Support USA Fencing Div II/III NACs
Update: November 2022
Recent activity by USA Fencing, such as a commitment to accounting for state legislation in the selection of future host cities for national tournaments, indicate the organization's increasing awareness of the needs of our diverse fencing community. In this spirit, we have gathered community feedback about the elimination of Div II/III NACs. Additionally, a preliminary analysis of data graciously provided by FencingTime demonstrates the current disparity in the availability, accessibility, and strength of regional events. We hope USA Fencing leadership will take this abundance of qualitative and quantitative analysis into consideration as they continue to work on a more equitable future for all USA Fencing members.
As of July 20, 2022, the 2022-2023 USA Fencing season schedule contains no Division II or Division III events.
Please read our open letter to USA Fencing below detailing the many reasons why the exclusion of these events is damaging to the USA Fencing community.
To add your support, please fill out this form. The current list of supporters is viewable here.
AN OPEN LETTER TO USA FENCING, 20 JULY 2022
To USA Fencing:
As I write this letter, fencers, coaches, and families are booking tickets and making plans for the upcoming 2022-2023 USA Fencing season.
However, nearly 2,500 USA Fencing registered competitive fencers* between the ages of 21 and 40, eagerly awaiting the announcement of the 22-23 schedule, were shocked to discover that they have been shut out of competing nationally in the sport they love.
Eliminating Division II and Division III NACs for the upcoming '22—'23 season prevents all fencers from ages 21-40 without at least a C ranking from competing on the US national level. This includes, but is by no means limited to fencers who have been competing in the NCAA, fencers recovering from long-term injuries, fencers who took time off to prioritize coaching, schooling, work, their families, etc.
Furthermore, the choice to eliminate these events disproportionately impacts high-risk chronically ill and disabled fencers who were not able to compete during the pandemic and subsequently had their rankings expire.
Athletes who hope to one day fence in veteran events will have little to no chance at competitive success if they are not supported in the time between aging out of youth events and being eligible for said veteran events. This would be remedied by providing them with national-level competitive experience in the interim (as in previous seasons). For those who would argue that fencers can just fence in ROC events to earn higher letter rankings and then attend Division I NACs: there are many regions that struggle to produce large enough regional events to qualify as C1s or higher. A good number of fencers can only access E1 events in their region.
What message does this send to our younger fencers? That they will not be welcome on the national level again until they are eligible for veteran events?
What message does this send to our chronically ill and disabled fencers?
What message does this send to fencers who have taken time away from the sport, only to return and find themselves unable to compete at the national level?
What message does this send to the USA Fencing community at large?
The signatories of this open letter ask that you reinstate at least one Division II and Division III NAC event for the upcoming 2022-23 season.
Signed,
Lillie Lainoff (lillielainoff@gmail.com), writer
Author of ONE FOR ALL, USA Fencing member (18 years) and coach (4 years), Yale fencing alum/NCAA championships qualifier
Eliza Mace (emace593@gmail.com), data scientist
Lead Machine Learning Engineer (MITRE), USA Fencing member (8 years), MIT fencing alum/2x Captain
*N.B. This analysis is ongoing pending acquisition of previous seasons' ROC/NAC attendance data. For preliminary analysis of publicly available membership data, please refer to this GitHub link.