Obiturary: Ferenc Marki

[SFfencer]

This was published in the Boulder, CO's Daily Camera Newspaper.
I'm sure many of the old timers remember him.
He used to coach at City College of San Francisco, San Francisco State, and at the Pannonia Athletic Club.

Ferenc Marki
1912 - 2008
Ferenc Marki of Boulder, formerly of San Francisco, CA and Szeged, Hungary, passed away May 26, 2008, at Frasier Meadows, surrounded by family, following pneumonia and hip surgery.

Ferenc was born on November 7, 1912 to Forenc Marki and Etelka Pinter in Szeged, Hungary. He was a Fencing Maestro and trained numerous Olympians and US Champions.

Ferenc has surviving children and grandchildren in Colorado and California. He was preceded in death by one grandson.

Memorial Services will be held at a later date in San Francisco, CA. Inurnment will be held in Szeged, Hungary.

[Craig]

Wow, we've been seeing a lot of fencing obits lately. Or, more of them are getting distributed to a broader audience.

Craig

[bunbury]

Is this surprising? A lot of the the old school fencers were born pre-WW2, and I believe the latest statistic is that WW2 vets are dying 1000 a day.

[SFfencer]

An Updated Obiturary.

IN MEMORIUM:

MAESTRO FERENC MARKI

(1912 - 2008)




Ferenc Marki, a fencing master and former fencing coach at San Francisco State University, City College of San Francisco, Mills College, and Pannonia Athletic Club who was internationally known for training skilled fencers at the Olympic and Intercollegiate levels, passed away on Memorial Day, May 26, 2008 in Boulder, Colorado. He was 95 years old.

He was born on November 7, 1912 to Forenc Marki and Etelka Pinter in Szeged, in southern Hingary. As a youth, he trained intensively and excelled quickly at learning the art of fencing foil, epee, and saber at the prestigious Toldi Miklos Royal Hungarian Sports Institute. His teacher was the famous Maestro Laszlo Borsody, who is acknowledged in Hungary as being one of the greatest fencing masters of all time and the creator of the modern Hungarian style of saber fencing. Maestro Borsody also taught Olympic Sabre Champions George Piller, Pál Kovács, and most of the best Hungarian fencing masters. All of the great Hungarian fencers of those times were trained either by Italo Santelli or Laszlo Borsody.

In 1935, he achieved the rank of fencing master or “maestro” when he received the diploma of Maître d'Armes and Fencing Instructor. He then taught fencing at the Hungarian Military Academy to start his career as a fencing teacher and began to raise a family.

In 1956, Hungarians began challenging their Communist Russian controlled government. When state police massacred protesting students, members of the Hungarian military came to their defense and Russia sent in tanks and troops to seize military control of Hungary and begin purging the opposition. Many Hungarians immediately rushed to leave the country. Maestro Marki and his family fled across the border in the night (a friend told them when the border guards were away having dinner), and began living first in refugee camps in neighboring Yugoslavia. Maestro Marki continued to teach fencing, at first in Turino, Italy, and then in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Maestro Marki remained in close contact with other Hungarian expatriate fencing masters and fencers, including Olympic Sabre Champions George Piller (a famous fencing master and three time Olympic sabre champion in the 1930s who was teaching at Pannonia Athletic Club in San Francisco and UC Berkeley), and Daniel Magay (Sabre 1957, 1958, 1961 National Champion; Gold Medal 1956 Olympics).

After Maestro George Piller passed away in 1960, Daniel Magay sent to Brazil for Ferenc Marki to take his place as Maestro of the Pannonia Athletic Club. Maestro Marki soon became fencing master at Mills College, City College of San Francisco, and San Francisco State University.

At Pannonia Athletic Club, Maestro Marki continued to train many skilled fencers, including Olympic fencers and US Champions Daniel Magay and Harriet King, and his Pannonia Athletic Club teams won Pacific Coast Championships in 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, and 1979.

As a result of Maestro Marki’s insistence on the highest standards of excellence and self discipline in teaching his fencing students, the individuals and teams he coached at City College of San Francisco and San Francisco State University rose to the top of the Northern California Intercollegiate Fencing Association and Western Intercollegiate Fencing Conferences, yielding many first place trophies and medals by both teams and individuals, even besting the teams of his Hungarian Maestro colleagues Julius Palffy-Alpar at the University of California Berkeley and Nick Toth of the Air Force Academy.

Teams and individuals coached by Maestro Marki won and medaled in many intercollegiate championships, including gold medal finishes in Northern California competitions in 1970, 1971, 1972, and 1973, and took first place in the Western Intercollegiate Conference in 1971 and 1973.

Maestro Ferenc Marki is survived by his family, including two sons, daughter, and grandchildren, and by many loyal fencing students who will never forget his intensity, courage, integrity, and who will be forever indebted to him for the broader value of the lessons he taught on the fencing strip.




-by Carl Sundholm
San Francisco State University
Varsity Fencing Team 1969-1973