Is Cliff retired????

[The Bayer Hunter]

What happened to Cliff?? Is he calling it quits? If so, I better change my user name...

[Stryder]

Apparently no one knows.
I would love to hear any info/gossip/rumor about Cliff's alleged retirement. If it's true, he had better start sleeping with one eye open.

[neevel]

From what I've gathered, he is at least taking some time more-or-less off to finish up his business degree (having taken all of last year off from academics to train for Sydney)-- sort of the same thing that Ann Marsh did to finish her degree. As someone who has a yet-to-be-completed Master's degree hanging over my head and trying to fit in with everything else in my schedule, I can understand the motivation to do so.

-Dave

[Zelda]

neevel, you mean Masters and fencing dont go together? Please tell me otherwise!!! I start a course work Masters in LONDON in October!

[Shadow Fencer]

Should I break all my weapons now so that I have an excuse in September when I start my studies for law?

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I live to fence and fence to live!!

[edew]

There are plenty of fencers with advanced degrees, and there are many ACTIVELY competitive fencers with advanced degrees. But this year and the next are not essential for Cliff's chances to make the 2004 Olympics, if he so desires to do. Getting an MBA at Wharton is a pretty good gig if you can get into it, since Wharton is the top MBA school in the nation.

The question, in the case of an MBA, and depending on what Cliff plans to go into (there's executive track, financial banking track, international blah-blah, etc.), is his post-MBA work schedule.

He may work a 5:00AM to 8:00PM job, staring at computer screens all day. Or, he could be an executive level person at some established company, which could mean a very reasonable 9-to-5 job. (Here in SiliValley, some companies are moving away from the frenetic 90-hour/week all-coding, all-the-time mentality towards a more worker-friendly system. Obviously with the bust of the dot-com economy, working harder doesn't translate to financial success.)

So, depending on his eventual professional career, he may very well reenter the 2004 Olympic quest. Taking a year or so off may not be bad for him. However, he could just turn that year off to a permanent status. Then, when he hits 45 or so, he'll come back and fool around with the rest of us.

(Consider Michael McCahey, who more or less stopped fencing after the 1984 LA Olympics. Never saw anything about him until I saw him at the Duel In The Desert this past January.)

[This message has been edited by edew (edited 04-15-2001).]

[neevel]

Zelda--

It's more like full-time job, running a club, and completing the thesis are a tough fit.
Any of the two are workable-- but it's a squeeze on time to get the three. Not just my experience-- plenty of my co-workers have found a basically similar combination (substitute "kids" for "running a club") equally slows down academic progress. And once you've started earning a real salary, you're not at all tempted to go back to doing the full-time grad student thing.

-Dave

[Peach]

When I was getting my grad degree, it was brutal at times to keep fencing and raise a family, but it can be done. I always found it was better to have a *regular* fencing schedule than to try to maintain a high level of intensity. Two nights a week, that's it, but even if it was only an hour by gosh I was always there.

[Zelda]

Ok, thanks guys you have made my mind feel better. I was worried about trying to fit study and fencing together.... maybe not!