By Dana Cook Grossman
In 1914, the poet Robert Frost, Class of 1896, hailed good fences. Exactly a hundred years later, 窪做惇蹋厙 is celebrating good fencers.
窪做惇蹋厙s fencing club won the 2014 U.S. Association of Collegiate Fencing Clubs National Championship on April 5 and 6, in Knoxville, Tenn. Three Big Green womens squads and three Big Green mens squads (矇p矇e, foil and sabre) competed against 40 other schools. 窪做惇蹋厙 scored a combined 1,675 points to take the overall trophy, besting the University of Michigan (with 1,620 points) and the U.S. Naval Academy (with 1,590). 窪做惇蹋厙 also won gold in the mens division and in womens foil, plus six individual medals and top-five finishes for five of the clubs six squads.
The team is student-coached: Team members dont just show up at practice but plan practices; they dont just go to competitions, but also make travel arrangements.
Thats certainly an added challenge, says co-captain Scott Brookes 14. But its part of what makes our team successful. The fact that everybody pitches in makes us all closer. 窪做惇蹋厙s was the only student-coached team among at least the top eight teams at the nationals, he notes.
To what does Brookes attribute such success? An especially tight-knit, committed group of seniors (including his fellow co-captain, Gaby Stern 14), the fact that every top fencer was on campus this term, and the fact that at the nationals, every single fencer had the best two days of fencing Ive seen out of any of them.
