From hustling on the basketball court to playing an original composition on the piano, Sam Fechner \u201920 is a young man of many talents. He is a junior from Hamburg, Germany and in his first year at Trinity-Pawling \u2014 a community he cherishes. \u201cEveryone cares about me here. My teachers and friends give me support when I need it and it\u2019s clear that they want me to succeed,\u201d Fechner shared. \u201cIt\u2019s a great community to be a part of.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fechner discovered Trinity-Pawling through a connection between his basketball coach in Germany, Levi Levine, and Bill Casson, head coach for Trinity-Pawling\u2019s varsity basketball team. \u201cCoach Levine knew that my dream was to play college basketball in America and that Trinity-Pawling would help me get there,\u201d Fechner explained.<\/p>\n
He first picked up a basketball about ten years ago, when he tagged along with a friend to a club basketball practice. \u201cI originally started playing soccer, as most kids in Germany do,\u201d Fechner shared. \u201cAfter that first practice though, I knew basketball was my game.\u201d Since then, Fechner has excelled in the sport, winning state championships in Hamburg and playing in the highest basketball league in Germany.<\/p>\n
But his jump shot is only one of he many talents. Besides being a stellar student and athlete (he also runs cross country for Trinity-Pawling), Fechner is also a gifted pianist. \u201cMy mom encouraged me to start playing piano about eight years ago, and I\u2019m so grateful she did,\u201d Fechner explained. \u201cI immediately fell in love with it.\u201d Even with his busy schedule between school and basketball, he has always made time to sit down at the piano and play \u2014 even writing his own compositions. The Trinity-Pawling community had the privilege of hearing one of his original pieces<\/a> earlier this month in an all-school assembly. Fechner composed \u201cElegy for the Bike<\/em>\u201d in memory of a bicycle he received from his grandfather. When he completed his performance, he received a standing ovation from the entire school. \u201cThat was the best feeling in the world,\u201d he recalled, smiling.<\/p>\n As he eagerly heads into basketball season, Fechner is grateful for the lessons he has learned from playing piano, and intends to keep playing and composing. \u201cPlaying piano has taught me patience, hand coordination, and how to do multiple things at the same time. These all help me with basketball too,\u201d he said. \u201cBoth piano and basketball are places of refuge for me and motivate me to push myself and keep improving.\u201d<\/p>\n With the fall term almost behind us, Fechner has thoroughly enjoyed his first few months at Trinity-Pawling and he looks forward to what\u2019s ahead \u2014 on the court, behind the piano, and everywhere in between.<\/p>\n by Emma Christiantelli<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From hustling on the basketball court to playing an original composition on the piano, Sam Fechner \u201920 is a young man of many talents. He is a junior from Hamburg, Germany and in his first year at Trinity-Pawling \u2014 a community he cherishes. \u201cEveryone cares about me here. My teachers and friends give me support […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2370,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-november-2018"],"acf":[],"wps_subtitle":" ACCOMPLISHED \u2014 ON THE COURT AND AT THE PIANO","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinitypawlingthequad.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinitypawlingthequad.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinitypawlingthequad.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinitypawlingthequad.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinitypawlingthequad.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2369"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/trinitypawlingthequad.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2405,"href":"https:\/\/trinitypawlingthequad.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2369\/revisions\/2405"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinitypawlingthequad.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinitypawlingthequad.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinitypawlingthequad.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinitypawlingthequad.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}