Nikki Franke began her illustrious fencing career her last year in high school; she really enjoyed the combative mental aspect of it and threw herself in wholeheartedly. She attended Brooklyn College and trained with Denise O’Connor. Eventually the two became Olympic teammates. Desirous of a graduate degree, she went to Temple University to serve as the TA of fencing thanks to prodding from another great American fencer: Sharon Everson; eventually she became the Head Coach there. She holds many titles and honors; perhaps the greatest one being Fencing Legend with a capital “F” and “L”. Listen as Dr. Franke explains the need for more fencing exposure for inner city youth. She’ll explain how training for the Olympics back then differed from today. You’ll hear what she looks for in a recruit and her vision for a college-level fencing team. She’ll also give advice on how an athlete should choose which college to attend. And she’ll regale you with stories from driving through the blizzard at the Richmond NAC with her Team as well as tell you their favorite part about traveling together. This is an interview you do not want to miss! 

SabreCoachKate podcast

Episode 26: Nikki Franke

Back in September of 2018, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Stacey Johnson. Then life got in the way (mostly moving to our new club space) and I haven’t had a chance to edit it until now. I had forgotten just how much insight Ms. Johnson shared, not just about fencing but about perseverance and teamwork, skills that she used to great effect in both her professional and athletic endeavors.   Ms. Johnson started her athletic career on the back of a horse, then got involved in fencing at the age of 13 when the Pentathletes at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio asked her to attend a tournament and help keep time and score. For three solid months she was terrible at fencing until the fateful day her coach exasperatedly switched the foil to her left hand….less than four years later she made the Junior World Team. You’ll hear her talk about what it was like to be on the Olympic Team the year President Carter boycotted the Games.   She was very successful in her own fencing career but then used it as a springboard to promote Women’s Sabre and equal access for women and minorities. She became the first woman to complete a four-year term as President of US Fencing and was one of the first women on the Fencing Officials Commission. She’ll also talk about her role in getting Women’s Sabre into the Olympics, the initial fallout from it, and the eventual success of ALL weapons that stemmed from those medals earned in Athens.   This is a very interesting interview with a very interesting woman: fencer, Valencia College President, San Jose State alum, Olympian, teammate, and advocate. Enjoy!

Episode 25: Stacey Johnson

Terrence Lasker was one of your run-of-the-mill teenagers who wanted a job working with computers someday. When a Magnet high school opened in Kansas City, he jumped at the chance to study in their state-of-the-art computer science program. What he didn’t expect was turning that passion into a lifelong love of fencing. After being wooed by the promise of travel to international competitions and thanks to their focus on Olympic sports, Terrence learned from one of the greatest Sabre coaches of all time: Vladimir Nazlymov.   Under Nazlymov’s guidance and with the help of teammates such as Jeremy Summers, Terrence became a 5-time national champion, 4-time member of the U.S. National Team and was first alternate for the U.S. Olympic Fencing Team in 1996.  He was the assistant fencing coach at Ohio State from 2003-2008 and has been coaching at Nellya Fencers since 2008.   Tune in today to hear the amazing story of a normal, nerdy teenager who became one of Sabre fencing’s top athletes and coaches.

Episode 24: Terrence Lasker

Cody Mattern started fencing at age 15 after, believe it or not, an argument with his brother. After only training for two years he became the Junior National Epee Champion, a feat he repeated the following year. He competed at the 2004 Summer Olympics, placing 22nd in Individual and 6th in Team. Next, Cody took part in the US Army’s World Class Athlete Program from 2005 to 2012; that final year he was part of the Men’s Epee Team that won the World Championships. After all these competitive successes, Cody retired to coach epee full time at the Northwest Fencing Center in Beaverton, Oregon. Tune in today to hear of Cody’s journey from teenaged fencing wonder to coach, USAFencing Board Vice President, and Vice Chair of the USOC Athletes Advisory Council.

Episode 23: Cody Mattern

Lisa Campi Sapery is a woman who has filled pretty much every possible role in our sport: elite college athlete, coach, international referee, referee trainer, club owner, and published author. She is known as the Fencing Referee in various places online, including her YouTube channel, Fencing.net, and Facebook. She started fencing when her sister Barb thought the guy at the recruiting table was cute...and the rest is history. Tune in today to hear more about this history, a life story you will find both inspirational and uplifting.   As a side note, if you’re interested in her scouting journals, they are available on Amazon and from several fencing vendors.

Episode 22: Lisa Campi-Sapery

Today’s episode is the story of David Sach, a man who has represented fencing on two continents, and who you probably know best as the Head Assigner of Sabre at most NACs. You know: the guy with the accent at the big table in the middle of the venue. You just had no idea who he really is!   David holds elite status in the fencing trifecta of competitor, coach, and referee. As a fencer, he won a number of cadet, junior, and senior National titles including a run of 5 back to back Junior National Championships, 2 silver individual medals and a team Gold at the Commonwealth Games. As a coach, he served as a British Fencing World Class Performance Pathway Sabre coach and has helped produce several national champions, World Cup medalists, a Cadet World Champion, and Olympians. And as a referee, he has earned an FIE licence which allowed him to work a couple of Senior World Championships and the 2008 Olympics.   He is currently the Director of Operations at Boston Fencing Club, one of the oldest in the country, and the Head Fencing Coach at Tufts University.   Tune in today to hear him tell you stories about his international life as an athlete, coach, and referee.

Episode 21: David Sach

David Sierra started fencing at Texas A&M when he needed a PE credit and didn’t want to sign up for Advanced Weightlifting or Aerobic Power-walking. Since then, he has worked his way up the referee ranks and is currently the co-owner of Cutting Edge Fencing Center, a Sabre-only club, near Fort Worth, Texas. Listen as he describes what the fencing world was like back when he started in the 90s and the changes he has helped bring to our sport as both a tournament organizer and a member of the US Fencing Board of Directors. He’ll also talk about what it’s like to start your own fencing club and offers advice to anyone looking to do the same. Important note: yes, David is my beloved husband. We both decided to pursue this interview from an impersonal, impartial journalistic perspective as much as possible and not as a married couple. This is HIS story, not ours. Tune in today to hear what David Sierra, an up and coming Sabre coach, club owner, and referee has to say about the history and the future of fencing. 

Episode 20: David Sierra

Maureen Griffin decided to start fencing foil at age 14 when she quit the swim team and her dad told her she had 24 hours to find a new sport. Four years later she came to the US on a fencing scholarship at the University of Wisconsin. After her retirement from fencing in 1988, she came back two years later as an epée fencer, eventually earning a spot on the Canadian National Team. Maureen moved to the west coast in 1995 because it was an epée hotspot and seriously focused on her training in San Francisco. That led to a Bronze medal that year in Team Women’s Epée at the PanAmerican Games. She lost her berth at the Olympic Games in 1996 by a very small margin and talks about how she overcame that disappointment. Maureen’s transition to coaching started in foil, moved to epée, and culminated with a trip to Hungary to study under legendary Laszlo Szabo. She served as the Junior Women’s Epée Coach from 2008-2013. Maureen has been the owner of Golden Gate Fencing Club in San Francisco for 20 years. She works tirelessly to build a positive team culture there and encourages a healthy competitive environment amongst the athletes. During this interview you’ll hear how she does that, as well as her views on the difference between losing and being beaten on the fencing strip. Tune in today to hear the fencing and coaching career of an extraordinary woman: Maureen Griffin.

Episode 19: Maureen Griffin

Damien Lehfeldt currently coaches epée at the Richmond Fencing Club. His fencing career began when he was a kid, continued through his years at Brandeis, led him to the Maccabi Games and a berth on the DC Fencers Club epee squad that took gold at the 2012 North American Cup, until one fateful day it occurred to him that he loved coaching more than competing. His website, www.TheFencingCoach.com, earned an award as one of the Top 50 Fencing Blogs at the beginning of 2018. He and his writing team post articles on a variety of topics, ranging from the role of women in fencing to a very personal entry about his recovery from a severe fencing injury. Damien can often be found on Facebook, fencing.net, Reddit, and other forums leading wide-ranging discussions about contemporary societal issues. Tune in today to listen to one of the thought-leaders of our sport talk about his experiences as a competitive fencer, Olympic epée Coach, blogger, and die-hard Tampa Bay Buccaneers fan: Damien Lehfeldt. 

Episode 18: Damien Lehfeldt

If you say the name “Peet Sasaki” to a group of fencers, they might look at you with a baffled expression on their face... although admittedly for some that’s just their natural look. If, however, you ask them who “FRED“ is, nearly every single one will be able to give you an answer. The name FRED is as ubiquitous a name to a fencer as HAL is to a sci-fi fan. FRED is the Fencing Results and Events Database and Peet Sasaki is its creator. It’s what *everyone* uses to sign up for local and regional tournaments. Nearly every fencer in this country has an account there. If you do, you have a record of every event you have ever fenced. It’s an amazingly huge database. It’s currently being phased out by USFencing’s new system but will continue in the near future to fulfill the role Peet set out for it from the beginning: 1) To let people pre-register for fencing tournaments in an effort to help both fencers and organizers have a more pleasant experience. Imagine being a tournament organizer and not know exactly how many fencers to expect! Or being a fencer and driving several hours to an event, to discover only three people showed up... 2) Maintaining the record of every bout fenced in every event in every tournament in the country. FRED helped with those issues and many more. Tune in today to hear how a glass blower, sculptor, and eventual Google employee became synonymous with fencing tournament. 

Episode 17: Peet Sasaki

Delia Turner is a vivacious, energetic woman who has accomplished much in life simply by, as she says, “showing up”. She has held a wide variety of jobs, including legal secretary, science teacher, English Department Chair, published author, calligrapher, and Adjunct Faculty at Temple University. She started fencing at 40 years of age and has become one of the top Veteran Women’s Sabre fencers in the US—and in the world. Listen as she talks about her fencing career, how her role as an educator helped her fencing skills, and about the two protagonists she created for her fantasy books. She also gives advice to adult fencers and tells us why fencing Sabre is like writing with a fountain pen. Tune in this week to hear the stories of a wonderful storyteller, Delia Turner.

Episode 16: Delia Turner

Dan Kellner started fencing in the 7th grade. He had a video game called Summer Games and had trouble figuring out the fencing part. He asked his mom about the sport so much that eventually she took him to his first coach, Ted Li. Ted was the Olympic Armourer at the time and would expose Dan to his first taste of attaining a shot at Olympic Gold. Later, Dan became Simon Gershon’s student. Where Coach Li was instrumental in teaching and perfecting Dan’s foil technique, Coach Gershon led him through the tactics of the game. The work of both coaches would lead to many successes in fencing: Silver at the National Championships in 1997, 1998, and 2000. With such a phenomenal trajectory in the works, Dan instead hit rock bottom in 2000. He missed qualifying for the Olympic Team that year and took it really hard. It was a challenging time for him both mentally and physically: he gained weight from the lack of activity and was in a funk. But fencing called him back. A year to the day he walked out of his club for what he thought would be for the last time, he went back to Coach Gershon and started training again. Two years later, in 2003, Dan won gold at the Pan-American Games. He earned the National Championship title in 2004 and made the Olympic Team that same year. He retired from competitive fencing in 2006 and is now the owner and Head Coach of the Brooklyn Bridge Fencing Club. Listen to the incredible story of how Dan Kellner turned his fencing career from smoldering ashes to fiery victory. He suffered the greatest of defeats—not reaching his ultimate goal of competing in the Olympic Games—and found the strength within himself to try again. And succeeded. What an inspiration! 

Episode 15: Dan Kellner

Andrew Fischl didn’t start fencing until his junior year of high school but achieved a lot very quickly: he was 5th in the country in 2013. Before fencing, Andrew had tried many sports: soccer, tennis, baseball, lacrosse, etc but none of these sports really engaged him the way fencing did. The reason most people know him is because of the videos he creates. Going by the name Cyrus of Chaos (his handle in Super Smash Brothers) his YouTube channel currently houses over 2500 videos of international-level competitions. He started recording bouts at his first Div 1 NAC in Columbus in 2007, when he, in his words, “was a wide-eyed little fencer who got destroyed in my pool leaving me the rest of the day to walk around and watch. I remember seeing so many things that made me think "oh I should be doing it like this" or “I want to try the timing of that next time I am at practice". Then the next day I couldn’t specifically remember anything.” He took his parent’s videocamera to the next tournament and began recording everything he could. He still does that to this day. Andrew’s biggest regret is that he can’t make it to every international tournament to capture footage. If you know of anyone who would be willing to help Cyrus of Chaos with this issue, please contact him through his YouTube channel, Facebook, Instagram, Google+, or Twitter. http://www.youtube.com/user/CyrusofChaos http://www.filmannex.com/webtv/AndrewFischl https://twitter.com/CyrusofChaos Listen now to the interview I did with Cyrus of Chaos, aka Andrew Fischl. 

Episode 14: Andrew Fischl

Keeth Smart is a saber fencer who achieved a lot of success on the fencing strip. He qualified for three Olympics, placing 30th in 2000, 15th in individual and 4th in the team event in 2004, 6th in individual in 2008. He also won the silver medal in the team event that year, after serving as the anchor. In 2002 and 2004, Keeth won the US National Sabre Championship. Perhaps greatest of all, in 2003, he became the first American to be named the top-ranked fencer internationally. He was elected to the US Fencing Hall of Fame in 2014. You can still find Keeth involved in our sport. He coaches at the Peter Westbrook Foundation and serves on their Board. But he’s also involved in the world of business. After an internship at Google, several managerial positions at Verizon and Bank of America, Keeth decided to start his own business, Physiclo, in 2014. He and his team created and now produce high quality compression gear with built in resistance for a more productive workout. Physiclo has received great reviews from publications such as Men’s Health, the Gloss, and Engadget, as well as rave reviews from athletes of many kinds of sport. You can check out the gear on their website www.physiclo.com, on Instagram, and also on Facebook. Listen now to the interview I did with Keeth Smart, fencer and businessman extraordinaire. Also a super nice guy! Note: This one unfortunately turned out a little "buzzy" for Keeth's side of the interview. Working to improve that! 

Episode 13: Keeth Smart

Back in the day, coaches received training at was then called Coaches' College. Begun in the late 80s by the United States Fencing Association, its purpose was to create an opportunity for professional development for fencing coaches. When the cold war ended, the USFA brought Soviet bloc coaches over in 1990 to lead the program with Jack Keene serving as the main organizer. Alex Beguinet and Vinnie Bradford took up the reins in 1993. Vinnie helped organize it for 10 years, Alex for 20. The USFA decided to cancel the Coaches' College in 2003. The United States Fencing Coaches Association (USFCA) started the Coaches' Academy last year to fill the professional development void. Only 8 coaches attended but the spark was created. The Academy this year, organized by Gary Vanderwege, had triple the number of participants. It featured a Moniteur level session from July 30-Aug 3, and an advanced (Prevot and Master) level session from Aug 2-6. The USFCA Annual General meeting was held Aug 3 and several special awards were given out. The main purpose of the Coaches' Academy was to prepare coaches for their certification exams, with most sessions being led by fencing Masters like Peter Burchard, Gary Vanderwege, Paul Sise, Vinnie Bradford, and Jen Oldham. Ariana Klinkov and David Sierra also were on hand to help guide participants. In addition there were sessions such as sport psychology, the business side of being a fencing coach, armory sessions led by Michael Mergens, referee seminars, yoga, watching Dan Kellner give Sam Moelis a high-level Foil lesson, a roundtable discussion about coach vs referee ethics, among others. All in all the Coaches' Academy appears to be getting off to a strong start, as evidenced by the comments from the participants. Listen now to their input about what they experienced at Keystone College in Pennsylvania in early August. 

Episode 12: Coaches' Academy

Interviews with the great thinkers, athletes, and coaches in the dynamic sport of Olympic fencing.

hubhopper

SabreCoachKate podcast

hubhopper