NCAA fencing makes me drool

[shamshir]

I am constantly amazed by the quality of fencing I see at the college level in the US. Is it only because of those few schools (ND, PSU, SJU, Columbia, etc.) that offer fencing scholarships? Because I have noticed strong competitors from non-scholarship schools too, if I'm not remembering incorrectly.

We've got fencing at the university level here too, but it's pathetic by comparison. The biggest reason is that it is only at a provincial level: Ontario in this case. And the way it works is that the teams that win are almost always the ones that "happen" to have good, competitive fencers attending their respective universities.

I know even in the NCAA there are "college-level" fencers, meaning people who take up fencing in their freshman year. Generally those people are not very good, and it's the people who've already done really well at the NAC Open level that get the "fencing scholarships", am I right? Still, however, it seems that a lot of good fencers in the US actually fence for their universities.

In many cases over here fencers may choose to forego fencing for their school because there is really no benefit to it: coaching is almost always very poor, the season itself isn't a season: it's 2 meets and a championship, and the competition is generally so pathetic that it sometimes does more harm than good to your technique.

But in the US it seems that the field (the upper portion of it) is so good that even fencers like Smart, Lee, and the Ohio State people can do their best and still get eliminated before top 4.

A guy I knew from around here actually went to ND on a fencing scholarship, and it worked out horribly, in the sense that he made one or two NAC top 8's before he went, but the whole time he was there and for a short time afterwards, he never did that again. Korfanty packed up and moved to Oregon at the time so he was stuck with Bednarski or whatever his name is, as a coach. But barring unforeseen circumstances like that, if I had been fencing for long enough before age 18/19, I would have killed for the opportunity to fence for one of those schools.

Am I mistaken in assuming those schools also pay for equipment (and obviously travel to NCAA tournaments and such)? Just wondering if they have a clause that says "You must use OSU equipment at NCAA meets, but you may not use such equipment for any other purposes." I'm thinking that participation in one of those teams would include equipment as a fringe benefit, not to mention free coaching with, if you're lucky, with a top-flight international calibre instructor like Nazlymov or Korfanty or Gelman or something.

Just as a personal addendum, I went to the tournament at Penn State a few years back. I actually went two years in a row, but that's beside the point. I was really struck by what amazing facilities some schools have: PSU has a fencing salle with years of tradition behind it, built-in pistes, the works. And the tournament wasn't part of the NCAA but it was attended by much of the same people. It was incredible. Well run, taken really seriously, there were even spectators, and let me tell you, some of those fencing fangirls are HOT!

It really blew me away, and the difficulty level was quite impressive. Much fencing was done too, which makes it a long but both fun and useful day. None of that one round of pools and then DE crap. There were multiple rounds of pools, I remember being in one or two super pools near the end, and I even almost made the top 8 except that Crompton v 1.0 beat me (the sorest winner I've ever come across, and the hardest hitter too). Then in the top 8 they made a huge production with announcers and big tower lights and such, like an NAC final.

What I wouldn't give to be an American. Well that's not true at all, but I would gladly trade hockey for fencing any day.

[Aoife]

Sounds wonderful to watch. Does anybody know the state of UK University fencing? (needless to say, if the average skill drops considerably in three years time you can blame me )

Well run, taken really seriously, there were even spectators, and let me tell you, some of those fencing fangirls are HOT!

*gets interested*What about the fencing fanguys? Many cute ones there?

[Boo Boo]

Aoife

The fencing at British universities is very weak in comparison. There are some really good fencers who are at university (or about to go) in the UK, some of who choose not to fence in university matches or the BUSA individuals (results here http://www.britishfencing.com/busa2002.html). Of course the strength at universities changes from year to year, but you wont see the depth the you probably see at the US NCAAs.

Just about all highly competitive fencers train outside their university clubs (either in addition to their university club or instead of). This is why a lot of good fencers gravitate to universities around London (Foil/Epee/Sabre), Durham (mainly Sabre) and Bath (Pentathlon).

Having said that, there are some very good university coaches around, some good clubs and some scholarships/busaries to be had. Above all, University fencing can be a lot of fun for all levels of fencer.

You will have a lot of fun fencing at university :-)

Boo

[DHCJr]

There are always exceptions to every rule. I was involved with California State University, Long Beach and Fencing tied for the most All-Americans at the school with the Women's Basketball. Most of the fencers started their career there. That’s not to say we ever had a chance for number 1 team, because we never sent a full team, but we did make it into the top 10. You can become good quickly, but it is the exception more than the rule.

We had some good atheletes and a coach that knew how to get the most out of them. She liked to recruit for the Epee team out of her Volleyball classes.

[Zelda]

Aoife, I know the coach at the Uni of London also coaches at Salle Boston, so you cant go wrong there!

[Boo Boo]

Zelda, is it Tomek or Dave who coaches at the University?

Boo

[Lemberg]

Well, Shamshir, or anyone else, do you think there is any chance at all that a fencing league can be organized in Canada? If for instance representatives of some major Universities tried to lobby CIS (or whatever it's called), maybe we'd have a chance to organize at least 1-2 big tournamnets each year for both individual and team events? I go to UBC and tried talking to our athletic director (we have a couple of good junior epeeists and foilisists (not counting almost dormant and non-competitive university club) but the guy said that untill there's some kind of interest from above, not are they not planning to dish out $ for fencing but they can't even give us discounted rates for gym space...

[shamshir]

I know nothing about that sort of thing, I'm a terrible politician/organizer. All I know is people are pissed that the OUA is going into the crapper slowly but surely. Two universities pulled out of the league (of SIX universities) in the same year. I heard that people were trying to get the OUA to become CIS or CIS-ish status by including non-Ontario schools, but I don't know what came of it. I think on the CFF web page there's a bit of a blurb if you scroll down far enough, about the Western team being cut from varsity. There is an email contact there, I think -- and I think people at Western and Ottawa would be the ones who would be most gung-ho at trying to get fencing to be CIS.

It would certainly be great, but the thing I'm thinking is, how would teams from east and west ever meet? The schools would definitely not pay for it. They can foot the bill for renting vans, paying some gas, paying hotel/motel bills in Kingston, and so forth, but airfare is a different matter entirely.

How does the NCAA work? Do people only have to travel by plane once? I figured the qualification path to the championships would be regional.

[Zelda]

Boo, it was Dave. I dont know if he still is, but I am fairly sure he was when I was at LSHTM.

[Dave]

Dave coaches at Imperial, Kings, and QMW IIRC and probably some of the others as well.

[QTPie]

Nice guy and a very good coach.

[Zelda]

Thanks for that Dave! I wasnt sure where in UL Dave coached, I only knew him from Salle Boston.

[Dave]

Well I have got to the stage where I can recognise a foilist trained by Dave when they beat me.

[Zelda]

LOL! I knew I should have fenced BUSA last year!

[sah62]

I fenced at Penn State from 1980-1984. We had our own dedicated facilities for a men's team and a women's team, but the University funding situation and scholarship program were nothing like they are now. Back then we were quite worried that the program might be eliminated when we underwent a coaching change (Mac Garret to Emik Kaidanov) between the 1982 and 1983 seasons. We depended on donations to make up the difference between what the University provided and what we needed.

The University took care of all equipment and travel to team-oriented events. We were also allowed to use the equipment in other events, but travel to things like the AFLA/USFA nationals was on our own nickel. I think the team covers NAC travel these days because a good number of the fencers attend the NAC events.

Most of the team had previous fencing experience before coming to the team (I started in junior high school on Long Island), but we did have some walk-ons who started fencing in University PE classes. One such fencer was named an All-American in saber 1984!

All in all, my four years there were one of the best experiences of my life.

[a517dogg]

I currently fence for brown. we take walkons... we also have two all americans on our team (one is graduating in may unfortunately). ncaa fencing is very different from usfa fencing, it's pretty hard to get used to but once you do it's fun. it's also strange fencing teams like vassar and st. johns right next to each other.

[jusplainfencing]

NCAA fencing makes me drool

you should have that checked that sounds serious......lol

[SJB]

Shamsir,Lemberg:

One thing to consider in the NCAA versus the CIS is that the NCAA has bags and bags of money whereas the CIS is well... the CIS.
I think part of the reason the NCAA level is so high is two-fold, one they have great coaches and good salaries for attracting said coaches.
Also, in the past few years I've noticed that the US Universities are recruiting Euro-fencers. In foil for example, Nitai Kfir is Israeli, Ozren Debic is Croatian, Nico Jaspers and Florian Reichling are German, and Panchan is Thai.
Yes yes Thailand and Israel aren't Europe, international fencers sorry.
I think that the school's results, and someone correct me if I'm wrong, are directly tied to their program funding thus the recruitment of non-American fencers, as well as the top-notch coaches.
As for adding fencing to the CIS, and this is the part that really bugs me, the CIS recives more funding based on how many sports it has. So if they were to add fencing outside of Ontario and the two token Quebec Univeristies they'd be able to fund it too. Gah.
For the east-west meets something could easily be done like have a Westerns/Easterns and the have the top four schools from each region face off in a CIS Nationals and just alterante the location like how the CFF used to do the Nationals, ex. one year west, one year east.
And Shamsir you are so right about the level, we have a couple of varsity fencers from Western who just joined our club, they'd never heard of our fencers or our coach or anything outside of the Varsity circuit.
Rest assured we taught them a lesson.

[Lemberg]

Wow SJB, that would be awesome...... A new project for the summertime perhaps mental note: Bug CIS

[pammie003]

shamshir,
it all sounds great, more teams, more competiton, etc., but my team can barely afford to compete in OUAs! (I'm a Trent fencer.) Let's keep trying and hoping though. This American varsity system seems pretty good to me too.