Sport: The Swordsmen

The intricate, formal combat in Michigan State College’s Jenison Field House seemed a far cry from the back-alley swordplay of François Villon or the duels-to-the-death of the Three Musketeers. The 20th-century field of honor was limited to the narrow boundaries of a long rubber mat, leaving little room for spectacular derring-do. Four judges and a director hovered around each bout to call the touches and check on fencing protocol. The undergraduates who crossed blades in the National Collegiate Fencing Championships last week could be sure no opponent would blind them with a handful of dust; no one would slip a sword through their legs, slice a tendon and leave them to be skewered at leisure.

Intellectual Exercise. Today’s sport, says Irving De Koff, coach of Columbia University’s defending co-champions (along with N.Y.U.), is much more of an intellectual exercise. “While trying to protect yourself, you are testing, trying your opponent. You are investigating his patterns, his attitudes, his favorite actions. You have a limited time in which to decipher him. It’s like a chess game in rapid motion.”

But no chess game, De Koff also points out, was ever half so athletic. Crouched like a coiled spring, continually alert to lunge or parry, the fencer can feel tension spreading from his toes to his fingertips. And in the heat of combat, the new gentility sometimes wears thin. Given half a chance, a saberman (who can score points with a thrust or slice anywhere above his opponent’s waist) may cut loose and whip his man across the back with a bruising blade. Even a city-bred college boy is seldom happier than on that rare occasion when his button-pointed foil (which scores points only when its point touches the torso) rips through a protecting canvas jacket and draws a few drops of blood.

Cosmic Tackle. Strangely, the épée—a triangular-bladed descendant of the old dueling rapier—has become thoroughly enmeshed in modern gadgetry. The épée wielder can score by pinking his opponent anywhere on the body; often touches occur almost simultaneously. To give the judges a break, today’s épées are equipped with electric switches in their tips. Wires run down the fencers’ arms and out the tails of their jackets to reels that are mounted at the end of the fencing strip. A solid touch with either épée sounds a buzzer and turns on a light. The hookup can distinguish between touches only one twenty-fifth of a second apart.

At Michigan last week, wires trailing, and looking like a man from Mars caught on some cosmic fishing tackle, Columbia’s Nyles Ayres piled up an early lead in his favorite weapon. Later he dropped back to second, but Lions Captain Barry Pariser slashed his way to the saber championship, Ralph De Marco earned a fourth place with his foil and, when the last fencer had saluted his opponent, Columbia’s swordsmen were the undisputed champs. Final score: Columbia 62, Cornell 57, Navy 55.