OXFORD BOUND
Hoops star off to U.K.
Josh Soifer tried to get some sleep, but all attempts at lapsing into slumber were futile.
After a period of tossing and turning, the 17-year-old Luther College High School student simply got out of bed in the early-morning hours of Jan. 14.
He turned on his computer, logged on to his email account and waited, and waited, and waited.
Every few minutes, he refreshed the page on the screen, hoping that an eagerly anticipated message from England — where the business day was nicely underway — would arrive.
When it did — ding! — Soifer was rewarded for a sleepless night.
“Congratulations ...,” began an email from the prestigious University of Oxford, which then informed the Grade 12 student that his application had been accepted. And there was much rejoicing.
“It was just a moment of shock and realization when that email came up,” said Soifer, who is playing for the Luther Lions senior boys’ basketball team in the 68th-annual Luther Invitational Tournament.
Soifer, his father (Eldon) and sister (Maya, a Grade 10 student at Luther) celebrated the news before waking up Josh’s mother, Lynn Loutzenhiser, and informing her that yet another family member was destined for Oxford.
Eldon Soifer has a doctorate in philosophy from Oxford, where Josh’s uncle (Glen Loutzenhiser) is a professor.
When Josh was in Grade 3, he lived in Oxford, England, for a year while his father was on sabbatical. Both of his parents are professors at the University of Regina.
In October, Josh will begin three years of studies at one of the world’s elite universities, where he will concentrate on PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics).
“This is an extremely rare accomplishment, which points to what an exceptional student Josh truly is,” Luther principal Mark Anderson said.
“Thanks to his focus, hard work and superb natural abilities, his future is very bright.”
The application process began in Winnipeg, where Josh wrote the entrance examination.
The next stage consisted of two hour-long video interviews with Oxford professors. Josh set up a screen in the principal’s office for both of those sessions.
“It was intense,” Josh said of the video interviews. “Playing sports helped me a lot, just with managing the nerves and helping me not get in my head so much.
“It was still nerve-racking at times. I’d give an answer and sometimes they’d look like they were questioning it, so I was thinking, ‘Did I mess up?’ ”
Obviously not.
Josh’s excellence extends to the basketball court.
At six-foot-five, he has extensive provincial-team experience. Last summer, while playing for Team Saskatchewan, he was a first-team all-star at the Canadian under-17 boys’ championship in Fredericton, N.B.
Those credentials have piqued the interest of the Oxford men’s basketball team, with which Josh plans to scrimmage in March when he visits the campus for reasons unrelated to his recent acceptance into the school.
Josh and his cohort, Jasnoor Guliani, will soon be off to Oxford to represent Canada in a world-level debating competition.
In addition to excelling in debates and achieving high academic standards, Josh serves on student council and plays for the Lions in soccer and basketball.
“Josh is a renaissance man because he excels in numerous and diverse areas of school life,” Anderson said.
“He is a young man of tremendous ability and promise, as evidenced by his acceptance into the University of Oxford.”
In the short term, though, Josh is focusing on LIT, which began Thursday and continues until Saturday on the school’s two courts: the Semple Gymnasium and the Merlis Belsher Heritage Centre.
“Last year was an amazing experience, with being able to play in front of all my teachers and my friends and in front of the community,” he said leading up to the Lions’ opener at LIT.
“Basketball has always been an outlet for me and the way I relax as well as push myself. It has meant a lot to me in terms of my development as an individual. Being a captain this year and taking a leadership role while helping our team in events like LIT has been really exciting.”
Just like an email at 4:30 in the morning.