Fab Five: Sam Feinberg

LA JOLLA, Calif. – Photographs have the ability to capture important pieces of our past and help us recall people, places, feelings, and memories that made an impact on our lives. For many scholar-athletes, pictures secure those special moments and assist in making their collegiate careers last forever.

In a feature called “Fab Five”, Triton scholar-athletes are tasked to pick five of their favorite photos to be highlighted on UCSDtritons.com. 

Today, Sam Feinberg, a coxswain on the men's rowing team, makes his picks.

In his third season with the team, Sam coxswained UC San Diego boats to a pair of major victories this season. At the San Diego Crew Classic, he was in the Second Varsity 8 boat that mounted a come-from-behind effort in the final race to bring home a trophy. Two months later, Sam coxswained the Tritons' Varsity 8 to their fourth consecutive triumph at the Western Sprints, earning them a bid to the Intercollegiate Rowing Association National Championships.

A native of Folsom, Calif., Sam is majoring in international business at Roosevelt College. The upcoming fall workouts will mark the beginning of his senior season with the team.

1. Where Races are Won

This is the reason every UCSD rower arrives at the boathouse before dawn. The reason we continue to take trophies, medals, and tanks each year, despite all the hardships we've been through. This is the moment when two eights engage in combat. Toe to toe, bowball to bowball. Unrelenting force thrown down the course at each other, with battlecries ringing out. It is an absolutely indescribable moment when 18 competitors are placed in shells besides each other. 18 racers, not rowers. Nobody on this team shows up to practice ready to row. We show up ready to race. When two eights sit aligned, and Coach yells "SIT READY!" you sit ready to take yourself beyond your physical and mental breaking points every single stroke of every single piece. Not because you want to, but because you have to. Your brothers sit beside you, putting every ounce of their life force on the end of their oars, and to give anything less than your breaking point every single stroke is to give the greatest disrespect to each and every one of them. By pushing your boat to go faster, you give the other boat no choice but to rise and maintain your speed. In doing so, each athlete reaches new levels of speed each day and thus each boat increases hull speed. This repeated process forces our program's ultimate goal of maximum boat speed. You get roughly 200 water practices each year. 200 opportunities to lay everything out there, to place your heart and soul on the tip of your blade and rip it. What you do in each of those moments, each of those practices determines whether you scale the podium, or watch your opponent take what could have been yours. I firmly believe that there is no place I'd rather be than at practice, staring down the 8 men in front of me waging war against my 9 teammates across. In that moment, nothing else matters. Any outside noise or stress you've been facing suddenly disappears as your heart thumps out your chest and you enter the ring.

2. Kicking off the Season

Moving on to what matters, results. The San Diego Fall Classic, the first race of each Triton rowing season. What was truly incredible about that race this year, was that less than a week prior, one of our top athletes, Kevin Mead, had tested positive for Covid. We spent that entire week leading up to the race off the water, and none of us thought we would be allowed to race due to protocols. The day before the race we were finally cleared to get in, and we got one water practice in before the race. 435 boats raced that Sunday, sent by 47 different teams. Of every boat that charged that course, our Varsity 8 was the fastest. Our Junior Varsity 8 was the third fastest, beating nearly every other Varsity 8 entered. Our Third Varsity 8 had placed 9th, still beating many Varsity 8s and Junior Varsity 8s, and beating the next best Third Varsity 8 by nearly three full minutes. We had lost Kevin that race, and were stiffed of practice for the entire preceding week, yet we persevered. I coxed the Junior Varsity 8 that day. I remember being unaware of the results, and checking my phone on the row back to land realizing we medaled, something a Junior Varsity had never done at that event. As we rowed back, the air was suddenly filled with crazed yelling and cheering, and we turned around to see Coach waving his arms and head out the window of his Tacoma maniacally screaming in pure excitement. After the racing, I walked around the finish line with my teammate Bailey Kim, and we stood in awe as we realized that of the nearly 3,000 people surrounding us, we had beaten all of them. Nobody on that course that day could get out and run us down, no matter how hard they pushed.

3. Winning Crew Classic in Style

In the spring, we set out for the San Diego Crew Classic, one of the largest, most prestigious regattas in the rowing world. Of every single race I have ever raced in my five years of rowing, this particular race was by far my favorite. I will never forget this race, probably the craziest, most exciting thing I have been a part of. This regatta is notoriously known for very poor conditions, usually very high winds and extremely choppy water. Again, I led the Junior Varsity Eight. Saturday morning we executed our race plan perfectly, and secured the best lane we could have in the top final on Sunday. The conditions were abnormally swell, and we all discussed how lucky we had been. We met on land, and got our heads straight as we knew we were racing for a trophy the following morning. Come Sunday, conditions were again uncharacteristically excellent. However, once we were locked in seconds from the starting call, the conditions completely shifted, bringing on the usual winds and side chops. We had a very poor start, led by my own lack of a proper point and failure to prepare for the conditions. Off the line, we were in fourth. Due to our haphazard start and the conditions, our race plan went out the window, nerves erupted, and we began a long race down the course at a high 40 strokes per minute. Marist, the race leader, sat with clear open water in front of us for nearly the entire race. I did my absolute best to keep my boys calm, level headed, and in a position to win. Finally, at about 550 meters to go, with Marist over a full boat length in front, I yelled "WE CAN STILL ABSOLUTELY WIN THIS. I DIDN'T COME OUT HERE TODAY TO LOSE. YOU KICK THE RATE AS HIGH AS YOU CAN GET IT AND WE WILL SURGE THROUGH MARIST AND WIN." My stroke seat Leon Friedrichowitz, kicked us to a comedically high 46 strokes a minute, backed by the powerful guys behind him, and we began the most crazed sprint I have ever been a part of. The announcer laughed when he clocked our strokes per minute. With less than 250 meters to go, Marist's coxswain was sitting clear on my bow. By the sheer refusal of the men in my boat to lose, and to the shock of every person watching that race, we ran them down and came out 0.65 seconds in front. I still get emotional every time I recall it. Sure, we could have executed our race plan properly and probably beaten Marist by a full length, but my brothers and I wouldn't change the way we did it for anything.

4. Winning Western Sprints

In May, I got to come back home to my hometown, Folsom, and race. Back on my high school home course, Lake Natoma, we raced the Western Sprints, a few miles from the house I grew up in. This race is significant in the fact that it qualifies us for our national championship, the IRA. It is our second to last race of the year, about three weeks before we finish each year at the IRA. Four crews race here each year, each seeking to qualify for the IRA. UCSD, Santa Clara, Gonzaga, and USD. Only the top two finishers go. For this race, I was placed in the Varsity 8. For the fourth year in a row, our Varsity 8 took home the trophy, simultaneously punching us a trip to the IRA. Another fun race. We were down on Santa Clara for about half of the race, but we were calm, poised, and confident in our abilities that day. Halfway through we took a move, and really began pushing through them. By the time we began kicking the rate up and sprinting, I was racing the guys to get me open water on them. I ended on their bowball. It was fun to come back in and see my entire family there supporting me, including my 4 year old little brother Michael on the shore.

5. Homage to the Seniors

I'm not in this picture, but I wanted to highlight it because it shows three of our graduating seniors. Alex Francis, Kevin Mead, and Felix Sorokine. In this particular picture, they're having fun while cleaning our place of work, the boathouse, after a hard Saturday water practice. I love how this pic illustrates that despite the fierce battles on the water, the second we get back on land it's (almost) always smiles and laughs while we put the boats away. The team will dearly miss them, alongside our other graduating seniors Sean Romero, Hayden McCormick, Matt Schade, Max Igou, Ray Gazzo, and Stuart Boynton. These guys alongside the rest of our graduating class, played a huge role in boat speed in their time here, and were consistently V8 or 2V guys. More importantly, they’re family. They each provided the team with not only boat speed, but guidance, friendship, and hilarity as well. I was blessed to have raced with each of them many times. The team is well equipped for the future without them, but they will be sincerely missed.

Check back on UCSDTritons.com all summer for future editions of “Fab Five” from other UC San Diego scholar-athletes. Previous “Fab Five” entries are below.

2022

• Ava McInnes (Women's Volleyball) 
• Adee Newman (Track and Field)
• Jake Kosakowski (Men's Basketball)
• Rachel Wagner (Women's Tennis)
• Matt Palma (Men's Volleyball)
• Nick Cirrito (Men's Soccer)

2020
• Sergi Mata (Men's Golf)
• Gabe Hadley (Men's Basketball)
• Jonathan Sabouri (Men's Soccer)
• Grace Murphy (Swimming & Diving)
• Collin Shannon (Men's Volleyball)
• Cindy Tran (Women's Volleyball)
• Jake Selstad (Men's Cross Country/Track & Field)
• Calder Hilde-Jones (Men's Water Polo)
• Anu Bhadada (Women's Tennis)
• Natalie Widmer (Women's Soccer)
• Konami Masui (Women's Fencing)
• Sarah Proctor (Women's Rowing)
• Neil Tengbumroong (Men's Tennis)
• Cameron Leonard (Baseball)
• Isabel Lavrov (Softball)
• Zeinab Torabi (Women's Track & Field)
 

About UC San Diego Athletics
After two decades as one of the most successful programs in NCAA Division II, the UC San Diego intercollegiate athletics program has begun a new era as a member of the Big West Conference in NCAA Division I. The 23-sport Tritons earned 30 team and nearly 150 individual national championships during its time in Divisions II and III and helped guide 1,400 scholar-athletes to All-America honors. A total of 83 Tritons have earned Academic All-America honors, while 38 have garnered prestigious NCAA Post Graduate Scholarships. UC San Diego scholar-athletes exemplify the academic ideals of one of the world's preeminent institutions, graduating at an average rate of 90 percent, the highest rate among public institutions in Division I or II. For more information on the Tritons, visit UCSDtritons.com or follow UC San Diego Athletics on social media @UCSDtritons.