Embracing A Challenge

Riley Sorn takes on school and basketball // By Mason Kelley

By Washington Huskies

January 31^st, 2019

When Riley Sorn was looking at colleges, he wanted to make sure he found a place where the challenge on the court would match the difficulty he would face in the classroom.

Enter Mike Hopkins.

When Washington’s head coach was hired to lead the Huskies, he made his way to Richland to check out the 7-foot-4 center.

“They showed some interest in me, said I could come in and make a difference,” the freshman said.

Sorn was impressed with what Hopkins was building at Washington, so he decided to take a closer look at the school.

“The main thing is, when coach Hopkins came over, he really started to make a difference and change how the team played,” he said. “The zone is just amazing. I decided that’s something I should look into.”

Sorn decided to visit and, well, “I just loved everything about it.”

He was immediately impressed by both the coaching staff and the players.

“Everyone was awesome,” he said. “The team is cool. The coaches are great. There was no other choice. This was the right choice and, for me, it’s a perfect fit. I couldn’t think of a better place.”

And then there was the school. Sorn is interested in majoring in aerospace engineering, so the academic opportunities the school presented sealed the deal.

“This is one of the top academic schools in the nation, so this is a no-brainer from an academic standpoint,” Sorn said.

So Sorn headed west. And now that he’s in Seattle, he joins a very talented group of big men.

“It just makes me better and I hope it makes them just a little bit better, too,” Sorn said. “I’ve made a huge improvement and I have so far to go, but they’re definitely helping me.”

Now deep into the season, Sorn is navigating the balance between a challenging academic schedule and a grueling basketball calendar. But it’s a small price to pay in order pursue two things he’s passionate about.

“So far it’s been really good, but I definitely have to find time to get in the gym and find time to hit the books,” he said. “There’s not much time to do anything else, but it’s my passion. It’s what I like to do, so I’m going to do it.”

With a complicated schedule, it helps to have the athletic department’s academic resources.

“Anthony (Gabriel), our academic advisor is helping me out a lot with my class choices,” Sorn said. “He’s doing a great job of helping me out to find what classes I should be taking at what time where I can do the best both on and off the court.”

Sorn is saving some of his more difficult classes for the spring and summer, giving him the opportunity to focus his attention on basketball. When asked what he plans do once he becomes an engineer, he said he appreciates the variety of practical options he will have once he graduates.

“It’s kind of a broad topic, but there are a lot of things you can do with that major,” he said. “Mainly it’s structural design for aerospace. You can do anything from designing new projects that are computer-based designs, CAD drawings, or testing aerospace structures, anything like that."

And he likes the challenges the classes present, even during the season.

“There’s definitely lots of STEM, lots of physics, science, all sorts of stuff – and lots of math – but I love it all,” he said. “It’s right up my alley. I’m definitely not a language arts kind of guy, so this is the right major for sure.”

Sorn has always been interested in technology. He started by flying remote control planes when he was a kid and then he branched out into drones. When he was in high school, he started using his drone to create videos and then businesses began asking him to build content that would help with marketing.

He created the equivalent of a summer job doing something he loved.

“It was a cool experience,” he said. “I was definitely lucky getting into that stuff, because I’ve been into it my whole life with little RC planes, stuff like that. I found it and ran with it.”

Like joining the Huskies, Sorn took advantage of his opportunity. He found something he enjoyed. He made the most of the experience. And now his journey continues – on the floor and in the classroom.