Mike Pinsky ’15 Debuts as Princeton’s First ‘Survivor’ Contestant

No database compiles the 772 people who have been cast on CBS’ Survivor since the show premiered in 2000 with their alma maters, but Mike Pinsky ’15 believes he will become the first Princetonian to compete on the show when season 51 premieres Sept. 23.

“It’s been passed around the Survivor alumni lore that every other Ivy League school has had a representative at some point, except for Princeton,” Pinsky tells PAW. “I told Survivor in casting it’s time to get a tiger out there in the jungle.”

The reality show pits stranded castaways against each other as they try to outwit, outplay, and outlast each other to win $1 million. Pinsky says filming it was “brutal and the real deal.” 

He won’t say if or when during the season his torch gets snuffed — Survivor-speak for getting eliminated — but rather notes he’s used to accomplishing lofty goals. “He once told me that he had two dreams: to work for the Yankees and to be on Survivor,” says Julia Hammer ’15, who watched the show religiously with Pinsky when they were students at Princeton. “I’m just so happy for him.”

In his day job as assistant director of baseball operations for the New York Yankees, Pinsky sits “in a stadium seat or a desk chair and evaluat[es] players,” he says. “And to actually be the one playing is a whole different experience.” 

As a super fan who has been watching the show since he was 8 years old, Pinsky knew what to expect. After he found out he made the cast — “part of the challenge is you find out this crazy news, craziest news you’ve ever gotten, and you can’t tell anybody,” he says — he upped his gym workouts and food intake and rewatched the most recent 10 seasons while taking notes.

“I tried to really find trends and tendencies and pick apart the game from a pretty strategic point of view,” Pinsky says.

He credits Princeton with giving him practice in connecting with people from different backgrounds and different personalities: “Aside from just the rigors of Princeton and learning how to think critically and being a strategist and all those kinds of things, I think the people part of it is most of all what prepared me at Princeton.”

Annika Bennett ’15, who used to watch the show at Princeton with Pinsky, Hammer, and Pinsky’s roommate, John Fairchild ’15, tells PAW via email that she “can’t wait to see how [Pinsky] plays this game that, at its core, is about building meaningful connections with people from all walks of life and learning who you are stripped of all context. I know Mike to be a ball of boundless energy and enthusiasm … but I also know him to be someone with innate respect for and curiosity about others.”

Fairchild, who once submitted an audition tape to Survivor himself, wasn’t surprised when Pinsky told him he had been cast. “This guy’s meant to be on the show,” he says.

Pinsky says his goal is “to do Princeton proud” and to “make sure I’m not the last” Princetonian on the show. 

Follow Pinsky along his journey by tuning in to CBS on Wednesdays at 8 p.m. this fall. He appears in this preview at 29:30: