ATHLETICS Never Say Die
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BY JOHN PARENTE
All-American Athlete of the Year Michael Ferinde ’15 carved a legacy on the mat. Brother Joe Ferinde ’19 hopes to continue the tradition.
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HEN THE Johnson & Wales wrestling program opened its 2015–16 season back in October, there was a gaping hole at the team’s practice facility in Providence. It wasn’t a physical hole — it was a missing link from the four preceeding successful seasons, in the person of one Michael Ferinde. The 2015 JWU Male Athlete of the Year, Ferinde’s graduation last May marked an end to a remarkable career. The 141-pounder from Nutley, New Jersey, finished eighth on the all-time wins list in Johnson & Wales’ wrestling history, but it wasn’t so much what he did but how he accomplished so much. Longtime Wildcat Head Wrestling Coach Lonnie Morris says Ferinde was a self-made champion: “It’s not so much having people at his weight class to replace him, it’s the intangibles: his work ethic, his energy, his leadership and his commitment to the program on and off the mat that we’ll miss most. “We have a couple of athletes that stepped right in for him, but it’s his heart, and just how badly he wanted to win — and how he hated to
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Winter 2016
lose … he just loved to compete. People respected and looked up to him because he was a silent leader, not a rah-rah guy.” Ferinde’s place in Wildcat wrestling history is a bit different from some of JWU’s other wrestling All-Americans, like James Gilbert ’02, Steve Martell ’08 and Tim Ruberg ’05, who rank among the program’s greats. In Morris’ words, Ferinde “wasn’t as gifted as those guys, but his work ethic and his desire to compete set him apart from those other guys. Some of those other guys were more talented, but Michael was so consistent and bought into what we were teaching him. “We were wrestling at Long Island University,” Morris adds, recounting a 2014 match, “and this really tough kid gave Michael a high-flying move that put Ferinde right on his back. The kid had Michael down for two minutes and 30 seconds, but Michael fought like crazy to get out of a really punishing hold. Most wrestlers would have accepted a pin, but not him. He was down 5-1 and battled all the way back and eventually won the match. He was ‘never say die’ on the mat. He knew that our team was in dire straights having our captain pinned, but he battled back. That was a pretty special moment.”
Ferinde says that’s the beauty of his sport: “Wrestling is a team sport, and there’s a cumulative team aspect, but you are totally responsible for your own fate.” Ferinde completed the 2015 season with his second trip to the NCAA Division III wrestling championship, where he notched his second AllAmerican selection. His first year out of Nutley seemed like light years before: “In my freshman season, I was at the bottom of the food chain. There were four years of lessons to be learned before I became a captain. I was never the top dog, but, fortunately, I kept my head on straight and took advantage of every opportunity I got.” Those opportunities launched a heralded four-year career. With 111 victories, Ferinde won nearly 70 percent of his matches and recorded one of the fastest wins ever by a Wildcat wrestler: a 22-second pin over an opponent from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy on January 20, 2013. His fifth-place finish at the 2014 NCAA tournament preceeded an eighth-place finish at the 2015 event, good enough for that second All-American honor. Now that he’s had time to reflect on his athletic and academic career, Ferinde, currently a graphic designer in Secaucus, New