@Trudy2018 - There is nothing wrong with parents participating in recruiting interviews. What is important is to allow your student-athlete to speak for him/herself. There may be questions, particularly relating to finances, where a parent’s greater experience is appropriately engaged. Just keep in mind that the coach is trying to get to know your child. Too much parental injection can dilute this and, worse, can convey the sense that it is the parent who is more vested than the child.
@BrooklynRye Thank you very much for the advice and all other valuable information posted in this forum!
@Trudy2018 When my child had an interview, he went by himself and then later I had a separate conversation with the coach; he told me that he was very impressed by my child doing the interview solo. I agree with @BrooklynRye that the key is the conversation between coach/student – and it is also an opportunity for the student to get a sense of whether it’s a coach s/he wants to work with as well. Another idea: I’m imagining on a Zoom call it could be an option for the parent to be off-screen and just listen (obviously with the student’s permission and coach’s knowledge), which would allow the focus be on the conversation between the student and the coach.
Good luck!
@SpaceVoyager That is a great idea! Thank you for the suggestion and your long-time contribution to this forum!
Does anyone have insight into fencing at Lawrence? Hearing that Coach Hall is not returning. Academically, it is a good fit for my rising senior, but don’t know much about the fencing program there.
@escrime21 I’ll happily provide whatever insights I can, and feel free to message me if you want.
My daughter is currently on the Lawrence fencing team, and has been a Viking fencer for the last three years.
RE: Coach Hall, I can confirm he is not returning. While I’d prefer not to go into a ton of detail on a message board, I’ll just say the majority of the team is not at all upset he won’t be coaching them next season (and some of the parents are also quite relieved).
As far as my daughter’s experiences, she absolutely loves Lawrence University, she loves her teammates, and she loves having the opportunity to keep fencing (and keep improving at fencing). While technically the men and women are on separate teams, they travel, train, and socialize as one big co-ed team rather that 2 separate units. The team is on the small side, with most squads fielding just the minimum 3 (and a couple being a fencer short). This is both good and bad: bad because a squad of 2 will not win many squad bouts, but good if your fencer would loath riding the bench or rotating out. Even though LU is a D3 school, they routinely face some of the top D1 schools out there. Just this past season, the women’s team faced 5* of the top 10 teams in the nation (*sort of 6, as Cornell was ranked #10 at the time LU faced them) - so they got some quality fencing in.
Please let me know if you have any questions about Lawrence University itself, or the fencing team. I’m happy to contribute what I can.
Best of luck!
@saharafrog thank you so much. This is so helpful. I don’t have the ability to DM, as I just started posting. Not sure if you are able to DM me? I would love to speak with you.
@escrime Sorry, I forgot new posters can’t DM. I’ll send you a one now to get that chain started.
It is terribly sad to note that NCAA fencing programs will be dramatically impacted by this pandemic. Brown University announced that, effective immediately for 2020-21, 11 varsity teams, including men’s and women’s fencing, will be “transitioned” to club status. All hail Bruno!
Given the budgetary pressure that colleges are under as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, this may be a preview of coming attractions for the world of college fencing.
The Women’s Fencing squad was one of two varsity teams at Brown to receive APR recognition from the NCAA every year since the program began, and the ONLY team at Brown to have scored 1000 all 15 years.
@BrooklynRye @EmptyNester2016 This news about Brown Fencing is sad news indeed brought about this pandemic!!
Scary time to have a 2020 HS grad. So many unknowns — will they have classes on campus, will they have a season, and now, will their team be cut/demoted? I rejoiced when my son’s coach emailed requesting sizing for uniform. Fingers crossed it holds!
At least according to communications from the Brown President, this reduction in # of programs is not related to budget, downplaying of athletics, or Covid, all things that might’ve made sense. Rather the budget and recruiting slots are said to be remaining unchanged. The stated aim of eliminating the # of varsity programs was to enhance the competitiveness of the remaining teams. There is believability here given the historical performance of most of their teams. Nevertheless this is sad for ncaa fencing and fencing in general. Ever True!
I was very sad to see this and having a senior who is missing out on so much and with so much in question for the transition to college where he was recruited to fence. It’s just scary and sad.
@“helmut?” - This is accurate from my sources as well. However, the irony here, is that the Brown fencing team has been one of the most successful, qualifying at least one athlete to the NCAA Championships every year for the past 15 years or more.
The Brown announcement comes across like perfidious spin on what must feel like a betrayal to those students who may have opted for Brown in part based on their ability to participate in an NCAA sport. It would have been one thing to announce a decision of phasing things out over time but abruptly pulling out the rug from under current students just feels icky. It will be interesting to see if there is any pushback. But of course we don’t actually know what the 2020-2021 season will look like, or even if there will be one, under the current world situation. Stay well, everyone!
@BrooklynRye Yes, ironic that relative to other sports, fencing did send students to NCAA championships. Moreover, as another poster PM’d me, Ivy fencing competes at the highest level having won numerous national championships over the years. So fencing is actually a sport in which the Ivy’s is THE Power Conference.
@SpaceVoyager I don’t know any of the specifics, but would completely agree that if there was no forewarning of the possibility of such major reductions that would be very unfair for the effected students, especially since it was stated this was independent of Covid.
@Fuzebox87 Perhaps I’ve interpreted incorrectly, but I’m sorry if your son committed to Brown as a recruited fencer and then this news erupted. There has been so much loss this spring for seniors, it’s hard to see the silver lining. But we must endeavor to do so still!
I’m mostly surprised as I thought there was newfound enthusiasm for Brown’s fencing program as it was just getting its footing under new leadership there. @“helmut?” how can this be:
Will Brown continue to recruit for a club sport? I’ve not heard of this for other club teams.
@fencingmom - sorry for being unclear. I believe Brown’s President means total recruiting slots for all athletes. So the vacated fencing slots will go to one of the continuing sports. At Brown I believe they recruit ~110 athletes each year.
@fencingmom - I think Brown’s overall number might be 205. (It used to be 225 slots, but that was supposed to have been reduced as part of the university’s response to a 2011 review of athletics at the school. I think that Brown has increased the size of its student body in the last four or five years, but I’m not sure whether there was a corresponding increase in athletic recruitment.)
Supposedly, 30 of those slots are for the football team, and that number (appx. 30) is the cap for football teams fielded by all of the members of the Ancient Eight. Recruiting slots for the 11 teams that Brown cut weren’t the reason for Brown’s recent football woes, since the football team is maxed out on its recruitment.
The fencing team’s allocation was probably 2 or 3 slots, at most - not enough to field a self-sustaining roster of 3 men and 3 women in epee, foil and saber. That provided opportunity for walk-ons and high-achieving high school students who received “letters of support” from the coach. And it allowed all of the team’s scholar-athletes to compete against the best fencers in the country - at the Ivy League championships (which Brown was scheduled to host in 2021), at NCAA Regionals, and at the NCAA Championships (where, in 2019, a men’s foilist from Brown handed that year’s national champion, from Notre Dame, his worst defeat (5-3) of the tourney.)
One more note - women’s fencing and men’s baseball are the only two teams at Brown to have received APR (academic progress rate) commendation from the NCAA for all 15 years that the NCAA has published this metric. And there are only two other fencing teams in the country - the women’s squads at Duke and UNC - with that distinction. I guess Brown is okay throwing this badge of academic honor away in order to enhance the athletic competitiveness of its other teams with a less stellar record in the classroom.