What’s Your Name? My Name is Stephen Foster.- Where are you from? I’m from Huntington Beach, California
- What’s your major? I’m doing a double major in Materials and Mechanical Engineering
- Why do you row? That’s a pretty heavy question. I row for a lot of reasons. I think the main reason I row is because I enjoy it, but there are lots of things that go into that.
- Port or Starboard? Definitely Starboard
- What do you spend your time doing when you’re not rowing? Classes and homework take up the majority of my time. When I’m ahead on my studies though I like to relax with some video games. Some of my favorites are Smash Ultimate and Dark Souls 3. I also enjoy sitting down with a good book and going hiking. The latter requires a good chunk of free time though.
- What is your favorite Davis hangout? Red88 is a personal favorite. The staff is super friendly and they don’t mind me chilling there studying so long as I’m not taking up a lot of table space when its super busy. Other than that, I probably spend most of my time in the study spaces at the MU. And the crew house of course.
- How do you define success? I believe success is finding satisfaction and happiness in life. Right now I do that by studying and pursuing things I enjoy while building a platform for a stable future.
- What do you expect to be doing in ten years? Hmm. I’d like to be married and own a house. Maybe still competing in some indoor or outdoor rowing. And working the job of my dreams. I don’t know what that is yet though. We’ll see how that pans out.
- What is your greatest rowing achievement? As an individual, my greatest achievement has been representing Davis as part of the varsity 8 and breaking 6:30. My goal is to break 6:20 by the end of this season. As a part of the whole though, my greatest achievement was coming in 2nd place in the B finals at the 2016 ACRA nationals for the Varsity 8 category as a novice.
- What is your greatest achievement outside of rowing? I’m pretty proud of the GPA I’ve been able to maintain while on the team as well as my golf handicap.
- Why and how did you join rowing? During the new student resource fair, I was minding my own business when a random guy holding this giant oar beckoned me to him. He told me that if I rowed I would get in the best shape of my life and gave me a flier stating practices started the next day at 6am at Toomey Field. That man was Matthew Le and I showed up for practice the next day and never looked back. I definitely started to get in better shape, but I’ve stayed for so many more reasons.
- What differentiates UC Davis rowing from other clubs in your eyes? The character quality of people on the team and the difficulty of it stand out most of all. It takes a certain type of person to go through practices day in and day out. While other clubs might say that they strive for certain character traits and try to teach specific principles, Crew forces a person to adapt. You don’t survive in the sport for very long if you’re not accountable, hard working, dedicated, and a team player. There’s too much difficulty for pretenders to hide among the truly dedicated.
- How has rowing affected you? Matthew Le was definitely correct. I’m now in the best shape of my life. I also have a greater group of friends now thanks to the sport. Looking back at a freshman version of myself, I’ve become more disciplined in both my studies and my fitness. The sport has also helped me gain confidence in myself and my ability to push myself towards my goals.
- Of all the races you have rowed, which was the most significant to you and why? There’s one race that I can’t get out of my head. I think it will stick with me for a long time. In the repechage of WIRA in 2016 we had to come in the top 2 to make it to the grand finals. The boats to beat were Washington State, and SDSU. I can’t remember all of the details of the start and finish, but the meat of that race was the best rowing I can ever remember. Everything came together and the boat glided down the racecourse. Everybody was together and it felt effortless to maintain our position and rhythm. Everytime Washington creeped up on us we easily stayed out ahead. We ended up coming in 2nd to Santa Clara and making grand finals.
- What is one distinct memory you have from practice or a race during your time on the team? I remember during our novice year at head of the american we raced our first race ever and it was a 5k. I counted every single crab that we took. There were 26 and our coxswain, Sandra, would curse at us and threaten us after every single one. She got particularly mad at Reid if I recall correctly. Looking back I can’t help but laugh. We were 8 guys who had been in a boat for less than a month and we sure rowed like it.
- What is one way you have contributed to the team? I’ve contributed towards the team outside of being an athlete as its treasurer for both the 2017-2018 season and the 2018-2019 season.
