If you love it so much then share it with someone else!
Wouldn’t it be great if you had another 100 people to fence with in your local area?
What are you waiting for? Do something about it, NOW!
In our fencing schools we have signs all over asking, who did you recruit today? We are always trying to start fencing clubs and programs with other groups but we are only one pebble in a beach of sand (even though some people think we are like kudzu, I wish). We need help. We want more fencers, we love this sport. What do we do? We are asking for your help. Recruit and write letters.
Let me explain. A lot of people get exposed to fencing in college and think that it is an awesome sport. After they graduate they realize how little support fencing gets compared to other activities on the campus. They complain about it when they are in college but that’s where it usually ends. They chalk it up with fencing’s lack of popularity and figure that they are out of college and that is the end of it. That is where they are wrong!
Now for the next 40 some odd years they will be getting letters from their college asking for donations. Please give so that others may be able to go to college or experience whatever private project is currently going on at the college or university. When you get one of these in the mail send them a check with a letter (even if the check is $10, the amount of a entry fee). What will that letter say? Write something about how you loved fencing while you were in college and wish that it was better supported by the college and you in turn may continue to send checks to the college to support it as an alumnus. If you have the time to read this journal entry then you have enough time to write a letter. Maybe if we start now we won’t loose the rest of the NCAA fencing programs and maybe it will help start some new ones. A challenge, yes. An impossible one, no.
Yes, fencing in the USA does not the number of starting opportunities that other countries have and we don’t have the support. It is getting better than it was but we as a group can do so much more. How many of us work for volunteer groups but don’t volunteer to help recruit fencers for this sport that you love. It is not in all the public high schools and not on every college campus (like football, basketball and baseball).
We, however, have the power to change that. I believe the USA has the largest number of colleges and universities of any country in the world. Therefore, one would imagine that we have the most number of graduates (sorry, I am assuming and I know that this is one of our rules). Now, we as fencers can effect the back end of the equation after we graduate.
How many people just throw the alumni request for money in the trash? If we as a group were to start sending $10 checks with letters requesting more support for a fencing club or more slots on the fencing team a lot can happen. If you graduated from an NCAA team and are not supporting the current team, shame on you! We would then have a voice that I guarantee will be greater than the other activities on campus. Not the football, basketball and baseball booster clubs, but someday maybe (a man can dream can’t he).
Now let’s take this idea one step further. How many of you start fencing in college and made this statement.
“I wish that I could have started fencing in high school, but it wasn’t available.”
Most of you would have at least tried fencing if there had been a club in your high school. If every current fencer in the USA who graduated high school was to write a letter to their principle of the high school that they attended and ask why there wasn’t a high school fencing team or fencing club at least the questions would start. How do we start a fencing club/team? How much would it cost? Fencing is in the NCAA? (you would be amazed at the number of high school principles who don’t know this). Are their kids interested in this activity? Is it safe?
The worst thing that can happen is nothing? Which is what is currently happening now, unless there is a movement from the offices of the USFA that we are all unaware of. Now the best thing that can happen is that they call you and say it’s a great idea and how can they start the process. Make sure you put contact information in the letter and the website of the local fencing club or the USFA.
What should this letter say? Well, the best thing that I can advise would be to talk about how the sport that you love has changed or affected your life. Why you love it, what it has done for you. It shouldn’t be a boiler plate. If you think that there should be something specific in it then make a comment here in my journal so that others may use. I will sticky this post some that maybe it will help others generate interest in the sport that we all love (and sometimes hate for loving). As I was typing this entry I received an email from my alumni association is it karma?
03-12-2007 01:03 PM