College Fencing

[Neinteen]

Club or league, obviously it's a big difference, but should it really be considered?

A lot of the colleges I'm looking at and visiting have club programs, but they aren't necessarily in the Collegiate league. Is club fencing any good? Is it like supported and cared about if it's not competitive and helping the school make more money?

I don't exactly plan on picking a college based on whether it has competitive fencing or not, but it can be added to the scale when I compare two colleges.

Just wondering. I'm sure someone here is in a college club, is it cool and active?

[Inquartata]

It depends on your definitions of "good", "supported" and "cool".

I fence at a college club ( though obviously I am not on the team ). It is not NCAA, but the team does go to a lot of intercollegiate meets, expenses paid, and there are some scholarship funds available through a foundation. Also some things like camps and non-collegiate tournaments are reimbursed on a case-by-case basis.

I think that our practice facility has a no-gibbon policy, though.

[Neinteen]

It depends on your definitions of "good", "supported" and "cool".

I fence at a college club ( though obviously I am not on the team ). It is not NCAA, but the team does go to a lot of intercollegiate meets, expenses paid, and there are some scholarship funds available through a foundation. Also some things like camps and non-collegiate tournaments are reimbursed on a case-by-case basis.

I think that our practice facility has a no-gibbon policy, though.

I mean does it have people that aren't like you at them?

So clubs go to meets? That's cool. Thanks for the info, you actually helped me

It sounds really good, so by no means should club fencing change my mind in the face of collegiate league fencing.

Thanks.

[TooLoftheDeviL]

Not all college clubs were created equal.

[kuroutesshin]

Club fencing has a tendency to fluctuate, depending on many factors. It might help to ask these questions:

1. Is it student-run, or is there a head coach?

Student-run programs have a tendency to have up and down periods where crackerjack administrators/fencers will come in and run/organize/light fires under the group for four-five years, and then leave. Clubs who have a coach to run the program year after year are usually more stable and consistent, depending on the coach.

2. Is it university-supported, or is it student-funded?

Some club programs are given at least minor university funds; allocated to clubs or athletic programs. Others rely entirely on membership dues and co-pays, as well as donations, to stay on their feet. In conjunction with a student-run club, the second type can be very shaky, as it depends entirely on the ability of the members to get funds; knowing how busy (and poor) college students are it can be a chore.

3. Are they a recreational club, a competitive club, or a historical/classical fencing group?

Many colleges have either a recreational fencing club for people to learn how to fence and do it for fun, but many also have a club team that competes on the collegiate ciruit in dual meets or invitationals. In fact, if I'm not mistaken NCAA fencers are required to spend a certain amount of time fencing club schools (this may not be the case; I've heard it said...). In the case of schools like Michigan State, University of Michigan, Purdue, and Indiana University (the list goes on), the schools had a varisty program at one time, and retain the competitive nature by fencing in invitationals. Many are run by students, but a few (UM, Florida, and the Northwestern Men's) have a coaching staff.

Historical fencing groups may be the only type at some schools-but there's no reason to not approach and ask if any are interested in sport-fencing as well as their classical style.

4. USFA of Collegiate?

Does the school compete heavily in USFA individual events, or do they compete mostly, if not exclusively, in collegiate circuit events? Many do both.

I fence for MSU, and these are the sort of questions I've learned to ask based on my experience. We're a club largely run by students (we have a coach, but he's a teacher and not an administrator). We're funded entirely by our members and alumni donations. Since our varisty status was taken in '97, we have focused almost exclusively on competing in collegiate circuits, although we are a registered USFA club that hosts a few tournaments each year, and have fielded some succesful USFA fencers.

The final question you should ask yourself is- "Is the school right for me, and will the requirements of fencing mesh nicely with my program of study?"

Hope that helps. It definitely doesn't cover all the bases, but those are just the situations I've learned to recognize after being in and helping to run a collegiate club.

[Neinteen]

It does help, thanks! I'm going to try and look into that. Would they have that posted somewhere? or would I have to ask like admin's office?

I'd rep the posters in this thread, but repping Inquartata is illegal. So eh.

[bigdawg2121]

FWIW there's no requirement that NCAA fencers fence club fencers or club schools that I'm aware of although almost all of them do it anyway.

[oiuyt]

In fact, if I'm not mistaken NCAA fencers are required to spend a certain amount of time fencing club schools (this may not be the case; I've heard it said...).

You are mistaken.

I've competed on an NCAA varsity team (Div III), competed on a collegiate club program, coached a collegiate club program, advise a collegiate club program, and currently coach a NCAA varsity program (Div I), so have a bit of perspective on the differences.

A lot of what's already been said here is good. Every school is different. Club programs are more heterogeneous than varsity programs (what Nein appears to be calling "league"). You really need to talk to people actually in the clubs to get a good sense of what they offer, school administrators, especially those not directly involved, are extraordinarily likely not to have correct information.

Many programs don't have a good idea of how many different ways of doing things there really are. They assume that the way they do things is how all schools do things. Or all schools, except for those one or two halfway across the country that "we've heard somehow got things set up differently." Which makes getting useful information difficult. Many student-athletes don't even know how the other programs differ from theirs, so can't explain what those differences are, and whether their program is doing things better or worse.

There are good club programs that are student-run. There are good club programs that are coach-run. There are good club programs that are some hybrid. And there are bad club programs of each of the above.

Institutional support varies from $0/year to $10,000+/year. Inq's example is yet different, where there's a club with VERY significant non-institutional funding.

Some clubs are a half-dozen individuals who get together for an hour or two most Sundays and bout each other dry. Others belong to collegiate leagues and fence a regular schedule of 25-30 dual meets plus various championship events. Some compete exclusively in USFA competition, while others compete exclusively in collegiate events and don't have a single USFA member in the club. Some routinely sent significant numbers of people to NACs. And, again, every possible variation inbetween.

-B

[seak]

You have to ask the clubs, just about any competitive club will have a website. From their you can email the officers to get answers to whatever questions you want.

A good starting point if you want competitive clubs is to look at the collegiate club fencing website: http://www.usacfc.org/. Most of the more organized and competitive clubs in the south, midwest, and east coast fence in it. Plus some west coast teams.

And repping Inq isn't illegal, just heavily frowned upon

[remistress]

There is a third option to consider as well. You could pick a college you want to go to and look to see if there is a seperately run club somewhere nearby said college.

I know that while I was in college I both attended the in school club and a local nearby competitive club. I know that for our college club we were a rec. club with some competitive members. Why? Fencing takes a LOT of money and time and for a number of reasons people either. If you personally are looking to compete I'd recommend a school with either a local NCAA program (they're geared for competition plain and simple) or an actively participating rec. club with a local competitive club that you can practice at during the week.

Hope that helps!

[bunbury]

Good club, student-run: Clemson University
Horrible club, coach-run: University of South Carolina

[mrbiggs]

Not all college clubs were created equal.

This cannot be said enough. College clubs vary from having one guy who might have taken a beginner class once running the whole thing to well-organized and run teams who are competitive with (and sometimes even better than) the weaker varsity teams.

Some good advice has been given, but here's more:

1. It's extremely difficult to tell how good a fencing club is just by reading their media or even talking to the coach or other fencers. They want their club to sound good. Honestly, your best bet is to find a college fencer who fences nearby and ask about how good the team is. If their response is "____ has a team!?" then that's an answer as well.

A less effective, but better than nothing, method is to try to find a roster online of the team and then look them up on askfred. Unfortunately, this doesn't work for teams if most of their members rarely or never compete, which is fairly common for college fencers. I tried to do this with a few of the other club teams before USACFCs and failed fairly thoroughly.

2. Find out how many clubs there are in the area which you could fence at. I'm fortunate to live in an area where there are a very large number of clubs in the area, several easily accessible for public transportation. This is great because I can go to tournaments for experience, and fence people who are not my teammates. It's also helpful to have clubs around if your teammates aren't very good, though I am not in that position by any means.

3. It was mentioned before you should look at USACFCs. This is a good guide, but don't treat it as gospel. There are quite a few excellent club teams which don't attend, or attend sporadically, often due to limited funds. Also, keep in mind that USACFCs are fairly competitive and a team that didn't do very well there isn't necessarily a really bad club. However, if a team did well there, that means they have some very good fencers.

4. You seemed to be using "league" to mean varsity, but IMO you absolutely, 100%, want to go to a club that fences in the league (in other words, there are meets against other schools, I'm not using it in a way that has anything to do with NCAA.) For me, at least, it's not very fun to just show up at the gym every week to fence the same people over and over without the chance for outside competition. If you just want to kind of fence around do whatever, but if you're looking for competition, the local collegiate league is a great place to fence other people.

5. Varsity programs get (relatively) consistent coaching, funding, and space, they compete against better schools more often, and are nearly always stronger than club teams. If you want to get really good at fencing, a varsity team is almost better than a club team.

If memory serves me right you're an E, which means that a strong club team will be able to develop your fencing fairly extensively.

[AndrewH]

Being from NJ, you should consider Rutgers. Since we lost varsity status last year, we established a coach-run club that's been successful in competition against other clubs and varsity teams. We still run it as much like a varsity program as we can, we had 2 3 hour practices a week last year and I hear they're going to have 3 practices a week next year. Of course, it's not required you be there all the time, every time.

We also have meets against clubs and varsity schools, plus we go to the Penn State Open, Temple Open and USACFC nationals. So there's no lack of opportunity for competition- of course, if you don't want to travel or compete, you don't have to, you can just show up and fence whenever you want.

As far as budget goes, the school has been really great about providing what we need for travel and equipment. So no worries there.

PM me if Rutgers is on your list, and I can give you more info.

[Neinteen]

Being from NJ, you should consider Rutgers. Since we lost varsity status last year, we established a coach-run club that's been successful in competition against other clubs and varsity teams. We still run it as much like a varsity program as we can, we had 2 3 hour practices a week last year and I hear they're going to have 3 practices a week next year. Of course, it's not required you be there all the time, every time.

Thanks for the info! Idk, depends on what my parents want as far as in/out of state, but I think I'm studying out of state.

District Champ... what? I stalk you better than you can fear.

[KD5MDK]

4. You seemed to be using "league" to mean varsity, but IMO you absolutely, 100%, want to go to a club that fences in the league (in other words, there are meets against other schools, I'm not using it in a way that has anything to do with NCAA.) For me, at least, it's not very fun to just show up at the gym every week to fence the same people over and over without the chance for outside competition. If you just want to kind of fence around do whatever, but if you're looking for competition, the local collegiate league is a great place to fence other people.

However, clubs that participate strongly in USFA competition wouldn't necessarily be that way, and can be a much cheaper way to develop yourself into a decent fencer. UT hasn't produced any As or Bs that I can think of, but a fair number of fencers developed into Cs there in all three weapons, and that's a pretty decent accomplishment for a college club in my opinion. The meets against other schools were absolute jokes with self directed everything, no rulebook present, etc. However, strong (6-18) contingents would travel to USFA tournaments at least once a month, if not every other week, when I was there.

[Neinteen]

I'm just wondering but how/why do schools gain/lose varsity? like isn't just an option? they lose it or do they just choose to drop it?

[KD5MDK]

They choose to drop it. They're not kicked out like English Soccer Teams.

[Neinteen]

They choose to drop it. They're not kicked out like English Soccer Teams.

Why? I mean high schools have them.. surely colleges can afford it?

[Inquartata]

The money is not unlimited. There are often Title IX concerns as well. And sometimes it's just the personal preferences of the AD.

[Shi no Tenshi]

My college does not give any money to the fencing club there; we are looking into alternative methods of acquiring extra funds. Basically, they give us a place to store our gear, practice, and have tournaments as needed. We fence the colleges and a few others in our division (basically Washington State, Idaho State, Central Washington, Spokane, and University of Montana, with a few others thrown in). We tend to have approximately 8-10 tournaments a year, plus divisionals. In addition to that, we go to Sectionals and maybe some of Seattle's tourneys if we can make it.

All of our travel is paid for out of our pocket. On occasion, depending on how many are going, the club will pay for gas/entry fees with it's own money, which we raise by giving classes to the community and membership dues. We also give fencing demonstrations for various organizations (I and a few others performed with a local ballet organization recently) to raise money and get more awareness to our club.

We are coached by 3 people of varying experience, who all love the sport and are very open minded to new techniques; they love learning new things. One of them has been fencing sabre for over 40 years, another fencing foil/epee for 20, and the 3rd foil/epee for about 15-20. They love the sport, and love teaching it to new people; these are the things that really keep our club going.

Our club has taken a big hit from the university delisting us as a class, so our membership has plummeted recently. We have also lost 3 of our regulars; I am now the president(has to be a student) and I will have only fenced 2 years this fall. Still, we manage to dominate our division, just because of the passion of our leaders.

Guess the point I'm trying to make is this: it seems to me that beyond all else, the adoration of the sport by your leaders is what makes a club successful. Money, tournaments, etc all can help, but if you don't have leadership that cares to push everybody to a higher level, it just gets old.