Our guest is Daria Schneider, head coach of the women’s and men’s fencing programs at Harvard University.
In this episode of First to 15, we're joined by Daria Schneider, head coach of the women’s and men’s fencing programs at Harvard University. Schneider took the helm at Harvard in 2019 and immediately led the Crimson to a men’s Ivy League championship in her first season.
Before Harvard, she was the head coach at Cornell and assistant coach at Columbia.
And before coaching, Schneider was, as you might guess, a successful saber fencer in her own right. She was the 2007 NCAA champion at Columbia, the 2011 national champion and a two-time bronze medalist at the Senior World Championships.
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First to 15: The Official Podcast of USA Fencing
Host: Bryan Wendell
Cover art: Manna Creations
Theme music: Brian Sanyshyn
EPISODE 26
[INTRO]
[00:00:01] BW: Hello, and welcome to First to 15, the official podcast of USA Fencing. I'm your host, Bryan Wendell, and in this show you're going to hear from some of the most inspiring, interesting, and insanely talented people in the sport we all love. First to 15 is for anyone in the fencing community and even for those just checking out fencing to see what it's all about. So whether you're an Olympian or a Paralympian, a newcomer, a seasoned veteran, a fencing parent, a fan, or anyone else in this wonderful community, this podcast is for you. With that, let's get to today's episode. Enjoy.
[INTERVIEW]
[00:00:40] BW: All right. Today's guest is Daria Schneider, who is the head coach of the women's and men's fencing programs at Harvard University. Schneider took the helm at Harvard in 2019 and immediately led The Crimson to a men's Ivy League Championship in our very first season.
Before Harvard, she was the coach at Cornell and an assistant coach at Columbia. Before coaching, Schneider was a successful sabre fencer in her own right, the 2007 NCAA champion at Columbia, 2011 national champion, and a two-time bronze medalist at the Senior Worlds. We're recording this podcast here live in St. Louis. So if you hear screaming, don't be alarmed. That's the fencing happening behind us. Hey, Daria, thanks for joining us.
[00:01:19] DS: Thanks so much for having me.
[00:01:20] BW: So let's jump right into kind of your story before we get into some deeper topics here. I know you're raised in Brookline, Mass. Can you tell us when and how you first got involved in fencing?
[00:01:31] DS: Yes. So I was really into all sports growing up. I played pretty much any sport that was available that my parents could sign me up for. Fencing was a sport that happened to be one of the after-school classes my elementary school, and I was signed up for all those because both my parents worked full-time. So I just happened to have the best coach in fencing of any of the sports that I was doing at the time. The coach who happened to be teaching this kids class was Ariana Klinkov, who at the time was the first woman to be internationally rated as a sabre referee. So that was a pretty big deal, and she really knew what she was doing. Much more so than my friend's dad who was coaching a soccer team, for example.
I think she and I just really gravitated towards each other. She was trying to start a club and find talented kids in the area and teaching all these plastic foil classes in all these elementary schools. So I continued playing my other sports for a long time. But fencing was the first sport where I really felt like I had the coaching and the guidance to start to compete at a higher level.
[00:02:28] BW: Yes. How important was that exposure to such a strong woman coach to your own like journey to becoming a coach later on?
[00:02:36] DS: It was incredibly important. The reason I was so committed to being an athlete at a certain point was because, well, I love sports, and I loved movement. But like sports, as opposed to dance or something like that, was – there's this moment when [inaudible 00:02:50] ripped off her shirt after the women won the World Cup. That really stuck with me, just seeing like a powerful person able to create like this huge amount of drama just by celebrating her victory with her team. There was something about that. As a little kid, it really stuck with me.
I think the fact that there was a woman teaching that class that had done something as a woman that no one had done before in our sport, the energy of all of it was right for me. I know from later in my career that it was much harder for me at times when I was working with male coaches and especially coming from different cultures that I did struggle at times. So I think that if I hadn't had that specific coach at that specific time, I probably would have ended up in a different sport.
[00:02:50] BW: It's crazy to think that the importance of that type of like exposure early on. When you think back on your fencing career, do you have like a proudest achievement, a moment that stands out as like that's going on the mental trophy shelf?
[00:03:48] DS: Honestly, there isn't one fencing moment or victory or championship that sticks out as much as for me a coaching moment, which was the fourth day walking into NCAA championships. Not this year but last year, so March of – I guess it would have been 2022. At that point, I think we were in third or fourth place. But we only had 11 athletes, and 12 is the max, and there were a bunch of other schools that had 12. We'd already passed at least one or two of them. I was just so proud of my team at that moment. I was hoping that whatever our result ended up being, that they would be proud enough of the result to recognize how good the quality of the work they had done was because we prepared so well for the competition, and they executed so well in the competition.
When you're the fencer, sometimes if the result doesn't match exactly what the work was, it can be hard to be proud and literally appreciate what you did. I just wanted them to be able to feel proud and feel fully satisfied with their performance. But I didn't know at that point because we're walking in. It’s the last day. There's still a lot of bouts left, and I didn't know where we would end up. But ultimately, we finished second, and we ended up tied on victories with Columbia. But we were ahead by plus 51 indicators, which is [inaudible 00:05:04] that's high. Yes, it was just really satisfying for us to be such a big number.
Indicators was something we had worked on all season because I kept saying in a lot of college situations and individual fencing like NACs and World Cups too, especially Senior World Cups, where your indicator can mean the difference between you not having a DE on the first day and you having a really hard DE on the first day or multiple Des on the first day. So I always talk about indicators, and we do different situational practices around indicators. We had gotten to a point during the season where we kind of even got into an argument about it with the captains and the team. They were like, “This is crazy. Why do we keep doing this?” I was like, “I promise you, this is going to matter.” Then it ended up mattering.
As a coach, for me, it was like if I had one moment in my entire coaching career that was like that, I'd be super happy. But to have it so early on at Harvard and my team to able to see like why that mattered and the value of the work that they had put in, that was incredibly special.
[00:05:58] BW: Yes. What do you think it says that when I asked that question, you didn't choose a moment from your fencing career? You've chosen moments in your coaching career. What does that say to you, in your mind?
[00:06:07] DS: I think probably a few things. One would be that I'm someone who's very much lives in the present. So I'm thinking more about what I do now than what I was doing before. I think, also, although I was a very good fencer for a long time, there are definitely some things about my personality and just how I'm built that, I think, suit me better as a coach than as a fencer. There's been something nice about the transition for me into coaching that has allowed me to like reflect back on my career and see some of the things I didn't accomplish that I really wanted to. Kind of understand that some of the reasons I've maybe wasn't able to achieve those goals are what does make me a good coach.
I'm not really sure also. With fencing, I just loved competing all time and practicing all the time. So it's a little different as coach. The challenges are just so different. To be able to be proud of your fencers’ achievements, that kind of – it's just a different dynamic than being proud of something you specifically achieved on your own.
[00:07:02] BW: Yes. I can see that, for sure. So one of those challenges of being a coach is recruiting, right? You're looking at high school student and saying, “Would this individual be a fit at Harvard?” So I know a lot of listeners would be curious to hear your recruiting philosophy to know like what makes you say that's someone who belongs at Harvard.
[00:07:22] DS: Yes. Obviously, we are looking for high-level fencers. But everybody is. So beyond that, I think that someone's openness to be willing to figure out how they can continue to improve in the sport is really important because I think that it's easy to think that what you've been doing has gotten you to a certain point, and you just need to keep doing the same things you're doing. But there are certain things that work pretty well at the junior level that don't really work as well in college and at the senior level.
So helping fencers transition from that junior level to the senior level is much more enjoyable and much easier when fencers come with a growth mindset and are curious to learn and curious to understand. To also recognize that the type of coaching that they were getting in their club is going to be very different from the type of coaching they're going to get at college. The coaching staff that we have at Harvard is a bunch of people who have achieved at the Olympic level or Senior World Championships for a long time across all the weapons. We're offering something that's different than what they were getting in their club, which is a lot more technical and a lot more maybe just bouting. There's a lot of open bowing that happens in the clubs.
But at the college level, it's transitioning to something different. I think some fencers can come in, and that can be really challenging for them because it's hard to feel different and uncomfortable. Right away, there can be sort of a reckoning with that. But fencers who are able to like ride that and recognize that they're coming, so they can continue to grow. They're not just coming because the school is named Harvard, and they think that everything that they were doing already is like enough to continue to have success. So that is one really important component is just that openness and that growth mindset.
The other thing would be just a willingness to be on a team because that's not something that fencers always experience if they don't do other sports and they don't – even if they do some team fencing, it's not really the same as being fully on a team. Sometimes, if someone has played another sport and been on a team, that can be a real positive for me. Or if they at least like have a hunger to be on a team and to perform and train with a team and not just kind of with club mates. Then character, how they treat their parents, how they treat their coach. What they're doing right after they lose is definitely something we look at and watch for because it's important how you respond to loss because everyone's going to lose a lot. Especially in a team, the way you act after you lose affects the team a lot more than if it's just you, even though it still affects you as well. But those are some of the main things that we look at.
[00:10:00] BW: So you’re absorbing a lot, more than just what you see out there.
[00:10:03] DS: Oh, yes. Yes.
[00:10:04] BW: The actions that you're seeing on the strip. That's really interesting. So kind of shifting a little bit to just collegiate fencing in general. I know one of USA Fencing’s goals is to like get fencing in more institutions. In your mind, what might it take to do that? Because, obviously, I imagine as a coach, you're thinking, “Yes, let's get fencing in as many colleges as possible. Increase the footprint.” Is there a pathway to that, in your mind?
[00:10:28] DS: Yes, definitely. I mean, I think our new CEO is already doing a great job because he's made it a priority. He's working very proactively with the USOPC on their efforts to protect and increase Olympic representation in NCAA sports. But I think also a couple years ago, before COVID, there was this plan to hold some NAC-like events in Asia, in some of the Asian countries. Then, obviously, that has gotten delayed. But that would be another source of revenue that could fund at least startup money for some college programs. I think that could be pretty critical because the impetus for those countries to want to have those competitions is so that their fencers can start to get on our ranking list so that they can be viewed by college coaches in a side-by-side comparison to our fencers.
I know there – at the time, I heard some concern from club coaches that that was taking college spots away. But I think there needs to be, again, that growth mindset that if we're going to grow collegiate sports, we need more revenue. We need a bigger pool. So if we're willing to open that up because there's already international recruiting happening anyway, then let's also generate some revenue from opening that up and put it. But then commit to not spending that on something that doesn't have to do with growing collegiate sports. So let's put that money towards helping, like offering some incentive to colleges that are going to try and start a fencing program.
[00:11:54] BW: Yes. Keep it in that same pool. That makes perfect sense. So when you think about where Harvard fencing sits in the landscape of other Harvard sports, like what is your reputation on campus? Are people aware of all the success that the fencing program has had, given that there's, I imagine, a couple of dozen other sports at Harvard, right?
[00:12:13] DS: Yes. We actually have the most sports of any college in the country. So I believe it's 41 sports, so a lot of sports. Yes, we definitely have a very strong reputation for performing at a high level. There are some other sports that do very well. Our hockey teams have been pretty successful. Our women's basketball team had a pretty amazing season this year, although, historically, they haven't performed quite so well. But this year, they made the consolation tournament and then won a couple games.
As far as non-NCAA sports, our water polo team has had a really great couple years. The coach that we have is pretty amazing, and also our squash coach is like legendary, and our squash team wins everything all the time. But, yes, there's definitely an appreciation for the sports that are performing in a really high level. I think it is really great to be at a place that has that many sports. I think Harvard has such a reputation of just being this academic monster, and it is. But it's also a school where there's the most number of division one sports of any college in the country. So it also can be a place for excellence in sports.
When I was thinking about transitioning to Harvard, that was really part of my thought was it already has a reputation for being number one academically in the world. That should go hand in hand with being number one in fencing in the world, right? So trying to create a center for fencing that can compete on that same level that Harvard competes at as an academic institution was definitely top of mind for me.
[00:13:44] BW: So when I think about the landscape of college coaching, in my opinion, there aren't enough women coaches. So I want to get your perspective on what it's going to take to increase women representation at that level of the sport and fully acknowledging the fact that our national coaches are amazing. But there's only one woman there as well, right? So there's – USA Fencing has some way to go as well. So how do we get more representation for women and fencing coaches?
[00:14:11] DS: I think that the culture needs to be way better. I think that it shouldn't be that those of us who are kind of crazy and weird are willing to be coaches and referees. If you don't have like a willingness to subject yourself to a lot of like pain and discomfort, then you're just like not going to do it. Because our culture, especially in sabre, it's pretty bad. The way that referees and coaches treat each other, the way that coaches treat each other and their athletes, and especially being a woman in the room. It's gotten a little bit better, I would say, in the last couple of years. But there are just so few women, and I feel strongly that it's because –
I mean, one, you don't see examples. I never thought I was going to be a coach, like not in a million years. Two, like if you do it, and it's just miserable and exhausting, then why would you keep coming back, right? So I think the culture has to change, and I think it's going to take a lot of concerted effort by the national office, by the board to put some resources into changing the culture. Phil and I have talked about this, and I feel like he's a big ally in this area. So that's really exciting to me.
Shannon works a lot in this area as well. I actually joined one of the women's coaching group sessions recently and thought it was pretty amazing what they're doing. So I see that there's efforts being made. But I think it's one of those things where if you just provide the resources and encourage and support the women who are doing it, like that's not enough. It has to be that the education around coaching and refereeing has to change a lot. There has to be significant resources put there so that the people who are entrenched in the culture itself already controlling the environment, that's what has to change. Not like the women don't need more encouragement and support. The actual situation needs to be different.
[00:16:11] BW: Yes. Because, ideally, it's not like, well, if you want to do this, you can. But you got to be tough. You got to be like Daria and be willing to subject yourself to this.
[00:16:18] DS: That and suffering. Yes.
[00:16:19] BW: Ideally, you don't have to say that, right?
[00:16:21] DS: Yes.
[00:16:22] BW: So you mentioned like Phil Andrews, our CEO, is a good ally in this space. Is there something that like men coaches and men referees can do that makes them like good allies and creating a healthier environment? I'm curious for my [inaudible 00:16:37].
[00:16:37] DS: Yes. I mean, I think like not telling their female students that they need to lose weight would be a good start, thinking really a concerted effort to try and hire women coaches when they have an open position in their clubs, thinking about inviting high-level women coaches to come for clinics when they're doing like a camp or whatever and not just the men coaches that are like known in the sport. When they ask their athletes as their athletes are getting better. This is not just for the women, but also the men. But I think it's – like the dynamic is a little bit different.
When they ask their athletes to help with a class, pay them. Don't just ask them to do it for free, right? They're not indentured servants. So I think just stuff like that, just practicing some like basic respect towards them as like people who do eventually need to be able to make a living. If they're still students, maybe they don't at that moment, and who – clearly in our sport, like it doesn't really matter what size you are. You can be successful. So not like getting overly focused on people's like appearance and weight would be also like a really huge way, I think, forward.
[00:17:43] BW: Yes. I mean, if you're mistreating someone or creating a toxic environment when they're a fencer, when they're ready to retire, why would they become a coach?
[00:17:50] DS: Why would they want to stay?
[00:17:51] BW: Yes, exactly. So I mean that makes perfect sense.
[00:17:55] DS: When you walk up to a group of coaches to say hello, like shake everyone's hand, not just the male coaches and referees that are standing there.
[00:18:03] BW: You’ve seen this.
[00:18:04] DS: It has happened to me dozens and dozens of times. The exception is when my hand is also shaken. Yes.
[00:18:09] BW: Okay. Well, that's a visual example of exactly what you're talking about is not seeing everybody as on the same level, which is unfortunate. But, hopefully, that can improve, right? In addition to being an advocate for women coaches and also being a successful coach yourself, you're also a representative on the USOPC’s Board of Directors. Please tell us what that role entails because I imagine some people might not know exactly what the board does.
[00:18:39] DS: Sure, definitely. So the board, similar to the USA Fencing Board, it's made up of a few different groups of people. There's individuals who come from the NGB Council. So that can be either – Phil Andrews is like your CEO of your NGB. Or it could be the chair or president of your board. So we have some of those firms in different sports. Then we also have some independent directors. So those are selected in a very different way.
Then there's athlete representatives who come from the Athlete Council of the US Olympic Committee. So on that council, there's one representative from every single sport, and those athletes elect three people to serve on the USOPC board. So I'm elected by that group. I'm elected by the one athlete from all the different sports. The reason I'm able to serve in that capacity is because I retired. My last representation at a Senior World Championships was recently enough ago that I still fit the requirement of an athlete representative.
Among the independent directors, they're trying now to have somebody who's from the collegiate space. So right now, we have an AD, an athletic director, who is on our board as well. There's also some people who are involved with the IOC, and they get an automatic seat. Also, the IPC, they get automatic seats on our board as well. So our current board is about 15 people, and the idea is a third constituent. So like five of us are NGB Council and athlete representatives, five independent director type of people, and then about five are – they're serving on the IOC and like some of these other spaces. There's also usually someone from the Olympic Foundation serving also on the board. So that's kind of the makeup of the group.
[00:20:19] BW: It’s truly a broad-reaching group. I didn't actually realize that about the Athlete Council, one from every sport. Then they elect three, like you said. You're one of them, so congratulations. By the way, that’s awesome.
[00:20:30] DS: Thank you. Actually, I'm very proud because I was the first directly elected athlete in a long time because it used to be before the Nassar scandal and the congressional report that came out, the Athlete Council would put forward two names. Then the board would choose one of them. So often, the Athlete Council felt like they would choose like the less outspoken or less controversial person that was put forward, right? Which if you've been listening to this podcast at this point, you've probably realized that would not [inaudible 00:21:02].
[00:21:03] BW: So you might not have gotten in?
[00:21:04] DS: No, no. I definitely would not have gotten into that system. Anyway, so when all of that happened with the border’s report through Congress, that there were a bunch of changes that came from that, and one of the recommendations was directly electing [inaudible 00:21:20]. So my cycle was the first cycle where there was an opportunity to directly elect someone, and I was that first person that got directly elected.
[00:21:27] BW: What was your case for election, if you can summarize that? Your stump speech or whatever it might have been.
[00:21:34] DS: Well, I had a brilliantly written speech, which I can't remember all the words to now. But I'd already served in a very similar role at fencing for nine years, so I was very practiced, understanding bylaws and interacting with other board members and understanding pain points in the Olympic movement. I've been through three Olympic cycles myself as an athlete, seeing all the things that can go right and go wrong. I felt like I was able to articulate that I not only know how to advocate for athlete interest and understand all the things that can make it difficult to advocate for athlete interests. But also that I have kind of a certain sense of justice and self-righteousness that I couldn't ignore if I wanted to in myself. So I just feel like I'm the perfect kind of person for that type of work. That group of athletes agreed.
I'd also been on that group for, I don't know, like six years at that point. So a lot of them knew me and had seen me in meetings, asking tough questions when the board would come to talk to us, and I think felt confident that I was going to be able to do that. We had – at the time that I was elected, there was someone in leadership on the Athlete Council that is a fencer, Cody Mattern. He had been the one to recruit me originally onto USA Fencing’s Board with some other epee fencers. I think he also was able to share some of the work I had done at fencing to make things better for athletes and change some things. So there was just a lot of confidence that I was going to be able to have tough conversations and support some difficult things that are important to athletes.
[00:23:08] BW: What an honor to be chosen by that group of each sport’s best, right?
[00:23:13] DS: That's probably one of my proudest athlete accomplishments.
[00:23:16] BW: Oh, totally, totally.
[00:23:18] DS: That truly counts as an athlete accomplishment, not a coach. Again, that's something where not every person who is going to make an Olympic team maybe has the same skills as athlete advocacy, right? But the skills that I have that do serve that are also not necessarily the right skills for being a thick medalist or an Olympic athlete. So it's been really cool to find ways to serve in the sport, even though, like I said, I didn't necessarily accomplish all the goals that I wanted to as an athlete.
[00:23:46] BW: So even though you're a fencer and, in a sense, represent fencing because that's how you were on the Athlete Council and then elected, you don't represent USA Fencing when you're on that board. However, what value do you feel it provides to listeners and other USA Fencing members to have someone who knows fencing and is a fencer on the board of directors?
[00:24:10] DS: Yes. I mean, I think it's huge. It's huge for fencing and other sports like us because I bring a lens that's for sports of a certain size of membership, individual sports, combat sports, right? There's a lot of things about working one-on-one with a coach and how time is divided in the clubs. There's things that are somewhat similar to our sport as other sports that I'm able to speak to very directly and even on a macro level, like how RIF operates and how the corruption that we have to deal with in our sport because of who our president has been and that we're not the only sport that deals with those challenges.
That’s been, I think, really helpful to fencing and to other sports like us to have someone who has lived those experiences, seen it on the ground, whether it's at a NAC, a local competition, a World Championships. I've actually lived it, I've seen it, and I'm there able to because a lot of the people who are on the board and independent directors, in particular, they may have never been to any kind of sporting event other than as a spectator, right? So they don't have that knowledge of like what happens when someone gets drug tested? Where do they go? Who watches them pee? What happens to their test? What happens if they fail? Who receives that result?
They can learn technically, but they don't see it on the ground, like how that actually works and how stressful it can be to like notice that it does affect. There was tampering on your box before you had to use it. Then how do you do that? There's this language issue, and you're in another country, and you don't have anyone who can say like why you're concerned about the test and why you don't want to sign. Then that can account as a failed test if you refuse to take a test. So it's just there's all these things that in theory seem on paper like, “Oh, yes. This system makes sense.” But then when you're on the ground living it, you're having a completely different experience.
[00:25:58] BW: So how does that manifests itself during the meetings themselves when an issue is raised? Are you sharing anecdotes? Are you saying like, “Look, here's how it actually is in the real world, and let me share my experience.”? What does that look like?
[00:26:12] DS: Sometimes, it's more helpful when we gather examples from across different sports at the Athlete Council level. Then we're able to bring like a group of examples. So it's not just like this one sport is having this one issue. Sometimes, it might be as simple as like the most recent example. We had a meeting where we were talking about the IOC putting out the new statement that Russia is going to be allowed to compete. But these are the restrictions. There was this number that came from the IOC that 30% of Russian athletes at this point in the quad, which is like the four-year period between Olympics, only 30% of Russian athletes are even going to be able to qualify at this point. That was supposed to like calm all of us that there's like these new guidelines.
I was able to speak to because I know what fencing’s qualification path is, and I have a vague knowledge of some of the other sports to say, “There's no way that number is accurate, in my mind. So I want to see the data that the IOC is leaning on to say 30%. I want to see what sports are done with qualification because I don't know of any. Why 30%? Where are we getting that number, right?”
[00:27:16] BW: Show you the work, right?
[00:27:17] DS: Yes. If you're an independent director, you might just be like, “Oh, okay. Yes, that makes sense that IOC is telling me 30%. It's got to be 30%.” But if you're actually in the sport, and you're seeing our qualification hasn't even started yet, and they made this change right before it did. So how is it possible that it's 30%? That's just one small example.
SafeSport, that's another huge one. We get reports as a board from SafeSport, and I'm able to ask, well, what happens when somebody is placed on restrictions, and then they appeal, and that allows them to come back into the sport kind of indefinitely because it feels like the cases go on forever, right? That's one where I feel confident we're not the only sport that deals with that challenge. So I can speak to that where, again, the independent director isn't necessarily going to know that there's this process by which if you appeal your case, you then get to just like hang out for a long time in the sport. So, yes, anyway, lots of examples like that.
[00:28:10] BW: Since you are so busy, how much prep work are you able to do for these meetings? Because it seems like you do quite a bit.
[00:28:17] DS: Yes. Well, I mean, it's really hard. I would say on a technical level, I'm not as well prepared as probably some of the other members because there's like we get hundreds of pages of reading before these meetings, and I definitely don't read all the pages. There are other board members [inaudible 00:28:32]. Because I'm living in the world, I can skim that. I also focus more on the areas where I'm on the committees, the one that I’m on committee sports. I'm on the NGB Certification Committee. I'm also on a bunch of the collegiate working group stuff. Then I'm on, what's my other committee, compensation committee.
I definitely do more of the like nitty-gritty reading for those, the homework for those and especially for our committee meetings. But then when it comes to the bigger picture, I try to not get too bogged down in all the readings and get feedback from the Athlete Council. Like what is the vibe going on, generally, in sports right now? What is the most pressing issue at the moment? Right now, for most sports, it’s Russia, about Russia, Ukraine like situation and doping.
I mean, I make sure that like those things that are top of mind for athletes because I'm the athlete rep. I'm like up to date on and especially the positions that athletes are feeling like they want to take. There are certain things I'm glazed over. I'm like, “I can't. I definitely can't do it all.”
[00:29:40] BW: Oh, of course. So even though you're not representing USA Fencing on that board, is there a process by which you like report some of what you're hearing back to USA Fencing? In other words, like, “Hey, here's some of the things that happened at the board meeting that might affect USA Fencing, and I just wanted to give you all a heads up out that.” Is there a mechanism for that [inaudible 00:30:01]?
[00:30:01] DS: Not officially. Informally, I often will talk to our high-performance director about things that might be related to the planning around the Olympics that I know will be relevant to her and our athletes. Also, I'm actually going to try to connect here with Kat Holmes, our current AAC chair, and she's one of the athletes on the USA Fencing Board to talk a little bit about – because fencing has actually been one of the most – actually, maybe the most kind of leadership-taking sport on their position with Russia and, I think, a really, really positive way, so just to talk to her to give her some encouragement.
Because it can be scary when you're just an athlete counsel for one sport. You don't really know if it's your place to say, “I don't think that we're taking a strong enough stand as an Olympic movement.” I think from where I'm sitting now, I'm able to see it absolutely. Not only is it your place, it's like your role, because there's no way that independent directors and some other people on our board will know what's actually happening to you, the fact that now all of your tournaments are in countries that are harder to get to, can be less safe in some situations, more expensive.
The Russian athletes are all going to have bodyguards. We're not going to have bodyguards. Our tournaments are not going to be a target because of the political environment. The people who sit on our board, they're not living that experience. I am because I'm a coach, and I'm going in some competitions, and our athletes are. You are absolutely the ones who need to say, “We understand why there might be reasons to take a certain position. But this is the result that that has on our lives and our livelihood.”
[00:31:32] BW: Yes, yes. That's really well said. So kind of wrapping up, bringing it back to USA Fencing, and we're here at the April NAC. It's a great tournament so far. When you look at how far USA Fencing has come, it makes me think where it can go next. If you had the ability to wave a magic wand, where would you want to see this sport and specifically USA Fencing in five years?
[00:31:57] DS: Oh, my goodness. I have such a long answer for this one. Okay. So first of all, women's softball did something maybe two decades ago or 15 years. I don't know exactly how long. Where the college coaches association of softball met with executives at ESPN. There might have been some other people involved, but those were like the two key groups. They basically told ESPN, “You tell us what we need to do differently in order to be successful on TV.” ESPN gave them a bunch of stuff, and some of it included like changing their roles and their bylaws and whatever. They did it, and now they're successfully on ESPN.
[00:32:35] BW: They’re on all the time.
[00:32:36] DS: On all the time, a huge fan base, very popular college sport, right? So to me, that shows that like any sport – I think now we just think like, “Oh, the women's softball is on ESPN because that's a popular sport.” But there was a time when they weren't on ESPN, and they weren't a popular sport.
[00:32:48] BW: And it was a deliberate process.
[00:32:50] DS: It was a deliberate process. I hear this all the time in our own community, and it's incredibly frustrating to me. It's like, “Fencing is too hard to understand. You’ll never be on TV.” If you've ever tried to explain the sport of baseball to a foreign person, you realize that the ability for a sport to be on TV has literally nothing to do with how complicated it is. Nothing.
[00:33:10] BW: Interesting. Yes.
[00:33:11] DS: So that means we can 100% make fencing a popular sport for television. But it requires us to work with people who know television, people who understand what people want to see. Now, it's not just television, right? It's not like streaming in TikTok and whatever.
[00:33:26] BW: Yes, same spirit.
[00:33:28] DS: The same spirit and we need those experts in those areas to tell us, what kind of breaks do you need us to have? How reliable do those times have to be? What do the people need to be wearing? What do you need to be able to see of the person? How does the referee need to be different or whatever? What does our sport needs to look like for us to be on TV?
[00:33:47] BW: So not like a complete overhaul of the rules but some presentation –
[00:33:51] DS: No. Logistical thing.
[00:33:54] BW: Maybe not even tweak. Maybe legit changes.
[00:33:56] DS: Yes. Like does the strip need to be a different size or format? Does it need to be a round surface? I don't think that would be necessarily because it's actually pretty easy to record because you can do like three views, and you get pretty much like a full, right? But anyway, I wouldn't make those decisions. An expert would make those decisions, right?
[00:34:16] BW: But at least asking the question and getting the answer. Yes, yes.
[00:34:18] DS: Yes. And have some type of league or group start out to have those conversations. Actually, we hosted Ivy League Championships my first year, the year that our men won outright. They actually won outright this year too, so let's not get confused, but in 2019. I guess it was technically 2020. But they won before COVID. Harvard has a contract with ESPN. So all of our games, all sports are broadcast or streamed. We made a lot of very intentional things around knowing that we were going to have live broadcasting, that we were told it was like one of the best fencing events they'd ever put on.
It wasn't that easy because there's a lot of different strips happening in IVs. It's not like just one strip like you do at a World Cup or in a finals or whatever. But we put pipe and drape in places where you couldn't see the mess of like people's feet and their stuff, right? So the focus was like on the fencers and on the teammates’ faces and the coaches’ faces and the referee’s face and everything. They were like able to cover it really well. We made sure the score was really clear, like between the teams as the matches were happening. But you have to work with the people who are actually doing the broadcasting, right? Anyway, so that would be like 10 years from now, I really hope we figured that out.
Another thing is the technology already exists. I know it exists in like track and swimming for there to be an automated start and a sensor that tells you if someone started early. In sabre, especially, foil a little bit, and epee barely, until sometimes the very end of about when someone's trying to like come back. Sabre really matters, whether you start early or not, right? We shouldn't have someone's eye deciding whether someone started early or not. Because we're almost always wrong, right? We can't judge that well.
[00:36:03] BW: I mean, when I see it, I was like – when I see a card raised for it, I'm like, “I didn't see that.”
[00:36:07] DS: The sound is impossible. We're not doing that well, so we should be using like a sensor. Again, that technology already exists. There should be a sensor, there should be a standard noise, and it should just be either like the sensor tells you, the referee, that person, there was like a flinch or an early start or whatever. If the sensor doesn't tell you, there wasn't an early start, no matter what you think as a referee.
[00:36:27] BW: Yes. It’s completely automated, so to speak.
[00:36:30] DS: Yes. There should be no one who works in college sports refereeing national or international competitions because there's too many conflicts already in the sport. That just creates this dynamic where I'm a college coach, and I'm recruiting, and I want a recruit to come to my school. I'm reffing their pool.
[00:36:50] BW: Oh, okay. I see what you're saying.
[00:36:52] DS: Or someone didn't choose my school, or my student at my school is trying to make a team, and this other person is like in competition. It's just a mess, so that's not good. You should like –
[00:37:03] BW: That’s a lot of factors. Yes, for sure.
[00:37:04] DS: In a lot of other sports, either you're a referee or you're a coach. You can't be both for obvious reasons, right? Referees should be wearing normal clothes, not suits. We're one of the only sports that I can think of where we wear a suit. I think it puts too much focus and emphasis on the referee and takes away from the athletes and the sport. Like wrestling is a good example to me of you almost don't see the referee when the action is happening. Then even when like the points happen, like it's very much more the focus on athletes.
In tennis, like they're wearing a polo. A lot of sports, they wear a polo with like stripes, whatever. But why a suit? Like why are we centering the referee and like putting them in a suit, right? I hope we have 15 more NCAA programs at a minimum. I hope all of our events are done in a spectator-friendly way, and we're ticketing our events.
[00:37:50] BW: Yes. It’s – one has to happen before the other, right? You have to present something people want to get a ticket for.
[00:37:55] DS: Yes. I hope that we have like a 30-age category because I would totally do that if it existed nationally.
[00:38:03] BW: Is this the announcement of your impending comeback?
[00:38:05] DS: I’m not coming back, no. We're going to have like [inaudible 00:38:07], right?
[00:38:07] BW: Yes. The FIE announced that.
[00:38:08] DS: And it’s 40s, 50s, and 60s. But like as a 35-year-old person, like I can go out there and fence in this open event and like maybe win some bouts. But the thing is like I'm so much more likely to get injured trying to keep up with the quickness and the direction changes of like teenagers than if I was out there just fencing other 30-year-olds. I love fencing, and I don't really need to like compete anymore. I'm happy as a coach. But if it existed, like I would totally do it, right?
[00:38:36] BW: Yes, there is kind of that gap, right?
[00:38:38] DS: There’s a gap.
[00:38:38] BW: So like, “Okay. Well, wait till you're 40, and then you can come fence again.” Yes.
[00:38:38] DS: Some 30-year-olds can do it and choose to do it. But there's definitely people who aren't choosing to do it who would do like that category.
[00:38:51] BW: I love that you had a list of things that you want change. That seems very Daria, and I like that in a good way.
[00:38:57] DS: That's just my high priority ones.
[00:39:00] BW: Okay. So there's dozens more that did, but they don’t have time for it.
[00:39:02] DS: Yes. But I had to select [inaudible 00:39:03].
[00:39:05] BW: Well, this is great. Thank you so much, Daria Schneider. Good luck at Harvard and all your coaching and then your comeback that we may be seeing soon in some sort of 30 in epees.
[00:39:14] DS: No, there’s not going to be any.
[00:39:16] BW: Well, thank you again. Appreciate it.
[00:39:16] DS: Thank you, Bryan.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[00:39:19] BW: Thanks for listening to First to 15, the official podcast of USA Fencing. We'll be back with our next conversation in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, you can stay up to date on all the latest fencing news by following us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. If you liked this podcast, please help us grow and reach more people by leaving us a rating or review. Until next time, I'm Bryan Wendell, and I hope to see you real soon out on the Strip. Bye.
[END]