I named it the Zen Fencing Academy for my hero, a gentleman by the name of Joe Odom, who sadly passed away last year. He was my role model as a fencer and as an instructor. He founded a club in Pittsburgh, Fencers For Fun, as a method of keeping kids off the streets. He always came to (Indiana University of Pennsylvania) to help us out because we didn't have a coach. We always referred to him as the 'Zen master of fencing'. He was that wise old Pat Morita kind of character.
Quotes about fencer (3 Quotes)
Sometimes you bypass a really good fencer in favor of someone who is average and is going to come here and give me the time and effort. You can have an Olympian who's never going to fence in college meets. They're going to be at World Cups while we're competing for the Ivy League Championship. That person's no good to me.
We still have a long way to go. The average person, when told that fencing is an Olympic sport, asks, 'Is that still in the Olympics' It's been in every Olympics there has ever been in the modern age. There's fencing in every summer Olympics and it never gets televised. There's no fencer who is a household name. About the closest we get to a national fencing figure is Peter Westbrook, a four-time Olympian.