NCAA Fencing Championships (1941 to 2019)
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
NCAA Fencing Championships (1941 to 2019) In 1939, several schools submitted a request to the NCAA that they hold a national championship for men’s fencing. The NCAA approved this request in December of 1940. The NCAA has held championships in fencing every year since 1941 except for the four years 1943‐46 during World War II and its reconstruction. The first championships were held on one day, March 29, on five pistes at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. Seventy‐six men from 19 schools fenced from 9am to 11pm to determine the three individual champions. Participation was somewhat weakened by the fact that the schools in the northeast were participating in the Intercollegiate Fencing Association championships (which had been the de facto national championships for fencing) at Princeton on the same day. From 1941 through 1981, the championships were limited to men’s fencing events and four championships were contested: men’s epee individual, men’s foil individual, men’s sabre individual, and team (i.e., men’s three‐weapon). For these early championships, there were no qualifying competitions. From 1941 to 1947, each school could enter two fencers in each weapon, from 1948 to 1983 one fencer, and from 1984 to present two fencers. Until 1976 each school paid the entire expenses of their fencers attending the championships. Then the NCAA started paying some of the expenses of the fencers attending but also implemented restrictions on the total number of entries, first to 40 in each weapon and then down to 24. Since fencers now had to qualify for the Championships, many schools found out that they could no longer satisfy the qualification standards to send fencers. In the early Championships, a fencer was allowed to compete in more than one weapon. Andre Deladrier of St. John’s (NY) won the sabre championship in 1942 and also fenced in the epee and foil events that year finishing second in both. (He fenced 41 bouts in one day winning 28 of them.) Abraham Balk of NYU won both the epee and the foil championships in 1947. Two years after that, fencers were restricted to compete in only one weapon during one Championship. Since then, the only fencers to win the individual championship in more than one weapon have been Ben Atkins of Columbia/Barnard who won the foil in 1991 and the epee in 1993 and Felicia Zimmerman of Stanford who won the foil in 1998 and the epee in 1999. There have been cases of fencers transferring schools and representing different schools at different championships. Two recent examples are Daniel Cohen who represented Duke in men’s foil in 2009 finishing 6th and then represented Air Force in the same weapon in 2011 finishing 3rd. Brent Kelly represented Columbia in men’s epee in 2008 finishing 21st and then represented Notre Dame in the same weapon in 2011 finishing 16th. During most years, the championships were run as a complete round robin in each weapon with the champion decided by whoever had the most number of victories at the end of the round robin. If two or more fencers had the same number of victories, first place was decided by a fence‐off while all Prepared by George Masin 3/24/2019 remaining places were recorded as ties or by using touch indicators to resolve ties. In most years, the team championship was decided by adding to total number of victories a school had in all three weapons, not counting any fence‐off victories, though some years (e.g., 1966, 1990‐1997) other scoring systems were used and, since 2013, touch indicators are used to break all ties. For the 1954‐5 collegiate fencing season including the 1955 NCAA Championships, the NCAA coaches adopted a “no‐foul” rule that had been successfully used by the Big Ten fencing schools for the previous four years. At that point, both foil and sabre were being fenced non‐electrical with side judges used to determine whether touches had landed and whether they were on‐target or off‐target (i.e., foul). The “no‐foul” rule ignored off‐target touches. They neither caused the fencing action to be halted nor did they prevent a valid touch in a subsequent action from being scored. At the end of the 1955 Championships, a survey was made to determine its success. The coaches and fencers were strongly in favor of continuing to use the “no‐foul” rule for the following season or even permanently. The fencing officials were mostly opposed to the rule, mainly because they had trouble adjusting between using it during collegiate competitions while not using it during non‐collegiate competitions. They did, however, think that the rule made it easier for spectators to follow the action and easier for the referees to agree on the validity of awarding touches. By this time, the electrical scoring machines had been improved to eliminate early problems and the FIE announced that they would not be adopting a “no‐foul” rule. US Fencing therefore decided that they would also not adopt a “no‐foul” rule. Since this would mean that the schools would have to buy special fencing machines that did not register off‐target touches and because the fencing officials did not want to officiate at different competitions using such radically different rules, the experiment with the “no‐ foul” rule was ended. Ironically, when sabre was finally electrified in 1988, it was found difficult to show off‐target sabre hits on the fencing machines and so sabre fencing then adopted the “no‐foul” rule, some thirty years after collegiate fencing had proved that it was feasible. In 1966, the Ivy League schools boycotted the NCAA championships in all sports because of a dispute about academic standards. The NCAA fencing championships that year used a format not used in any of the other championships. The team championship was determined on the last day among the 27 schools that had brought a fencer in each of the 3 weapons. First the schools were seeded into four groups of six or seven schools. The schools fenced the other schools in their group and the four highest finishing schools in each group advanced to a double‐elimination direct elimination. Schools that did not promote out of the first round or did not bring 3 fencers were not included in the NCAA’s official team championship standings. For schools in the NCAA’s official team standings, I show their record in the preliminary groups and then their record in the double direct elimination. For the schools that did not promote, I show them as tied for 17th place with their records in the preliminary groups. For schools that participated in the individual events but not in the team event, I show them as “NP” (not participating) in the team results. In 1977, New York University and Notre Dame finished in a tie for first place with 114 victories each. Under the rules then in place, the two schools should have been declared co‐champions. Hugo Castello, Prepared by George Masin 3/24/2019 the NYU coach, and Mike DeCicco, the Notre Dame coach, went together to the bout committee and said that they didn’t want a co‐championship. Instead they proposed that their sabre, foil, and epee fencers fence each other in that order and whichever school won two of the three bouts would be the champion and the other school would be second. Since the coaches were in agreement, the bout committee waived the rules and allowed the fence‐off. Notre Dame won the first two bouts (making the third bout unnecessary) and was declared the sole team champion. Beginning in 1982, two women’s NCAA championships were contested: women’s foil individual and women’s team. The first two women’s NCAA championships were held at a different venue than the men’s championships in those years. Starting in 1984, the two championships were hosted by the same school. The inclusion of women’s fencing meant that there were two overall team championships: a men’s team which was based on the combined results in the 3 weapons and a women’s team which was based on just foil results. In 1990, the single men’s 3‐weapon team championship was changed into three team championships, one for each weapon, and one combined team championships was awarded for the best combined men’s and women’s results. In addition to these team championships, individual championships were also held. For schools that participated in the individual events but not in the team event, I show them as “NP” (not participating) in the team results. In 1995, women’s epee was added to the championships and the four weapon‐specific team championships were dropped leaving only the combined team championship which now included the women’s epee results. The format returned to individual events with the team championship determined by the individual results. Beginning in 2000 a women’s sabre individual championship was added and those results were included in the combined team championship. The NCAA fencing championships has thus consisted in its current format of six individual championships and one combined team championship since 2000. Of the twelve different types of national championships that the NCAA has awarded in fencing, 34 schools have won at least one of them. The greatest number of NCAA fencing championships have been won by Columbia/Barnard with 60, followed by Penn State with 52, and Notre Dame with 48. The top three schools that have won the most of each type of championship are: Men’s Epee Individual (75 championships) – New York University (10), Columbia/Barnard, St.