successful in the classroom to be successful as an athlete. They go hand-in-hand with each other. If you\u2019re not doing your part in the classroom you\u2019re not going to be on the athletic fields or on the basketball courts.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Coach Abazeed later added, \u201cBut we also want to get them ready for their future as well. We try to get the athletes into good colleges, and that starts by taking care of your school work.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_6505\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-6505\" class=\"wp-image-6505 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/02\/2-300x202.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"202\" srcset=\"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/02\/2-300x202.jpg 300w, https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/02\/2-768x516.jpg 768w, https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/02\/2.jpg 1025w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-6505\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>According to head coach Salah Abazeed, Celina and the rest of her teammates must be able to score a basket with both hands or they can\u2019t play for him. Pictured here is Celina making a basket with her left hand <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(non-dominant hand).<\/span><\/em> Photo Credit: Alex Muller Press and Guide<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><b>Being Coachable<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Another discussion we had with Celina and Coach Abazeed was the importance of players understanding what it means to be coachable and why is it important to be a coachable player?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When we asked Celina these questions, her response was, \u201cYou can\u2019t be great if you don\u2019t listen to your coach. Going in once you figure out your coach knows more than you do then you\u2019re going to be great. Once you start taking in what they\u2019re telling you then you\u2019re going to be great. Doing what you want to do might work once or twice. But eventually it doesn\u2019t work for us, so following the game plan is what works best and that just comes with mentally being prepared and mentally being locked in before the game. It\u2019s our duty to follow the coach\u2019s tasks and finish the job. It\u2019s a business trip that we go on two times a week.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Coach Abazeed added, \u201cTo me it\u2019s a mindset. How are you coming into practice? Are you coming into practice with a positive attitude or are you going in there because you feel like you have to be there? If you feel like you have to be there then you probably should leave. Players got to be able to learn. There are two types of un-coachable kids: there is the un-coachable kid who is combative about it and then there\u2019s the one who is not really a bad person about it but they are just not in tuned with what you are trying to do that day. I had a lot of very talented players not finish our program because they are un-coachable. At some point you got to cut that cord. This is varsity basketball; winning games matter at this point.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><b>Celina\u2019s Inspiration<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When we asked Celina who inspires her to be great, she said, \u201cI think growing up watching all of the athletes at Fordson these past few years and being able to play with great leaders taught me that we can all be great as long as we put the work in\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Accompanying Celina in her interview was her mother Liz Shouman. Liz is another person that inspires Celina to be great.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When we asked Liz what made Celina such a great leader, she said, \u201cCelina has respect, responsibility, confidence and a good heart.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We then asked Liz what makes her most proud about Celina? She said, \u201cI am proud of Celina with everything, Alhamdulillah. She respects her parents and elders. She is kind, helps anyone who needs help without hesitation, and is responsible in terms of getting things done that needs to be done.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From all of us at OZ Media and the Yemeni American News, we want to congratulate Celina Bazzi one more time for being our Rising Star High School Student-Athlete of the month for the month of February. Keep doing great things Celina!<\/span><\/p>\n<div>OZ Media&#8217;s Video Interview with Celina Bazzi and Coach Salah Abazeed<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/live\/HdEcl6vSHUE?feature=share\">https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/live\/HdEcl6vSHUE?feature=share<\/a><\/div>\n<div class='clear '><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Omar Thabet OZ Media\u2019s\/The Yemeni American News\u2019 February rising star high school student-athlete of the month is Celina Bazzi out of Fordson High School. Celina is a multi-sport athlete who plays both basketball and volleyball for the Tractors. Celina also carries a 3.9 grade point average, which means she is not only dominating on [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6503,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6502"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6509,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6502\/revisions\/6509"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yemeniamerican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}