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Fencing is commonly seen as an elite sport, the province of expensive personal colleges on Manhattan’s Higher East or West sides.
And whereas the game is definitely not low-cost — startup gear prices upwards of $450 — there’s a small, however thriving fencing scene at New York Metropolis’s public excessive colleges, spawning Olympian fencers, together with Anne Cebula, a Brooklyn Tech alum from Bensonhurst, representing the U.S. this yr within the ladies’s épée competitors. Her Olympic teammate within the foil competitors Lauren Scruggs, a Queens native, attended Packer Collegiate, a Brooklyn personal college.
Of New York Metropolis’s roughly 400 excessive colleges, there are 25 ladies fencing groups and 22 boys fencing groups within the Public Colleges Athletic League, or PSAL, stated Loweye Diedro, a PSAL sports activities coordinator overseeing fencing, double dutch, cricket, stunt, and desk tennis.
Athletes from these groups are sometimes a part of town’s bigger fencing neighborhood, taking part in one another at personal fencing golf equipment in Manhattan’s Chelsea and elsewhere, stated Diedro, a fencer and fencing coach herself, who’s hoping this yr to launch a “Mayor’s Cup” for high fencers on the metropolis’s private and non-private colleges to play one another.
About half of the general public college groups are based mostly at a number of the metropolis’s most prestigious excessive colleges, together with Bronx Science, Stuyvesant, Beacon, and Townsend Harris. Others are at massive complete excessive colleges, like Francis Lewis, Cardozo, and Tottenville. And a few groups draw from smaller colleges that share a campus, reminiscent of Bronx United, which consists of scholars from the Neighborhood Faculty for Social Justice and Well being Alternatives Excessive Faculty, in addition to a crew on Brooklyn’s John Jay campus, which serves a number of colleges.
College students from different colleges can play on these fencing groups as effectively, by PSAL’s “entry program,” which permits college students to check out for groups at different colleges inside their district when their very own college doesn’t have the game. A scholar from Edward R. Murrow Excessive Faculty, for instance, performs on Brooklyn Tech’s boys crew, Diedro stated.
The groups at public colleges assist college students recover from the “hurdle” of the costly gear and expensive journey to competitions, Diedro stated. “We provide you with all of the gear,” she stated. “We journey inside the 5 boroughs, so all the pieces is fairly accessible.”
Efforts to make fencing a extra various sport
These days, children typically begin studying to fence by the age of 8, Diedro stated, however she estimated that greater than half of the fencers who play on their highschool groups don’t decide it up till later, like Cebula, who didn’t begin till the age of 15, when she attended Brooklyn Tech.
Cebula, who’s at the moment ranked No. 2 within the U.S. for her self-discipline, didn’t win any medals in Paris. However Scruggs — the third ranked American in ladies’s foil — took the silver this week to make historical past as the primary Black fencer to win a medal for the U.S. in a person ladies’s occasion. Scruggs additionally was a part of the U.S. ladies’s foil crew on Thursday taking residence the gold towards Italy. It’s the first ever gold medal for a U.S. fencing crew within the Olympics.
Fencing, Diedro stated, presents a method in for a wide range of college students who would possibly really feel that different sports activities have been off limits to them.
“Within the weight room, the basketball gamers and the soccer gamers at all times made remarks that we fencers didn’t appear like we performed a particular sport. Like, we don’t actually appear like monitor athletes, or we’re not tall like basketball athletes,” she stated. “Fencing is a sport for everyone. All people’s beatable. You could possibly be 5’1” or you possibly can be 6’3,” and also you simply form of have to start out on the identical basis and simply actually hone in on self-discipline and abilities which can be going that can assist you in so many different areas in life.”
Diedro is deeply entwined with town’s fencing neighborhood: She began when she was 5 years previous by the Peter Westbrook Basis, a company began by the primary Black Olympian to win a fencing medal.The Westbrook Basis has labored to diversify the game, significantly amongst Black fencers, by providing college students like Diedro scholarships to cowl gear and competitors journey. Scruggs is a member of the inspiration, together with previous Olympic fencer Keeth Good, one other Brooklyn Tech alum.
In truth, watching Good’s dramatic win within the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the place he received a silver medal on the lads’s saber crew, impressed Cebula to choose up an épée and observe in his footsteps.
“It was essentially the most lovely factor I’d ever seen in my life,” Cebula advised THE CITY.
She was 10 on the time. Her dad and mom had been immigrants from Poland — her mom, a nurse, and her father, an electrician – couldn’t afford classes, Cebula advised THE CITY. However she held onto her dream and opted to go to Brooklyn Tech due to it.
Scruggs began fencing on the age of seven, impressed by her Star Wars-loving brother. However she was conscious that she appeared completely different from quite a lot of different children at fencing golf equipment and competitions.
“Fencing has largely definitely been a non-Black sport,” Scruggs advised the Washington Publish. “I hope that individuals who appear like me, ladies who appear like me, really feel they’ve a spot on this sport.”
Fencing requires focus and being ‘meticulous’ about approach
To achieve success at fencing, like most sports activities, takes dedication, stated Diedro, who like Cebula, fenced for Columbia, which is called a fencing powerhouse. (Although this yr’s Olympic crew has a good variety of Harvard college students, together with Scruggs.)
“You must actually be very targeted, and it’s important to be very, I’d say, meticulous about getting the appropriate approach, getting the appropriate basis, as a result of that basically takes you to the following degree,” Diedro stated. “It’s quite a lot of training every single day, not simply not each different day.”
Diedro is hoping that extra younger New Yorkers will uncover fencing, and he or she’s hoping that some colleges that discontinued their fencing groups will re-launch them, particularly since these colleges have already invested within the gear.
“You may not suppose that you just’re the kind of person who must be a fencer or be on a fencing crew,” Diedro stated. “If the chance presents itself, undoubtedly make the most of it, as a result of we’ve had so many profitable fencers who come from all several types of backgrounds.”
Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org .
