By John Fleming
In the land of football, baseball and basketball, the sport of fencing gets … a little lost in the shuffle.
While we root for America’s familiar big three as if they’re blood sport, this one truly has bloodletting in its past (think of the Romans at their worst). Swordplay has been around for millennia, but fencing entered the modern scene as one of the nine original sports in the 1896 Olympic Games.
Since then, it’s grown in popularity — with the most interest in Europe, but also steady growth in the United States. Much of this is courtesy of The Fencing Authority, a website touted as a beginner’s guide to the sport.
Obscure to Candler Park, you say? Well, not so fast. Right here in the middle of the neighborhood is a certified fencing coach with decades of experience. Meet Bill Murphy.
Coach Murphy began his fencing career at Georgia State University in 1982. In 1994 he received his Basic Foil Instructor certificate from Mt. Alex Beguinet at the U.S. Fencing Association Coaches College.
As an armorer, Bill served as the Sports Equipment Manager for the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games fencing competition management team. At the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, he served as a weapon control coordinator for the fencing competition management team.
In 1994, at the request of the Atlanta Paralympic Organizing Committee, Bill started the first wheelchair fencing program in America at Atlanta’s Shepherd Center. Over the decades, he has attended numerous regional, national and international fencing tournaments in a technical role.
Bill is passionate about the sport of fencing, and in his retirement, he enjoys giving private fencing lessons and sharing his knowledge of the sport with members of the Atlanta International Fencing Foundation.
CPNO caught up with him recently to get a better idea of what this sport is all about.
CPNO: Pret, Bill?
Bill Murphy: Allez!
CPNO: Can you give us some background on fencing, what its origins were and how widespread it is today?
Bill: The first known manual on the sport of fencing was written in the 1470s in Europe. Fencing was developed to train men in the skill of swordsmanship so that they could become proficient in dueling and sword fighting. The sport first arrived in America around 1800, starting out in New Orleans.
CPNO: How did you get involved?
Bill: In 1982 I took a fencing class through the Recreation Department at Georgia State University. I was never any good with any of the ball sports, and I knew right away that I had found the sport that I wanted to participate in. I joined the Atlanta Fencers’ Club in 1983 and began taking private lessons with Maestro Gene Gettler. At that time Gene was one of the very few fencing masters in the south.
CPNO: Tell us about your career.
Bill: From 1983 to 1988 I regularly competed in fencing tournaments around the southeast. After I stopped competing regularly I pursued a new role within the sport, the role of armorer — repairing and assuring the safety of the equipment used in fencing. In this capacity, I had the privilege of working at the 1996 and 2000 Olympic Games fencing events, as well as two Paralympics and a number of other international events. But, I missed the bladework aspect of the sport, which led me to coaching.
CPNO: The work you have done at the Shepherd Center sounds extraordinary. Can you elaborate?
Bill: Really it was a matter of being at the right place at the right time. I was chairman of the Georgia Division of the U.S. Fencing Association when I was contacted by the 1996 Atlanta Paralympic Organizing Committee asking me to organize a wheelchair fencing program at Atlanta’s Shepherd Center. Wheelchair fencing was practiced in Europe and other parts of the world, but there were no wheelchair fencing programs in the United States.
So, together with Polish Maestro Leszek Stawicki, who later became the U.S. National Wheelchair Fencing Coach, I developed the 1996 U.S. Paralympic Wheelchair Fencing Team. Wheelchair fencing (now called Para-fencing) is now a popular Paralympic sport in America. To say this was the experience of a lifetime is an understatement.
CPNO: And now you help teach young people about fencing. Tell us more about how you’re spending your retirement.
Bill: After the Atlanta Fencer’s Club closed, there was virtually no recreational fencing inside I-285, but the Atlanta Fencers Club Foundation created a new opportunity for young people to participate in what is the world’s oldest modern sport. While I have mostly taught fencing to adults, I am now working with kids, too. I’m really enjoying it, and I think the kids are enjoying it too.
CPNO: The Atlanta Fencers Club Foundation has a goal of making fencing accessible no matter income, race, gender or age. How did you get involved?
Bill: The driving force behind fencing in Atlanta is Gene Gettler. Gene purchased the Atlanta Fencers’ Club in 1977 and built a solid program that had both recreational and competitive fencing opportunities.
Several years before the Atlanta Fencers’ Club closed, Gene took an interest in a child by the name of Biaya Tia, who had taken up fencing. Gene taught Biaya how to fence and worked with him continuously to improve. Biaya became a dedicated fencer and it was his mother, Llandu, who did all of the work necessary to keep the Atlanta Fencers’ Club going under a new name with an expanded mission, the Atlanta Fencers’ Club Foundation. I became involved with this new organization because I believe in the mission of the organization and there are some wonderful people involved.
Bill Murphy retired from a 5th generation, family owned and operated European fencing equipment manufacturing company. He worked for them for fifteen years as the US customer service agent.
Here is a link with contact info for the Atlanta Fencers’ Club Foundation: https://www.atlfencersfoundation.org/about-1