Sam Phalen is a beat reporter for the Tennessee Titans. But he comes to Survivor hoping to become a titan of the game in his own right. The 24-year-old says he plays Survivor on a daily basis, priding himself on his communication skills, with a day-to-day that is full of relationship building, getting information, and stroking egos. However, he admits his passion for sports has given him an extreme competitive nature, which he hopes to contain. Regardless, Sam hopes to take himself to the endzone and endgame, hopefully going from writing headlines to making them.
Read on for my interview with Sam, and check in with Parade.com daily for interviews with this season's contestants and other tidbits. Survivor 47 premieres on September 18 with a two-hour premiere on CBS.
Related: Meet the Full Cast of Survivor 47
Interview with Sam from Survivor 47
To start, give me your name, age, and occupation.
My name is Sam Phalen. I'm 24 years old, and I am a sports reporter.
What's your main sphere of coverage?
I work in the NFL. So I cover the Tennessee Titans. I live in Nashville, and I'm a beat reporter. So I am boots on the ground in the locker room, getting my microphone in with different players, side conversation, schmoozing the quarterback to get the latest update about an injury, reporting the news to all the fans out there. And then firing off articles, podcasts, my takes about what's going on in the sports world. So, yeah, it's a dream come true as far as a job is concerned.
So, I imagine for you, it was basically covering the NFL draft and then hopping right into Survivor .
Yeah, it was full swing, full tilt boogie, as Jeff would say, on draft content. And then, six days later, I'm on a plane to Los Angeles, and then Fiji. And here we go! So my world went from full digital all the time to now I'm just stripped down with nothing but my thoughts and the water.
Well, let's talk about your transition from covering the Titans to hopefully becoming a titan in the game. What's your history with Survivor ? And what made you decide to go from a spectator, observer, and commentator to player?
Mike, I'm a Day One fan. Wednesday nights, Survivor nights, that was my Super Bowl growing up, man.
That means a lot coming from you especially!
I would go to church every night, and then I'd be trying to get out of church ASAP. I'm like, "Mom, Dad, we gotta watch Survivor tonight. I gotta go talk about it with people who don't care at school tomorrow because I just have to talk about it with somebody." So, every night, I would go home, [I] would watch it. Became obsessed with the show. Everybody goes and plays with the kids in their neighborhood, and tries to make up their own games. I forced every kid in my neighborhood to play Survivor . We would sit on my trampoline, I would be Jeff. We'd vote each other out on Post-It notes. We do challenges in the backyard. I made my own Survivor back then. So this is like the lifetime dream here that is now coming to fruition in Fiji.
How long have you been applying to make that transition from Post-Its to parchment?
It was my second application. I kind of consider it my first application. I did one when I was 19 or 18 years old, right when I became eligible. Probably a really bad application; I would be ashamed if that ever found its way to leak, whatever video I submitted back then. I just didn't know myself quite as much. I didn't have a real sense of peace within myself. I didn't have cool stuff going on in my life and life experiences that shaped me for the game. And I kind of felt like now is the time. I felt really good about it. I'm engaged; I'm getting married next year. And so I submitted an application, felt great about it, got a call a couple days later, and here I am!
Congrats on the engagement! You talk about coming back to your application with more life experience. What's the one experience you feel has prepared you most for the game?
I hate to bring everything back to my job all the time. But I really do feel like being a sports reporter is like playing Survivor every day. Dealing with professional athletes, you are a professional ego stroker. You are making people feel good about themselves. You are asking the right questions to get information; you are capitalizing on information. And to get information, you have to build solid relationships with a player, an agent, a coach, an executive, whoever it is. So I feel like that has really made me equipped to to play this game, to be what everybody needs me to be individually. And that might be different for a different person or a different relationship, of like, "How can I be your safe space to tell me stuff, and then how do I use it to my advantage?"
Give me one Survivor winner and one non-winner who you identify with the most. Would it be any of the former NFL players who have graced the game?
No, I hope not. They don't do very well, so hopefully the media does better than the players. It's hard. I don't know if there's genuinely a winner like me that has played Survivor . Maybe that's bad for me. Maybe it means I'm due. I don't know. I would say the winner, I'll go [with] Michele Fitzgerald, Survivor: Kaoh Rong . I love Michele. I admire Michele. I think she is super gritty, a lot more than just her appearance. I think she found a way to be socially adaptable, insulate herself, never really raised her head too high or too low, and found a way to navigate the game and be well-liked by everybody. So, love her.
Non-winner, I'll go Devin Pinto. I love Devin Pinto. I think he played a super underrated game. And the reason I say that is I don't think you often see the athletic frat bro archetype, like "bros' bro" Survivor player play and, number one, not care to be in control or be the alpha of the game, and two, find a way to have strong relationships across the board. And so that's kind of the game that I want to play. I don't want control early on. I don't want to be in charge early on. I just want to be your extra vote, your person, your safe space to go [to]. And then I'm going to make a late run when it's too late.
Your job as a reporter is to get answers and information out of someone to use later on. How much do you think that will translate to the game, especially when Jeff is doing the exact same thing to you?
Yeah, huge. I read body language whenever somebody talks to me in the locker room. I read body language before I talk to somebody in the locker room. "Is that guy in a mood to talk today? He just cost his team the game and missed the 35-yard field goal. Should I really go and stick a microphone in his face and say, 'Hey, how you feeling right now?'" I know not to ask the dumb questions that are going to rub people the wrong way, and I know how to, like I said earlier, kind of phrase your question in a way that strokes the ego of somebody, makes them feel good, makes them more willing to maybe give up something they shouldn't tell you. There have been many times in my work life, where I've asked the question [and] I've immediately turned and sent a text over to my boss like, "Got a great quote out of somebody. He gave me a lot of information. That's really good stuff." So I think that'll help me when I'm asking where the votes are going, asking how they feel about somebody. Even reading into, like you said, what's somebody saying to Jeff at Tribal Council? And do they really mean that when they say it?
Related: Everything to Know About Survivor 47
What do you think is your biggest superpower and your biggest piece of kryptonite? Would the former be what you were just talking about in being able to read a room?
I think another superpower that I have is to fit in and gel with a lot of different groups. I played sports growing up, but I was also a theatre kid growing up. I did a lot of musical theatre; I did drama. I did Scholastic Bowl; I wrote slam poetry. My childhood and high school experience was very much like, "Alright, I can hang with the athletes. I can hang with the theatre kids. I can hang with the choir people." I found my way to fit in and have friends in each of those pockets. And I think, out here, whether it's another super athletic guy, and I got to bro out for a minute. Whether it's somebody totally different from me, and it's a nerd that likes all their nerdy things, I got a nerdy brain in this body here. And so I can do that as well.
Kryptonite will be my competitive nature. I'm a very competitive person, and, at times, I just have to be very conscious of this and control this in the game. Competitiveness can make me upset and act out at times in moments of weakness. I'm mad that somebody cost us the challenge. I'm mad that somebody's not doing things the way that I want them to go. So I just have to keep that in check and remember, "Hey, long game here, buddy, relax. It's not worth making a big deal about it." As long as I can contain that, I think I'll be okay.
Well, let's put those body language skills to the test. As you've been hanging around in the preseason, who amongst your competition have you been picking up good vibes from?
So this was a person that my first reaction was not about. And the more that I've just seen them, I love them. It's an older woman with blonde hair. SS are her initials, I believe. And she wore a Louis Vuitton bag and Louis Vuitton slides out here. Which I was like, "Okay, that's a bold choice off the bat!" She talks probably more than anybody else. Very talkative. I just love her. I get great vibes. I just want to talk to her. I want to be friends with her. There's another girl as well, trying to figure out, maybe Hawaiian. I think she's reading a book about how to speak Hawaiian, and has a Hawaiian shirt on one day. Darker skin, dark curly hair. She's all smiles. And I like that. I think it might be a little bit dangerous. But overall, if she's on my tribe, I think I'm going straight to her and trying to be like, "Hey, let's do this thing."
What about on the other side? Anyone you're not getting good vibes from?
I don't want to judge any books by their cover. However, I'm going to do it. [ Laughs .] There is one guy. He's a shorter guy, white dude. Honestly, I can't tell if he's 20 or 40. I don't know what his age is whatsoever. Is very odd to me. He doesn't smile at all. He kind of just feels very calculated walking around. He looks like a thinker, and I'm very wary of him coming into this. So we'll see. Like I said, I'll give him a shot. But I'm nervous about that one.
What’s your biggest takeaway from the past two seasons of Survivor that you plan to bring into your game?
Don't play the game too fast, easy. I think Survivor 46 , I haven't seen how it ends, obviously. But we saw a lot of people turn on their number one allies at eleven, ten, nine, eight. Why? The new era has told us is all about finding a place to hide. Find a place to hide for as long as possible. And right when people see the light at the end of the tunnel, you need to be the light, and you're the freight train. That's how I want to play the game. But you do it too early. And so we saw Tevin turn on Soda. He goes home. Hunter allows Tevin to go out of the game, goes home with an idol in his pocket. Kenzie goes and targets Tiffany, which then leads to Tiffany being sent out of the game. And now Kenzie potentially is vulnerable in a lot of ways.
[ Author's note: These interviews were conducted while Survivor 46 was airing, so the contestants were not aware of the final results at the time of speaking with me. ]
So I want to keep my allies as long as possible. I want to stay insulated for as long as possible. I want to make sure that, if I'm making that move, it's in a spot where I don't have to survive four more Tribal Councils on immunity wins and idols and sheer luck just to get to the end of the game. I want to do it when they realize, "Oh, Sam just made a big, ballsy move, and now we can't get him because it's too late and he's going to win the game."
What's your hottest Survivor take?
I'm a hot take guy. I love a good hot take. I'll give you two. Number one, I think Winners at War is a mid season at best. I just felt like so many of the players didn't come to win. They came to kind of make it a capstone on their Survivor career. And they got to a point at eight, seven, six in the game, where they were just like, "Hey, vote me out. It's been a great ride." I'm like, "No! You're playing to be a Survivor legend, the greatest ever if you win twice, especially if you're two for two at it." So that kind of bothered me.
Here's my hottest one. The best player always wins. There has never been such a thing as a robbed Survivor player. The best player always wins and is always deserving. I believe the game is a game built on–we hear it all the time–social contract. What is your season's social contract? And I think, objectively, you could look at Season 43 and say, "Hey, Jesse, on any other season of Survivor , probably outplays everybody else from his cast." And he probably does [over] Gabler on most seasons of Survivor . But Gabler played the best game of Season 43 the same way Yam Yam played the best game of 44. And the reason why is because he found a way to get himself to the end and navigated the end game, navigated the jury that he was dealt to win the game. It's just hard to argue for me. So I think everybody who wins, deserves to win.
Finally, if you could bring a celebrity or a fictional character out for a Loved Ones visit, who would it be and why? Is Ryan Tannehill limping out to join you?
Definitely none of the Titans would be able to help me out here. Here's a weird one that I just randomly thought of. Give me a Harvey Specter from Suits . So, you might not be able to tell from this interview, Mike, but the last three days have been like an emotional experience for me. I'm a super emotional guy. I cry all the time. You're going to see it on television, guaranteed, probably within the first two episodes. And I think I just feel a lot of emotions a lot. I'm very vulnerable with my emotions. I hope to use that to my advantage to connect with people. And I think Harvey Specter would be the guy to come in and tell me, "Hey, knock it off. It's game time. We got to slit some throats. We got to win this game." And I just think it would be the right level of push that I need to make sure, "Hey, we're not taking allies to the end if we're going to lose to them. We're not joking around and settling for second, third, or fourth place. We're coming here to be the Sole Survivor."
Next, check out our interview with Survivor 47 contestant Rachel LaMont .
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