Nickname: Brooksie
Year: 2008
Major: Undecided . . . Humbio or maybe STS
Hometown: Haverford, PA
Interests outside of squash: biking, friends, traveling, skiing, Nantucket, Lance Armstrong.
Who is/are your role model(s)? My grandfather, Henry Pfaff.
Favorite Color Orange and Pink.
Favorite food & drink: Pretty much anything from Whole Foods and Starbucks coffee of course.
Favorite movies: Auntie Mame, Garden State, Toy Story (I and II), Saved, and The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Favorite books: The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, The Magus, On The Road, The Moviegoer, Brave New World, Harry Potter and It's Not About The Bike.
Favorite Quote: "...The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars." -Jack Kerouac, On the Road.
"Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb." -Winston Churchill
Favorite Class at Stanford Society, Technology and Culture Design of Ten Artifacts. I got to write a 25 page paper on a toaster, not the toaster, but a very particular and special toaster.
Raison d'être: Squash and Maisy Samuelson
Greatest sports moment: Last year at nationals when I walked off the court after my match against Middlebury and Mark turned to me and said, "wow you play a lot better in matches then you ever do in practice." That and the time I beat my Dad in squash (the Riley's are a very competitive family, and I see that moment as retribution for the games of Candy Land at age 6!) (P.S. Dad don't worry I still love you and thank you for my competitive edge)
One goal you would most like to meet in the next year:
To continue to get people at Stanford excited about Squash. To dominate our division at nationals, survive 6 matches in 2.5 days in December and to personally not lose a match at Nationals.
Something about you not many people know: I have biked a variety of strange places such as across Europe from London to Rome, across the US from Savannah to Los Angeles, and across Alaska from Anchorage to Juneau. My entire immediate family went to The University of Pennsylvania, but I picked Stanford! Go Stanford Squash