2004 Collegiate Club Nationals

[oiuyt]

Hi all,
After a very successful premiere last April, most of the details for this season's Collegiate Club Nationals have now been set. Renamed from the National Collegiate Club Fencing Championships (NCCFC) to the USA Collegiate Fencing Club Championships (USACFC Championships), we are expecting fairly high growth in the number of participating schools.

For those who are unaware, there are a couple of previous threads on this topic, both from the time period leading up to the first event and discussing the results last April. The first championships were held at the University of Florida and included 18 schools. The format involved each school fielding a team of 3 fencers in each of the 6 weapons. Each squad of three fenced against squads from each opposing school with each fencer fencing 1 bout ("A" fencer vs. "A" fencer, "B" vs "B", "C" vs "C"). This is the same as the IFA and NIWFA format for those familiar with either of those groups. The total number of victories determined the winners. Last year's champions were UMass and Northwestern (co-champions) for the men and University of Florida for the women.

This year the event will be hosted by the University of New Hampshire. We expect the numbers will likely be in the 25-30 school range including many new schools which have already expressed an interest in attending. In order to participate the members of the team must be enrolled as students at the college or university (duh). A school can participate as long as it does not have a varsity fencing program in that gender (ie Northwestern men can fence, the club team at Penn State cannot). Partial teams are allowed.

The following is an email recently sent out by Bruce Capin (Florida coach and President of the association) to last year's participants (slight editing for format):

Dear Everyone:

Here is the first email concerning information for the 2004 USA Collegiate Fencing Club Championships (USACFC), formally known as the National Collegiate Club Fencing Championships (NCCFC). This email is being sent to all 2003 participants who have confirmed intention to participate in 2004, plus all new participants and clubs showing interest/requesting more information. My telephone numbers are 352-284- 3179 and 386-462-9688. Feel free to contact me if you'd like to speak about anything concerning the event OR email Jon Moss at the UNH at fezonh@comcast.net.

WHAT: USACFC Championships
WHERE: University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH
CONTACTS: Listed Above (Capin and/or Moss)
FORMAT: TBA, shortly after the deadline for entries, 02/15/04
EVENTS: Team matches (3 fencers per squad, 3 bouts in each weapon, all teams fence each other). This is the NIWFA format. Individual final of 9 (1 pool). Check the website from more details. Do a google search and type in either NCCFA or USACFC.

NOTE: IF this format needs to be modified in any way because of a significant increase in the size of the field of teams, we will do so and make an announcement by the end of FEB. Anticipate NO CHANGE until/unless otherwise specified.

Annual Dues: In order to help run the competition and organization, EACH institution is REQUIRED to pay annual dues by a deadline:

DUES: $ 50 per institution per year DEADLINE: DEC 15TH, 2003
$ 75 per institution per year IF PAID BY JAN 15TH, 2004
$ 100 per insitution per year IF PAID BY FEB 15TH, 2004 WITH THE ENTRY FEE

DUES CAN BE SENT NOW TO: Jon Moss at U of NH. Please contact him at fezonh@comcast.net. Jon is the treasurer for the USACFC.
JON, WOULD YOU PLEASE SEND OUT THE ADDRESS AND WHO TO MAKE THE CHECK OUT TO OR I CAN SEND OUT THE ADDRESS IN ONE LARGE EMAIL. ALSO WHO TO MAKE THE CHECK OUT TO.

ENTRY FORMS WILL BE SENT OUT OR IF POSSIBLE MADE AVAILABLE ON LINE ON THE WEBSITE BY THE BEGINNING OF THE SPRING SEMESTER. SHOULD THAT ESTIMATED TIME CHANGE, YOU WILL ALL BE INFORMED. ALL INFORMATION CONCERNING THE COMPETITION AND WHERE TO SEND ENTRIES WILL BE INCLUDED AT THAT TIME. BELOW ARE THE ENTRY FEES FOR 2004.

$ 300 IF an institution is fielding only (1) gender to the championships. This amount is required REGARDLESS of whether the gender is a full team or not. There is NO decrease in the fee because a team has only 1 or 2 of 3 weapons.

$ 450 IF an institution is fielding both a men's and women's team REGARDLESS OF WHETHER THE TEAMS ARE FULL OR NOT.

THE ENTRY DEADLINE IS FEB 15TH. AN ADDRESS TO SEND THE CHECK TO WILL BE FORTHCOMING.

AS OF NOW, THE ESTIMATION OF TEAMS IS: 25 - 30 (UP FROM 18 IN 2003). BELOW IS AN UPDATED LIST FYI:

Army
Boston U
Clemson
Cornell (men)
Dartmouth
Florida
Maryland
Michigan
Michigan State
New Hampshire
Northwestern (men)
Oglethorpe College
Purdue
Smith College (women)
SUNY Stoneybrook
Temple (men)
Texas
Texas A & M
UCLA
UMASS
U of San Fran
Vanderbilt
Vermont
Virginia
VA Tech
Wash and Lee
Wisconsin

Any questions. Let me know. We would love to see more southwest and west coast schools. This year's championships are bigger and provide a chance for all teams to face opponents they have never seen before in competition. I hope all schools are excited about attending and doing what is needed to get to NH. Thanks and hope to hear from many of you soon.

Sincerely,

Bruce Capin, President

If people have questions, contact information for both Bruce Capin and Jon Moss is included in the letter above. I also (obviously) check fencing.net frequently and can be reached either by PM or by posting in this (or similar) thread(s).

-Brad Baker
Head Coach
UMass Fencing

[reawl]

Also you can follow the USACFC on our new (and still growing) website at http://www.usacfc.org.

Will Read
USACFC Historian

[swordsen]

I wonder if my old univeristy club will bother this year after they ditched last year for no good d**mn reason at all.

[Gibo]

William and Mary might be interested, have to check. It's a long trip from Virginia to New Hampshire though. We're having a good year in MACFA (MidAtlantic Conference), 7-0 so far. Out of that list, we've fenced UVA, VA Tech, and Cornell to this point. In March we'll be fencing Army (along with a bunch of others, Army is just the only one on the list). It would be interesting to see how we stack up against non-MACFA teams.