The Intercollegiate Fencing Association (IFA) was the oldest collegiate fencing conference in the United States. It is affiliated with the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC).
The IFA has 11 members. Cornell only competes in women's fencing; the remaining 10 teams participate with men's and women's teams
Six of the members of the IFA are also members of the Ivy League, and all of the Ivy universities with Division I fencing programs are also members of the IFA. Dartmouth College and Brown University do not have varsity fencing programs.
The 2007 IFA Championship tournament was hosted by Princeton University on Saturday March 3, 2007. Because no suitable venue at Princeton was available, the tournament was held nearby at the Lawrenceville School.
There are 9 trophies given to teams at the annual IFA Championships in the following categories:
In 1994 Stephen Kovacs (1972–2022), a Columbia saber fencer and later a fencing coach, became the first fencer to win four consecutive IFA championships. [1] [2]
Among these awards, the most prestigious is the trophy given to the Men's Foil team champion, currently Yale University. This trophy is known as the Little Iron Man and is the oldest trophy still awarded for any collegiate sport in the United States. It was cast in 1893 and has been awarded to the IFA Men's Foil team champion since 1896.
The 2008 IFA Championship Tournament was hosted by Columbia University on Sunday February 24, 2008.
The 2009 IFA Championship Tournament was hosted by Brandeis University on Saturday, February 28, 2009.
The 2009 IFA Championship Tournament was the final one held.
The Little Iron Man is the oldest trophy in collegiate sports, still awarded today.
It is awarded each year to the team that wins the Men's Foil competition at the Intercollegiate Fencing Association championships.
The trophy was cast in 1893 and has been awarded to the IFA Men's Foil team champion since 1896.
Fencing is a group of three related combat sports. The three disciplines in modern fencing are the foil, the épée, and the sabre ; winning points are made through the weapon's contact with an opponent. A fourth discipline, singlestick, appeared in the 1904 Olympics but was dropped after that, and is not a part of modern fencing. Fencing was one of the first sports to be played in the Olympics. Based on the traditional skills of swordsmanship, the modern sport arose at the end of the 19th century, with the Italian school having modified the historical European martial art of classical fencing, and the French school later refining the Italian system. There are three forms of modern fencing, each of which uses a different kind of weapon and has different rules; thus the sport itself is divided into three competitive scenes: foil, épée, and sabre. Most competitive fencers choose to specialize in one weapon only.
The Harvard Crimson are the intercollegiate athletic teams of Harvard College. The school's teams compete in NCAA Division I. As of 2013, there were 42 Division I intercollegiate varsity sports teams for women and men at Harvard, more than at any other NCAA Division I college in the country. Like the other Ivy League colleges, Harvard does not offer athletic scholarships.
Allan S. Kwartler, born in New York City, was an American sabre and foil fencer.
The Navy Midshipmen are the athletic teams that represent the United States Naval Academy. The academy sponsors 33 varsity sports teams and 12 club sport teams. Both men's and women's teams are called Navy Midshipmen or "Mids". They participate in the NCAA's Division I, as a non-football member of the Patriot League, a football-only member of the American Athletic Conference in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS), and a member of the Collegiate Sprint Football League (men), Eastern Association of Rowing Colleges (men), Eastern Association of Women's Rowing Colleges, Eastern Intercollegiate Gymnastics League (men), Mid-Atlantic Squash Conference (men) and Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association. Navy is also one of approximately 300 members of the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC).
Byron Lester Krieger was an American foil, sabre and épée fencer. Krieger represented the United States in the Olympics in 1952 in Helsinki and 1956 in Melbourne, and in the 1951 Pan American Games where he won two gold medals.
Julia Jones-Pugliese was an American national champion fencer and fencing coach.
NYU Violets is the nickname of the sports teams and other competitive teams at New York University. The school colors are purple and white. Although officially known as the Violets, the school mascot is a bobcat. The Violets compete as a member of NCAA Division III in the University Athletic Association conference. The university sponsors 23 varsity sports, as well as club teams and intramural sports.
Collegiate fencing has existed for a long time. Some of the earliest programs in the US came from the Ivy League schools, but now there are over 100 fencing programs in the US. Both clubs and varsity teams participate in the sport, however only the varsity teams may participate in the NCAA championship tournament. The first NCAA fencing tournament was held at Northwestern University in 1941. Due to the limited number of colleges that have fencing teams, teams fence inter-division, and all divisions participate in the NCAA Championships.
Ferenc Marki was an internationally known fencing master and fencing coach.
Timothy Frank Morehouse is an American fencer who won a Silver Medal competing in the men's sabre as a member of the United States fencing team at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Morehouse is coached by Yury Gelman. He is the founder of the Fencing in the Schools program.
Fencing competitions at the 2010 Summer Youth Olympics in Singapore consisted of three Cadet Male individual events, three Cadet Female individual events and one team event including both genders and all 3 weapons: épée, foil and saber. 78 fencers from 36 nations were competing. The venue was located at the International Convention Centre (ICC).
Evelyn Florence Terhune was an American fencer and fencing coach who competed in the women's individual and team foil events at the 1960 Summer Olympics and was the long-time head coach of the women's fencing team at Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU).
Christopher S. O'Loughlin is an American Olympic épée fencer.
The Harvard Crimson fencing team is the intercollegiate fencing team for Harvard University located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The team competes in the Ivy League within the NCAA Division I. The university first fielded a team in 1888.
The NCAA Fencing Championships are awarded at the annual tournament held in March to determine the NCAA's national collegiate individual and team championships in fencing. Individual champions are determined by performance during the NCAA fencing team championship competition.
Eric Sollee was an American fencer and fencing coach. He fenced at Harvard earning NCAA All-America honors. He coached at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard University, and the Carroll Center for the blind, among others. As a coach he is notable for helping to quickly develop competitive fencers and for a paradigm shift in how to fence against classical fencers. Sollee trained a number of top competitors including Olympians.
Marcello Lodetti graduated in 1959 from the Accademia Nazionale Magistrale (ANS) and started fencing at the age of 7 at the Mangiarotti fencing club in Milano, near the Giuseppe Verdi conservatory. He then became a pupil of Giuseppe Mangiarotti, who had himself been a pupil of Renaud.
Stephen Matias Kovacs was an American saber fencer and fencing coach. He was a three-time NCAA All American for Columbia University, four-time All-Ivy League, and the first fencer to win four consecutive Intercollegiate Fencing Association championships. As a fencing coach, he then coached at the Pingry School, Princeton Junior School, Stevens Institute of Technology, Duke University, Ridge High School, and private fencing clubs including one that he founded. In October 2021 he was arrested and charged with multiple counts of sexual assault, endangering the welfare of a child, and false swearing, and imprisoned in the Somerset County Jail in Somerville, New Jersey. On October 29, 2021, the United States Center for SafeSport temporarily suspended Kovacs, pending an investigation by it of allegations against him.
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