The Remise
Item
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Title
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The Remise
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Date
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October 1941
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volume
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6
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issue
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4
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pages
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2, 6-7
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content
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en
The Remise
Late in September America tuned its radios to hear the Louis-Nova Boxing Match. Much had been said in advance about the cosmic punch of Nova. Little has been said since. In listening to the fight that night along with a few other fencers, someone jokingly said that he was working upon a cosmic lunge. This caused everyone to laugh but me. My memory flashed back immediately to the last National Foils Championship and my bout in the finals with Al Snyder of San Francisco. I remembered too clearly how he had hit me with three simple one-two attacks in a row before I knew what had happened. I had not been thinking of a cosmic lunge at the time. I knew that I was being hit plumb center, very fast and very convincingly but what I couldn't appreciate was that his attacks, when they started, had danger in them. They looked entirely innocent but floated straight in with a deadly speed and accuracy. Al was pulling cosmic lunges on an old friend.
I give all of this preliminary to praising Al's fencing this year. He has for long been a winner on the Pacific Coast. He came East last year and fizzled out in the first round. Nothing daunted he tore through the Pacific Coast Championship again this year and came back to take up where he had left off. He had learned his lesson. He came East earlier and fenced hard in New York so that the change in climate and the tempo of the Nationals wouldn't leave him cold when the big day came. It was then that he showed us how he really could fence. He tore through his preliminary and semi-final rounds with the loss of only one bout, dropping one 4-5 to Warren Dow. On his way to the Finals he met and defeated Cetrulo, Huffman, Giolito and Lewis, leaving me the only other finalist to compare later. So Al did as well as anyone else, defeating each of the others the first time he met them. He went into the quadrangle for the finals and fell by the wayside in what became more of a marathon than a fencing match. He ended the year well up in the top list of rankings.
—
Since we have entered upon some discussion of the foil finals, we cannot overlook the new champion. Dean Cetrulo came through in fine style in a competition that was made to order for him as things developed. He was the youngest and sturdiest fencer in the finals. If he couldn't blast his opponents aside on the first try then he would outlast them in further tries.
That is exactly what happened and he was the best equipped man to survive that type of competition. He had pounded his way through the Eastern Intercollegiate Fencing Conference Championships on March 21st, winning all of his foil and sabre bouts to take two titles in one very full day of competition. The Nationals were nothing more then another long grind for him. He was up against faster and foxier opponents but he too is fast and rapidly learning to be foxy so it can only be said that the man best equipped to win did win.
By winning, Cetrulo broke two records. He is the first college man ever to win the National Foil title and is also the first man ever to jump directly to first place the first time he had ever received a rating among the top ten.
Huffman and Giolito also deserve plenty of praise. It was a nip and tuck race until the very last round when Giolito's failure to train hard during the season and Huffman's extra steam began to tell. I feel that Cetrulo deserves the gold medal and that the silver medal should be split three ways among the others.
—
The women's foil was a study in psychology. Returning to the Nationals was Helene Mayer, a truly great personality in ours or any other sport. It is just too bad to see Alice Marble, Helen Wills Moody and Suzanne Lenglen extolled to the skies from time to time for their sport achievements when we have a girl within our own sport who has been head and shoulders above any contenders for more than a dozen years. Fencers just do not get the publicity accorded to other sports. Anyhow it was interesting to watch her. She was cautious at the start and after her many experiences on the Pacific Coast where she would ride through competition after competition with no more than one touch being made against her she found that she was faced with stiffer competition. She received touches but lost no bouts. As the finals arrived she really toughened up. She had regained her full confidence. She ripped off her seven final bouts with only five touches made against her. She allowed two touches in one bout, one touch in three bouts and blanked her other three opponents. Again she was a cool champion improving as the competition proceeded.
Marion Lloyd Vince using top-notch experience to the maximum played an apparently cool game to win a clear second place for the second year in a row. Marion is not cool. She is as nervous as a cat underneath which really accounts for her sureness of placing which has so many times been a golden first.
Maria Cerra is a quite different type from either of these girls. Small, dainty and fast, her game is mostly concentrated in her wrist. She has been progressing steadily the past few years. In ratings she was 9th in 1939 and 7th in 1940. Her third place in this championship should again raise her ranking to a fourth place at least.
Helena Mroczkowska put up a furious and clean fight for her title at the start and close of the competition. A strong, aggressive and daring fencer she usually takes the fight to her opponent. As the finals began she unaccountably went off her stride and though penetrating her opponents' defenses missed the target. She went down in the first half of the finals but she never was out. She came back fighting in that second half and recovered as much lost ground as she could. That is as much as you can ask of any fencer.
Lisel Oppenheim and Jarmila Vokral tied with Helena Mroczkowska in bouts won and Miss Oppenheim bested Helena on a count of touches. Their fencing is similar in that it is based upon long experience and is cool and defensive. They placed in approximately their correct positions in that particular competition.
—
The writer does not feel too well qualified to comment upon the sabre and epee results. The epee was certainly a weapon of surprises. The qualifying rounds had knocked off one ranking fencer after another. The preliminary round caught up with all of the others excepting Capt. Gustave Heiss, last year's No. 9. Heiss easily breezed through for his fourth National Epee title, as popular and as unperturbed as ever.
In sabre we saw the six best men work their way to the finals. Murray and Treves had been squeezed out in a very close count of touches and you might expend considerable argument in their behalf, but on the whole, the original statement stands. It looked like a serious threat to Armitage's crown and, after the scattering of crowns all week, anything could happen. It didn't. Norman was at a cool fighting pitch and with his fiance, now his wife, there to cheer him on he disposed of one threat after another to obtain a clear claim to the title again. Huffman was the real threat but for some reason or other he suffered a deep slump against Armitage. Otherwise Huffman's record in the finals was brilliant for despite his 5-1 loss to Armitage he had less touches made against him that evening than the champion even though he had spotted him a difference of four in their personal exchange.
Nyilas and Worth were brilliant but not consistent in execution. The tempo of their bouts was enthusiastically appreciated by the spectators.
The ultimate results looked about right from where I sat.
—
Every year it is necessary to thank very much the same group of men for their voluntary and thankless tasks as directors, judges, scorers and timekeepers. Such directors as Van Buskirk, Dow, the de Capriles brothers, Nyilas, and Huffman were as willing to work as ever. Countless judges were called upon and shared the long and tedious jobs assigned to them. William Price worked almost steadily recording the scores and Pieter Mijer in operating the official scoreboard. These volunteers almost equaled the competitors in numbers and without them the competitions would not have been possible.
There are, unfortunately, a few fencers who value their condition more than the needs of their friends. They refuse to direct or judge for fear of tiring themselves before their own pet competitions. Such men should suffer a walkout by the directors and judges when they appear on the strip to give them a taste of their own medicine. Among the hard workers, I think that President Huffman should be particularly mentioned. He fenced in the foil team and sabre team championships on subsequent nights, directed all of the finals of the women's foil the next night, placed second in the men's foil two nights later after which he conducted the annual meeting of the A.F.L.A. The next day he took another second place in sabre, fenced in an exhibition electric foil bout at the Gala Night party and acted as Master of Ceremonies throughout the evening.
Jose de Capriles and William Perry III deserve a lot of credit for the 16-page program which they developed for the championships. Not only was the program attractive and instructive but it also succeeded greatly in getting more fencing activity on one place than had ever been seen before in this country. These two men more than paid its own way.
Pieter Mijer not only devised and built a large scoreboard for the benefit of the spectators but spent his entire time during the Nationals in operating that board to present a play by play account of the bouts in progress. There is no question but that Pieter deserves first prize in making these Nationals more understandable and interesting to the spectators than ever before. The combination of scoreboard and scoresheets as printed in the program saw the spectators taking a personal interest in the competitors and every score.
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The Gala Night was one of historical importance to every member of the A.F.L.A. This was the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the League. Of course the guest of honor was none other than Dr. Graeme M. Hammond who founded the A.F.L.A. back in April, 1891. As this grand old octogenarian received the tumultuous applause of the party that evening he must have felt pleased with the organization he had founded so many years before. His fencing family had grown steadily all these years and it could not disguise its love for him.
Two interesting exhibitions were presented. Bela deTuscan with the cooperation of Dr. John Huffman exhibited the new electric foils which de Tuscan, the Detroit professional, had developed. Their electric recording intrigued everyone but of greater interest to some was the hollow elliptical blades which promised a lightness and balance in future foils surpassing anything now available.
Anthony Scafati, the popular Newark professional, next presented his little six-year-old daughter Gloria in a fencing lesson and bout. When Gloria began alternating partinondo and balestre attacks at call it snapped Aldo Nadi completely out of the calm which had remained with him throughout the most exciting bouts of the championships themselves. He was the first to volunteer as director for the bout between the little girl and her dad and methinks leaned heavily in the little lady's favor in many of the subsequent decisions.
The party was a good one further brightened by two birthday cakes, one delivered to Louise Santelli and the other to Grace Acel.
