Rachel Kuck paces around crowded Patten Gymnasium.

With her every step, she anxiously watches the other fencers dance their ballet on the gym’s dozen strips.

Soon, she will be among them, vying for a spot at the Junior Olympics.

But that spot matters little to Kuck, because while most of the other fencers have done this since middle school, this is her first time.

Fencers like Kuck used to be common at NU.

Without the allure of athletic scholarships and few high school fencing programs, many Wildcats learned the sports as freshmen and became starters a year or two later.

This is the furthest thought from Kuck’s mind.

The ping of swords colliding, the shrieks of triumph and the sobs of loss are interrupted by a booming voice on the gym’s makeshift public address system.

“Under-20 women’s epee, meet on strips 10, 11 and 12,” the announcer says.

Kuck and the fencers in her division flock to these strips. They gather their weapons and perform last second checks to their equipment — taping swords, fitting gloves and adjusting chest guards.

Some close their eyes and whisper a few words to themselves or their god.

Kuck and the others then disperse to their strips. As she takes her place, heart pounding relentlessly, she pulls down her mask with an “N” on it.

“N” as in Northwestern, the No. 6 team in the nation.

NU coach Laurie Schiller watches, but few of the dozens of other fencers and spectators in Patten are paying attention to Kuck. Still, the NU fencer’s brow drips with sweat, thanks in part to the searing spotlight only she sees.

“Ready, fence!” the referee says.

Kuck stares into the mask of her opponent, takes a step back and dives forward into a brand-new sport.

Kuck, freshman Stephanie Lo and the four other Cats who did not fence before coming to NU tread these waters every day at practice — where they fence against some of the nation’s best every week.

“It’s not a sport that many people are familiar with,” Kuck, a freshman, said. “So when you’re like, ‘I’m on the fencing team,’ everybody’s like, ‘Wow, that’s really awesome.'”

After-School Activities

At NU’s annual Activities Fair, students receive invitations to join club sports teams, political groups, music ensembles and the varsity fencing team.

Every year the women’s fencing team “recruits from the dorms,” as Schiller calls it, peppering residence halls with fliers and setting up a booth at the annual Activities Fair. Usually they attract former high school athletes who long have been interested in the sport, sometimes after seeing it in the Olympics.

The team uses these tactics to meet Title IX requirements, which NU complies with by making the percentage of female varsity athletes equal to the percentage of its female students.

Before the fencing program received scholarships in 1998, recruiting these beginners was vital to the team. Because NU relied mostly on the university’s academic reputation to attract experienced fencers, assistant coach Ed Kaihatsu said they had problems competing against Ivy League schools.

“It was very rare to get somebody out of the East Coast into the Midwest,” Kaihatsu said.

When scholarships came, top-notch fencers filled the holes and turned the program into a perennial contender.

With only five scholarships divided among 11 recipients and experienced walk-ons typically hard to find, women’s fencing is the only varsity program at NU that actively recruits beginners.

But NU isn’t the only school that recruits from the dorms.

“This is the way to build a team in fencing,” said Janusz Bednarski, coach of No. 1 Notre Dame. “It’s not a popular sport like football, when almost each (high) school has a football team and everybody knows how to play.”

Beginner’s Luck

In 1995, Michelle Gabriel was a second-quarter NU freshman yearning to get active.

“I was looking for some athletic activity to hedge the 15 pounds I was on my way to gaining,” said Gabriel, then Michelle Schaffner. “I was just looking to join in a casual way some activity, something that was organized.”

She casually joined the fencing team and by her senior year was NU’s first All-American fencer and its all-time winning epeeist, a record she still holds.

“She worked probably twice as hard as everybody else,” Kaihatsu said.

Gabriel went to the team’s daily three-hour practices, once-a-week lessons with Kaihatsu and offseason practices with her teammates. She also joined a fencing club in her native Southern California after her freshman year, trying to become a starter by the next season.

“I can’t remember exactly how much (time) I did spend, but it was above and beyond the practice schedule,” said the former high school track athlete and basketball player.

Gabriel added her success wasn’t just hard work paying off.

“Fencing was a good fit for my style,” Gabriel said. “I just had the mindset for it.”

Two years later, Vivian Imaizumi became NU’s second All-American. Imaizumi first picked up the sport at NU, too.

Schiller said he doesn’t see another Gabriel or Imaizumi on the horizon.

“It’s very difficult for someone who’s just learning to compete with (recruits),” Schiller said.

Training Days

“Ideally,” Schiller said, “if we had about six to eight fencers per weapon and they were all experienced, we’d just as soon not have beginners at all.”

Throwing a beginner onto a basketball court or a football field at a major college might cripple the team.

But on a personal level, Schiller enjoys teaching the beginners, as do many experienced Cats’ fencers.

“Having more people and having more walk-ons creates a better team atmosphere for everyone,” senior epeeist Kelsey Nencheck said.

“We make them better, and in turn they make us better,” senior sabreist Lauren Dunn said. “Teaching is a learning process.”

It often takes several weeks of conditioning led by Schiller and Kaihatsu before the beginners take the strip against just each other.

Once they start fencing, these beginners become full-fledged team members, participating in individual events like the Junior Olympics qualifier and fencing against real teams in matches already clinched by the starters.

Some become rather successful at their own level. Sophomore sabreist Jina Bartholomew is 17-5 this season and junior sabreist Morgan Engling has realistic hopes of contributing next year after Dunn and fellow senior Lauren Van Gieson graduate.

But most don’t even reach this level, like sophomore foilist Asha Shekaran, senior epeeist Genevieve Bieniosek and Kuck, who went winless at the Junior Olympics qualifier and finished 14th out of 14 in her division.

Yet these beginners come back, day after day.

“I’m not looking to win all of my bouts, or even win at all,” she said. “It’s just fun learning something new. That’s the whole thing in college — try out new things.”

Reach Patrick Dorsey at [email protected].