Could you imagine having an approximate 270 stores basically at your fingertips? The Roosevelt Field Mall is a shopping mall in East Garden City, Long Island, New York. Being a student at Hofstra University leaves me a mere 6 minutes from one of the largest and most successful malls in America. Some may wonder, of all things to delve into, why a mall? As of Black Friday this year, I am an employee of Champs Sports, which happens to be in this mall. With the amount of time spent here, I’ve become increasingly intrigued in the history, construction, renovating process, and size of Roosevelt Field Mall.

Long before a mall was in place, the Roosevelt Field was an airfield that served as the take-off site of many famous aviators such as Amelia Earhart and Wiley Post. In fact, Charles Lindbergh’s solo transatlantic flight took off from Roosevelt Field in 1927. Anyways, it was previously named Hazelhurst Field until it was renamed in honor of Quentin Roosevelt, who passed away during World War I. When the airfield closed down in 1951, a prominent American real estate developer by the name of William Zeckendorf Sr. decided to develop this site with an equally eminent architect, I. M. Pei. In little time, Roosevelt Field was turned into one of the country’s first suburban shopping centers.

In April of 1955, the center opened with a single level and was an open-air center. It was comprised of an F.W. Woolworth 5 & 10 store, Walgreen Drug, Food Fair supermarket, Buster Brown Shoes, a public auditorium, movie theater, and an outdoor ice rink. It did not take long util the mall’s first anchor became present. On August 22nd of 1956, a two level Macy’s was opened, and still leads as an anchor in the mall today.

Throughout the 1960’s and 70’s, major expansions were completed such as an 85,000 ft², third level addition to Macy’s. Alongside that, came a three level, 260,000 ft² J.C. Penney. The amount of expansions and additions completed in such short periods of time allowed the Roosevelt Field Mall to stamp itself as the best shopping center in New York.

As malls began to evolve progressively, it wasn’t until the 90’s that the Roosevelt Field Mall went back under construction. In the mid 90’s, an upper level of stores and food court was established, as well as a Bloomingdale’s which would go on to be an anchor in the mall after being fully renovated in 2009.

Towards the end of the 20th century, the mall added another anchor. A new, 3-story Nordstrom and a 2-story wing leading to the new Nordstrom opened. In fact, this Nordstrom is the only one in Long Island. Not only did the mall add a new anchor, but a new owner as well as Simon Property Group took possession of the mall when it acquired Corporate Property Investors in 1998.

Dicks Sporting Goods, arguably the most popular anchor due to its placement next to the most convenient parking garage, was established in 2004 in replacement of Galyan’s Trading Company. Dick’s occupies the eastern section of the mall as Bloomingdale was set in place on the western side.

Opened on February 19, 2016, a new 100,000-square-foot building anchored by luxury department store Neiman Marcus. This is the newest anchor of the mall as well as the most expensive, rightfully so.

Recently, there has been excitement regarding the food court as Chick-fil-a has just been added to the dining district. Excitement may be an understatement, actually. Whenever I am on break, prancing through the food court, the line at Chick-fil-a is near half the length of the food court itself!

The Roosevelt Field Mall is a 3-story shopping mall consisting of 2.4 million ft². The store is held down by the 6 anchor tenants discussed, Bloomingdale’s, J.C. Penney, Macy’s, Nordstrom, Dick’s Sporting Goods, and Neiman Marcus. There are four parking garages, all lighted. There is also Public Transit Access from the Long Island Railroad as well as the Nassau Inter-County Express. Ultimately, this mall has been through countless renovations, yet at the end of today, the Roosevelt Field Mall offers you nearly anything you are in need of. Due to their ability to provide copious offerings, they have cemented themselves as one of the best shopping center’s in the country.

 

https://www.wevideo.com/embed/#1272873600

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The 2018 United States midterm elections resulted in the Democrats winning the House by receiving 51.7% of the votes and the Republicans retaining the Senate by receiving 51% of the votes. Although, the politicians elected and the futuristic events that may occur bring more controversy and attention than the statistics could ever show.

The most notable victory for the Democrats, in my opinion, is the addition of Harley Rouda’s seat in the House resulting in the boot to the California Republican, Dana Rohrabacher. Rohrabacher served for 15 terms, three decades, in a heavily Republican district.

My interest in this race specifically, stems from the strategy in which Harley Rouda used to defeat his opponent. Many refer to Dana Rohrabacher as the most pro-Russia Republican in Congress as well as Putin’s “favorite congressman”. Rohrabacher used private documents held in Moscow to remove a Kremlin enemy’s name from a global anti-corruption law. Alongside that, he has bragged on numerous instances about drunkenly arm-wrestling Putin in the 1990s. The relationship he has with Russian President Vladimir Putin has been used against him, as many Americans see Russia as an enemy, regardless of their political party. In fact, our own FBI worried that he’d be recruited to a collective group of Russian spies.

In 2016, Republican Kevin McCarthy joked, “There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump”. A statement like so can legitimately hurt one’s appearance as I believe that was the case in this instance. It does not help that Rohrabacher’s own political party even acknowledges his close ties with Vladimir Putin and Russia. Although McCarthy meant no harm, this statement, “joke”, or what have you, most definitely damaged his image to voters in his district.

On the other hand, if many people have known for quite some time about the relationship had between Rohrabacher and Russia, why hasn’t he lost yet? His approach.

Harley Rouda’s approach to this race seemed solely based on exposing his opponent rather than being a proponent of himself. As a matter of fact, in an October debate, Rouda spent nearly the whole time playing television ads displaying Rohrabacher’s attachment to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

One man other than Rohrabacher that is not pleased with the outcome of this race happens to be our own President, Donald Trump. Trump cannot stress enough the importance he sees in having a healthy relationship with Russia. One of few men strongly on board with that agenda is now out of the picture, that man being Dana Rohrabacher.

The “relationship” between America and Russia becomes weaker with the loss of Dana Rohrabacher. On the other hand, there’s a small minority of Americans who desire to retain a strong relationship with Russia to begin with. All in all, with the Democrats now controlling the House, they’ll attempt to foil Trump’s foreign policy and focus more on environmental issues and global warming, as we should.

On today’s podcast, a peer of mine, Max Rodriguez, and myself delved into the debate of who is the best football player of all time? Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers are two current NFL quarterbacks that have already cemented themselves as hall of fame athletes. But, which one is better?

I’m a firm believer in Tom Brady and his status as the best to ever play the game. I brought Max on the podcast because I was aware of his liking in Aaron Rodgers and I was curious to see where he stood in regards to the debate as well as my opinion.

An interesting point I took away from Max’s opinion was how little he values Super Bowl Championships. When he weighs the two quarterbacks he bases it off pure talent.

On the other hand, I believe that if one is the greatest of all time and have played at least 10 seasons, more than 1 championship should have been won. Aaron Rodgers is an amazing quarterback, but at the end of the day, his talent has led to winning nearly as much as it has for Tom Brady.

A naive freshman once told his advisor, “I can definitely handle a Spanish class at 8 o’clock in the morning twice a week.” Unfortunately, this was not the case as my Tuesday’s and Thursday’s have become the most exhausting, repetitious, and laid back days of my first semester at Hofstra University. My alarm sounds off at 6:55 in the morning, I shower, dress myself, and I sluggishly scrape my feet across Oak Street and to the student center where I eat breakfast. But, I only have enough time to eat a small serving of turkey bacon and scrambled eggs until I have to speed walk over the unispan to be on time to my Spanish class in Brower Hall.

A long and dreadful hour and a half session learning Spanish ends, and I’m suddenly left in my room to play video games such as Fortnite, while my suite-mates are at class or sleeping. I find myself so uninterested in video games yet I’m too lazy on days like this to get up and become productive due to my fatigue.

Three hours of boredom and losing video games goes by as slow as molasses. My writing class starts promptly at 12:45 in the afternoon and is the only class where I have no excuse to be late due to the gap of nothingness before it. We spend our time slot discussing the same environmental issues from a month ago and next thing I know, it’s over, along with my day of classes.

Within the last week or two, my Tuesday’s and Thursday’s have gotten better substantially because the Netherlands core has added soups such as chicken noodle and broccoli cheddar. Soup is one of my favorites, it takes some weight off of my already low meal plan, and it’s very quick. After class, I now get a bowl of chicken noodle soup with a packet of saltine crackers and I let my mind sit at ease for a few minutes as I eat.

My favorite thing to do is play basketball. Even after an early morning and some tough classes, the love I have for the game shines through and encourages me to get a good workout in for I have done nothing but sit down and eat throughout the day. Whether it’s just a couple shots or a couple games, the satisfaction I receive is unlike any other.

The setup in which your classes are laid out can greatly affect your productivity and levels of fatigue and happiness. Therefore, I suggest students in college to pursue a schedule that will definitely work for you rather than to fight through a schedule you thought you could conquer.

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It’s quite safe to say that Hofstra’s Men’s team would not be accomplishing much this season without the standout shooting guard, Justin Wright-Foreman. Fortunately, I had the chance to talk to the 6’1″ scoring sensation over the weekend via Instagram Direct Message. He opened up about his life growing up, what basketball has done for him, as well as his expectations and aspirations for the upcoming season.

Justin Wright-Foreman was born and raised in Queens, New York where nothing was given and all was earned. The dream of being a successful basketball player was not easy either growing up for Wright-Foreman, as he faced bumps in the road, but learned to overcome quickly.

“Basketball was tough where I’m from. You actually had to be good to play with the older kids, and I wasn’t the best. My heart is what helped me keep up with them. While playing with these older players, it made me a lot better.”-Wright-Foreman

Growing up in any city comes with temptations of drugs, alcohol, gang affiliation, etc. Justin’s neighborhood had its “rocky moments” but overall he had a “good experience” growing up greatly due to basketball.

“It kept me out of trouble, off the streets, away from gangs. Keeping my distance from these troublesome groups helped me have an opportunity to take my game to another level.”-Wright-Foreman

Justin’s steady grind growing up brought him to Christ The King Regional High School in Middle Village, New York. He averaged about 20 points per game his freshman year as well as his sophomore year. Although he felt that his time there was a “great experience”, he knew it was time to move on and explore his options.

He found the High School of Construction in his hometown of Queens, New York where he would spend his junior and senior season. This is where Justin Wright-Foreman took his name and made sure everyone around him knew of him. He exploded his first year for 21.6 points per game and in little to no time eyes starting gravitating towards him as he finally received his first offers from Hofstra University and St. Peter’s University. Those eyes continued to cling to him everywhere he went his senior season where he posted 23.8 points alongside 4.5 assists. This impressive stat line brought offers from Northeastern, Iona, St. Peter’s, High Point, Cal St. Bakerfield, and last but not least, Hofstra University.

As it is very clear, I’ll reiterate that Justin Wright-Foreman accepted his athletic scholarship from Hofstra. Although, he states, “it was a very hard decision”. At the end of the day, he knew Hofstra “was the right place for him”.

Wright-Foreman’s freshman year at Hofstra is very often overlooked simply because of how little he played, scored, so forth and so on. Myself, on the other hand, has been an avid spectator of Justin because I’ve seen nothing but futuristic success in every game he’s appeared in. With the chances he was given his freshman year, he made something of them by making nearly half the shots he took. Yes, he only took 38 shots, but it’s about taking advantage of every opportunity given to better yourself in the long run. These are small positives he has taken away from that season to improve his confidence and carry it into his sophomore season, and let me tell you, his sophomore year was something.

Justin Wright-Foreman was having a mediocre initial 10 games of his sophomore season until December 11th in the Mack Arena versus the #6 ranked team in the country, the Kentucky Wildcats. Don’t get too excited, Hofstra lost 96-73, but Wright-Foreman had a coming out party scoring 14 points and grabbing 4 rebounds all in 17 minutes.

“I started to realize I was coming into my own my sophomore season against Kentucky. Something about the stage and the opportunity that really put me on my game and staying locked in for the remainder of the season.”-Wright-Foreman

I’m glad he knew that this game was the climax of his career because if he did not know, the country was going to tell him very quickly. The rest of the year he had not scored lower than 15 points with the exception of one game (13 points). Justin had put up four 30-point games, two in which were back to back. Let’s not undermine his eleven 20 plus point games either. His minutes were doubled, rightfully so. How can you leave a man on the bench when they produced at the rate he did? If he had started that hot from the beginning of the season who knows what could have happened? Before December 11th, I’m sure Hofstra fans would never expect to say this but I’ll go out on a limb now and say they are ecstatic that Hofstra played Kentucky.

The train of momentum from sophomore year stayed right on track all through Justin’s junior year at Hofstra as he posted a fairly balanced stat line. He scored 24.4 points per game, hauled in 3.3 rebounds, and dished out 3.2 assists. This was one of the most impressive individual seasons I’ve ever witnessed a player play. His worst scoring outing of the season was an 11 point game versus James Madison University in which they won by 16 points anyway. He set his career-high in points, and assists this past season as well. Wright-Foreman tallied 39 points versus Elon University and gave out 7 assists versus William & Mary to set his career-highs in those categories. Personally, I’m impressed in his ability to consistently produce these stats, while also playing 38 minutes a game. That’s nearly the whole game! When players get tired they tend to shoot worse, that’s not the case here. He shot 45% from the field in the 2017-2018 campaign playing the shooting guard position, where the objective for that player is to consistently shoot the ball! To play the position he does while shooting as efficiently as he does under the duress of a 38 minute game, is truly spectacular. Justin Wright-Foreman finished 5th in scoring per game in the entire country this past season behind household names such as Trae Young and Kendrick Nunn, both in the NBA this upcoming season. Ultimately, Justin Wright-Foreman’s junior season put his name out onto the clipboards of NBA scouts. If he continues to improve, I strongly believe his name will transfer from clipboards to rosters before you know it.

The young man from Queens, New York, Justin Wright-Foreman has been underrated and overlooked his whole life, even after back to back standout seasons in Division I basketball. One may wonder, what more can he do to gain recognition? Wright-Foreman would tell you he’s just getting started!

 

Tune into Hofstra’s first game where we will be hosting Mount St. Mary’s on November 9th at 7:30 PM ET!

The Pride’s Women’s team did not have the most promising 2017-18 campaign, unfortunately, finishing 5-13 in the CAA and an overall record of 11-19. In the upcoming season, there is plenty of room for success but they may run into some issues along the way.

Head Coach, Krista Kilburn-Steveskey, has landed four valuable recruits as well in Bri Crutchfield, JaKayla Brown, Caria Reynolds, and Vanerlie Valcourt.  My first day of college, I got the opportunity to play against these girls in our Fitness Center and they’re no joke. Great ball-handlers, shooters, rebounders, and the list goes on. Their resumes are mind-boggling and impressive whether it be statistics, championships won, or honors they’ve been awarded. Point being, these are girls who will, at some point, be producing for Hofstra University steadily.

The Pride are ecstatic to bring back leading scorer from last season, Boogie Brozoski. The senior guard posted 13 points per game alongside 3.6 rebounds. In her final season, she hopes to lead this team to nothing but victory.

Where may issues occur though? Definitely in the paint. Key losses in forward Ashunae Durant and guard Aleana Leon will leave the Pride begging for rebounds as Durant and Leon combined for about 15 rebounds per game in the previous season. The next leading rebounder is a 6’1 forward from Finland, Marianne Kalin with 5.7 per game. She will be heavily counted on to control the boards and help fill the shoes of the graduated players, Durant and Leon.

Along with rebounding, the ability to shoot the 3 ball will decrease as guard Olivia Askin graduated as well. Askin had made twice as many 3-pointers as the next best shooter, Boogie Brozoski. Oliva Askin made 71 3-pointers while shooting about 38% from long range, which is very good. Boogie Brozoski is going to have enough to handle, therefore, someone else is going to have to step up from deep whether it be an incoming freshman or an inexperienced upperclassmen. Without the presence of a 3-point shooter, teams become much easier to defend because a coaches focal point is solely based on the interior of the paint rather than multiple components of the game.

Ultimately, there is great potential for Coach Kilburn-Steveskey’s team for the future due to the newly recruited freshman and young players. Although, they’re incoming resume does not look all that promising from a scoring aspect, but let’s see how Coach and Brozoski carry their team for what we hope to be an exciting season!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The 2018-2019 upcoming season is right around the corner as both the men’s and women’s team look to make noise, not only in the Colonial Athletic Association, but as well as March Madness.

The Hofstra Pride Men’s team is coming off an impressive 19-12 season that unfortunately ended in the first round of the CAA Tournament versus UNC-Wilmington, the team in the CAA who won the bid for March Madness. Anyways, the Pride return 3 true seniors in Justin Wright-Foreman, Desure Buie, and Kenny Wormley.

As far as statistics go, Coach Joe Mihalich will be missing the graduated center, Rokas Gustys, the man who controlled the paint for the Pride. In his final season, Gustys averaged 10.5 points per game alongside 12 rebounds. His shoes will potentially be filled by sophomore Matija Radovic. Radovic played about 10 minutes per game his freshman year averaging one basket per game and 2 rebounds. Personally, I see great potential in the 6’7” Serbian due to his past experience at Montverde Academy, a prestigious high school academy known for their basketball team.

Last but not least, the returning star, Justin Wright-Foreman is coming off of a great season where he averaged 24.4 points, 3.3 rebounds and 3.2 assists. The shooting guard seems to be undersized at 6’0”, but his tough demeanor is a positive trait to overcome that. All in all, I believe he is an easy second round draft pick in the 2019 NBA Draft, as he looks to improve his stats, build, and chances of becoming an NBA player, which would be well deserved.