At last night’s Board meeting, the Board, by a vote of 7 to 3, shot down a misguided proposal that for youth fencers “to participate in National Events at Y10 and Y12 levels an individual must demonstrate participation in at least one more sport or activity from the commencement of the 2023-2024 season.”

As such, national events for youth fencers will continue as always without the proposed mandate. The Board also approved Y8 events at the local and regional levels.

Background

As you may already know, the task force known as the Y8-Y10-Y12 Review Group recommended a series of improvements for youth fencing, including the safeguarding of youth events at national tournaments for the long term.

Keeping in mind the American Development Model for youth sports, the task force also recommended that “At this early age, Fencing should be a fun, active part of life and while competition is a necessary element of skill acquisition in this sport, it should not be the sole specialist activity of an individual. Such activities should be balanced with Fencing, and have at least one weekly participation, while the Fencing sport is recommended to be kept at 3 sessions per week.”

As a result of this task force recommendation, it was proposed that the Board mandate a 2nd activity as a pre-requisite for participation in youth national events starting in the 2023/2024 season.

What Board members said about the proposed requirement

Here’s what the Board members who disagreed with the proposal said:

“..the requirement places additional costs on parents..”

“..we should not place additional burden on parents”

“..mandating participation is not USA Fencing’s right”

“..it is not in the Board’s scope to make the decision for parents on a 2nd activity”

“..mandating participation in a 2nd activity is not right..”

“..USA Fencing can recommend and suggest…it should not mandate”

“..we could lose fencers by imposing a 2nd activity”

“..we might lose the next Lee Kiefer if we mandate a 2nd activity”

“..don’t force parents”

“..we cannot force parents, but we can educate”

“..USA Fencing can provide education on what creates a successful athlete through diversification of activities and expanded interests”

“..it would be heavy handed…this is not FenceSafe…we are a little out of our league”

Here’s how the vote went down

No

yes

Abdel Salem

Darryl Jacobs

Ben Bratton

Lauryn DeLuca

Lorrie Marcil Holmes

Nzingha Prescod

Peter Burchard

Ivan Lee (Vice Chair) spoke out against the proposal, but could not vote on it.

David Arias

Donald Alperstein

3rd Director (unidentified)

The Board members who spoke out and voted “no” demonstrated a genuinely compassionate leadership that we should all appreciate and remember.

why was the proposal misguided?

We do understand that the proposal was well meaning and was one possible way for USA Fencing to implement the spirit and intent of the American Development Model for youth sports, which is that sports should be an active and fun for kids, and that sport should not add stress to kids’ lives.

The ADM is meant to be a compassionate and empathetic model of development that brings fun into a kids’ lives through sports activity.

Making a 2nd activity mandatory without regard to the specific circumstances and resources of each fencing family, seems to be the antithesis of compassion and empathy. Second, third and even fourth activities are par for the course for the most affluent families, but multiple activities is not necessarily normal for everyone else.

The mandate may bring unnecessary stress into the lives of fencing families, who may already be stretched in financial and time resources.

A Board member in favor of the proposal suggested that not all activities cost money, chess club for example is free. But, between ages 8 and 12, chess club is an outside-of-school activity that probably costs money and requires additional time commitments from parents. Chess club is only free in high school.

The same Board member drew an equivalent with FenceSafe, whose trainings he said had largely been ignored by parents even though the trainings would help keep their kids safe from potential harm. Therefore, the mandate for a 2nd activity would ensure that parents acted in their kids’ interests to diversify their activities.

While well meaning, this is erroneous thinking. It is completely outside the scope of USA Fencing’s mission to attempt to direct the lives of fencing families through 2nd activity mandates.

The mandate would also infringe on parental choice for their kids, and would be an intrusion into the lives of young families.

education is the right answer

The task force recommended 4 specific areas for education. And it is clear that the majority of Board members who opposed the mandate believe that education is the key.

If USA Fencing is serious about adopting the principles of the ADM, they should invest in educating parents, coaches and referees.

For example, many parents are not aware that young children who overtrain in one sport run much higher risks of injury than if they played a variety of sports. Some parents incorrectly believe that early focused training makes for a more successful athlete, without realizing that cross-training is critical.

USA Fencing needs to realize that while parents ignore FenceSafe training mostly because they don’t believe it can happen to their kid, parents will definitely pay attention if USA Fencing provides education on how to make their child a better athlete.

Parents always pay close attention to advice that help their kids do better and perform better. There are numerous areas that the task force has recommended for educational programs that would serve fencing families very well.

We look forward to a series of educational programs from USA Fencing that line up with the principles of ADM.