HARRISON HAMM, Opinion Editor—

Denison’s women’s fencing program became the university’s newest varsity sport a couple of years ago. It is the most unique of Denison’s sports programs in a couple of ways.

For one, it plays against some of the best fencing teams in the country. This year, their schedule includes the top-tier programs Notre Dame and Northwestern, where Division I athletes compete at the highest level of the sport. Some are even Olympians. Denison’s fencers can say they have the opportunity to beat the best of the best.

At the same time, many of Denison’s fencers are new to the sport. They arrive fresh, interested in learning something new, and grow throughout their time at Denison. Coach Peter Grandbois, a former elite-level fencer, started fencing in college, too. He sets up lessons with his fencers to give them individualized attention and instruction, all with the goal of making them competent and competitive.

“I’m always amazed and thrilled with our team because … most of [our fencers] haven’t fenced before,” Grandbois said. “We’re a new team [and] they have the courage and the guts to do a new varsity sport that they’ve never done before and compete against really high level athletes.”

The key, Grandbois said, with his new fencers is to get them to the level of being able to compete safely. Due to the nature of the sport, it is a safety risk for inexperienced fencers to go against high-quality opposition before they are ready. 

But Denison’s fencers have taken the challenge. At the outset of becoming a varsity sport, after years as a club sport started by Grandbois, there was little time to do recruiting. 

“We put a call out to the Denison community, and all these people responded saying ‘yeah, I’ve never done this before, but I’m gonna give it my all,” Grandbois said.

The program’s culture has grown and improved over the past couple of years, despite the restrictions that COVID-19 forced last year. With players growing their game, the team will only get better. The allure of playing some of the biggest programs means that elite fencers could be drawn to Denison’s academics in the future.

In addition to competing against top programs, Denison has also made the decision to schedule duels against similarly-ranked Division III liberal arts schools.

But according to Grandbois, the team met to decide whether to shift fully to a conference of smaller liberal arts schools that compete at a similar level as Denison. The idea was a non-starter.

“They’re like, ‘no, coach, we want to fence Ohio State, we want to fence Northwestern and Notre Dame and so on.’”

They don’t always win, but they compete — and those schools take notice.

“That’s our goal, is to make them go, ‘oh, these people are doing something here.’”