In this episode, we're honored to welcome a truly multi-faceted figure in the fencing world, David Blake. From beginning his journey at Concord-Carlisle High School to shaping the future of fencing through his numerous roles at USA Fencing and international tournaments, David's story is unique and rich.
David is not only a former NCAA athlete and an experienced coach, but he’s also a key figure behind the scenes. If you’ve competed at a national tournament, you’ve probably seen him at the Satellite Bout Committee near the finals strip — often wearing a neon yellow polo. He's a strategic mind in USA Fencing’s Tournament and SEMI Committees, an international referee, and a visionary in integrating technology with fencing. His contributions span from local clubs to the global stage, including the Olympics.
[INTRO]
[00:00:01] BW: Hello, and welcome to First to 15, the official podcast of USA Fencing. I'm your host, Bryan Wendell. 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: In this episode, we are honored to welcome a truly multifaceted figure in the world of fencing. It's David Blake. From beginning his journey at Concord-Carlile High School to shaping the future of fencing through his numerous roles at USA Fencing and at many international tournaments, David's story is unique and rich. He's not only a former NCAA athlete and an experienced coach, but he's also a key figure behind the scenes at USA Fencing tournaments and beyond.
If you've ever competed or attended a national tournament, you've probably seen him at the satellite bout committee. Well, for those of you who don't know, we'll explain what that is a little bit later. That's near the final strip, and he's often wearing a neon yellow polo along with his team there. He's a strategic mind in USA Fencing’s tournament and semi-committees. He's an international referee and a visionary in the way we've integrated technology with fencing. His contribution span all the way from local clubs to the global stage, including the Olympics. With that introduction out of the way, let's welcome David Blake.
So, David, let's start in the very beginning. How did you get started in fencing, and what do you love about the sport that's kept you around for so many years?
[00:01:45] DB: Wow. Well, I started when I was in high school. I was a walk-on for the high school team. My mother had a friend who was a fencer, one of the early women's epee fencers, as well as previously a women's foil fencer. So I decided to try it out and just kind of took off.
[00:02:02] BW: What keeps you around in the sport? Like why do you keep coming back and devoting so much time to this sport?
[00:02:08] DB: I've just always had a great experience with fencing. It's kind of taken over my life multiple times now. I was fencing as a high school athlete and in college. I stopped for seven years. I came back into fencing as a competitor only, which quickly became referee and tournament organizer and volunteer at various different levels. It just kind of took over things till I was coaching and running a club. That’s evolved into what I'm doing now. So it's kind of been a fun ride. Fun to see it evolve from being a competitor and just on the entry level to being more behind the scenes now, keeping everything running.
[00:02:44] BW: Yes, behind the scenes but playing an important role. That's so important that if you weren't there or if the team that you trained wasn't there, then then people would certainly notice. You've created kind of this new standard, which I want to get into in a second. But we have a lot of listeners who are either high school fencers themselves or the parents of them. So looking back on your high school team, what was the impact that that had on you as a person and then, specifically, some of your coaches, Elliot Lilien and Joe Pechinsky? What did those individuals do that made your high school fencing career so impactful?
[00:03:19] DB: For me, they both helped me develop quickly in fencing. Like I said, I was a walk-on for the team and really hadn't done organized sports before. So it was a first try at that. With their help, I was able to be successful pretty quickly. I was a varsity athlete by my sophomore year. In fact, when I was coaching at Concord-Carlisle later on, I did for nearly 20 years, I coached during our 50th anniversary. I borrowed all the scrapbooks from Elliot Lilien who was a teacher at the school and my coach. She started the program and coached there for 20 years.
I was able to find where my first varsity win happened. He had the press release. He had press releases for everything. We had seven or eight scrapbooks, but we were able to find that. Because that person's still in fencing, I was able to actually send him a picture of it.
[00:04:11] BW: Oh, my gosh. That's cool.
[00:04:12] DB: It's a sign of friendly rivalry.
[00:04:14] BW: Yes, exactly.
[00:04:15] DB: But nice to see somebody else on that list still involved in the sport.
[00:04:18] BW: Yes. It's a sport that a lot of people keep at for a long time for their whole lives. So after high school, you were a recruited athlete to the Naval Academy and competed at the NCAA championships. What was that experience like? Obviously, collegiate fencing is a whole different ball game, so to speak. What was that like for you?
[00:04:36] DB: Collegiate fencing, for me, I was only a collegiate fencer for a year, was very interesting because from what I had done as a high school fencer in the camps that I'd been to and tournaments I'd been to, I ended up knowing somebody on each team that we competed against, whether it was athletes or the coaches. So every place we went, I felt like I was visiting friends. The Naval Academy coaches decided that I should probably not go be too friendly with people before the meets and focus on the fencing.
But it was fun to see what a broad footprint I had had in high school that I knew that many or had someone everywhere and felt comfortable with all these teams. Actually, some of the people I fenced with then are also still involved in fencing.
[00:05:18] BW: So that's why when I'm at a tournament and I see you, you know pretty much everybody. I've noticed that. It's like everyone knows David, and David knows almost everyone. A lot of people who have interacted with you more recently, myself included, are more aware of your role with the satellite bout committee and working at the tournaments to make them run smoothly. So one of the many developments you could say that you were instrumental in creating was establishing video replay at NACs.
Now, I can't imagine a NAC without it. But, obviously, there was a time when someone couldn't make that little square with their fingertips and say, “I want to get a replay.” So let's just start by talking about what the replay play crew does at a NAC also where the satellite bout committee, a term that we've been saying a lot already in this episode, where they fall in the picture.
[00:06:08] DB: Well, when we started with video replay, we had five strips of video replay. That's still a limited resource, and it really forced us to start to move the events to particular strips as they neared the end of the tournament. Before that, we would fence finals wherever in the room the event was. It would just lapse down onto one strip, and that's where the finals would happen. So with video replay, we had to organize moving events to those particular strips.
Initially, I was the only person that was there, and I would run to wherever the bout committee was, sometimes not too close, and talk to the person running the event and/or the bout committee chair, and discuss where the strips were going to be or what strips we were going to use. After a short time, we started putting the names up on the strips with the little LED signs you have to program with a remote. So as soon as the competitors were known, I'd get the names and what strips they were going to be on, and go out, and get that set up. That was a lot of running around, actually.
[00:07:16] BW: Yes. Even back then before tournaments were quite as large as they are now, I imagine. That's still – you're going from one end of a giant exhibit hall to another.
[00:07:26] DB: Right. So part of my role at that point was figuring out where things were going to go anyway. It didn't always happen that way. Sometimes, the change would happen that wouldn't get communicated to me which would just make more work. We even – I can even remember one instance where the final strip had three events heading to it, and all three event and the bout committee decided that one event was going to fence. The epee event was going to fence.
Sabre fencers who finished their semi very close to that strip realized that they were going to be third in line, unless they took over the strip themselves. The referee ran to go get the slip, and the bout committee said, “No, no. We're not doing that bout first.” But the fences were already on strip, and it probably took longer to get that resolved than it would have to just fence the other bouts first.
The need for a separate area that's managing just those strips became apparent. Over time, we developed this idea of having a satellite bout committee, and the event now has evolved to where at satellite bout committee, we basically are running a separate tournament inside a tournament. We run things a lot closer to how a World Cup runs where – in how we assign particular strip to a particular bout, where in the earlier parts of the tournament for direct elimination, you're assigned to an area.
Then the pod captains are sending them out. We're putting it, posting it, and loading the names, which now come automatically from fencing time. I think it makes things run smoother when we get to the end of the tournament. We used to bring somebody down from the main bout committee, and we found that because it was – so we ran things so differently than how they ran it at the rest of the tournament. We would have to retrain people anyway, so we just started to run that within my group and just have the people, the right staffing to do that.
[00:09:11] BW: Logistically, it makes sense. I mean, if anybody's been to a national tournament, they know that there's that bout committee that's up on a stage, and they're kind of right in the middle of those, what, 50, 60 strips that are in the main part of the exhibit hall. Then over in one corner or sometimes in like a separate part of the exhibit hall, that's where David and his team sits with, what, nine strips, right? There's two pods and then a final strip.
[00:09:37] DB: Sometimes as many as 13.
[00:09:38] BW: Okay. So you may have three pods.
[00:09:40] DB: Well, sometimes, you might have a third pod.
[00:09:42] BW: It makes sense logistically because now you're not running around this giant exhibit hall. You're right there, and the fencers don't have to go all the way back either with their slips to say, “Hey, I made it, too, to the next round.” So it works really well. So there's that side of it and then the video replay side of it. It means that every strip that has a replay camera on it also needs a whole system set up so that those replays happen and that the referee can look at them whenever they need it instantly, too, right?
Which I think we take it for granted, but what was the process like there that you now have these computers that people can turn around and see it in real time, in 30% speed, all of that? It just is so fascinating to me.
[00:10:23] DB: So that's just the system that we use is a system designed by some Canadian fencers who actually ended up bringing it down and testing it at my club when I had a club and which is why I was aware of it and a little more up to speed on that particular system when US Fencing bought it. So I was able to help implement it from the beginning. But that system's built to do video replay for fencing. It's one of the approved systems.
[00:10:48] BW: It’s tied into the scoring machine, too, right? So that –
[00:10:51] DB: It's tied to the scoring machine. It's triggered off with lights.
[00:10:53] BW: Which is so genius to me.
[00:10:54] DB: And the scoring machine.
[00:10:55] BW: That that works. I love it.
[00:10:56] DB: Yes. We have cables that run around from the scoring machine to the replay system which is part of our two-day setup when we start setting everything up for a NAC or any of our tournaments. We have to run those cables and tape them down. Then my crew is out on the floor. I usually have two or three people anyway on the floor to respond when there's a problem or a system is not working for some reason that they can help keep the belt running. They have radios, so we can communicate back and forth if we need to move something quickly if that's the solution we need to do.
[00:11:28] BW: Yes. It's like mission control because there's all these different things happening at once. The scoring machines which tie into fencing time. So I'm always amazed by how I can go to fencing time live and click that scores button. It’s like almost exactly in real time what's happening a few feet away on the real strip. Then there's the video replay, which is we just talked about. It allows fencers to make sure that they can challenge a touch whenever they want.
Then there's the streaming side of it. So at some point, you say we've got all these cameras set up, and we we've got people at home who aren't able to be here. Let's put this out on YouTube or Facebook. You were just looking for more work to do, I guess. What was the genesis of that?
[00:12:08] DB: I never sit still very well. I watch, obviously, being involved in fencing the way as much as I am. FIE started to do video replay and at a similar time started to stream more and more matches. So with a camera already there, it seems like the obvious next step to try and stream, I have a lot of replay system and, therefore, that I also have here at my house that I take to tournaments. I thought we could try and use that for streaming, and we make some early attempts that were less successful due to bandwidth.
But we kept kind of trying. As we tried different things, we finally came up with ways that we were able to stream it with a fairly low footprint in additional setup. We were originally only streaming the final strip, so that was easier. Now, we're currently streaming five strips with the semi-final. So we can stream the semi-finals and the finals. Hopefully, in the near future, we'll be able to move up to maybe start streaming the round of eight you and I were talking about at the last tournament as a possibility to look at. Again, we start to run up there. We start to run up against a bandwidth. That’s really our [inaudible 00:13:17] factor.
[00:13:18] BW: Yes. To me, it's pretty remarkable what you've done with the strips that we are streaming because, also, we're getting the live scores there. So can we geek out a little bit to explain how that process works? Because somehow, the fencer’s name and the score is also showing up on that stream, which anybody who watches an NFL game is like, “Yes, of course.” But that takes a lot of work and effort to do. So what's the process like there to make sure that that happens, and we're not just seeing two masked individuals fencing? We can say, “Okay. That's this Y10 fencer versus this Y10 fencer.”
[00:13:53] DB: So part of the fun thing of just where I ended up with doing video replay and then when we added the scoring machines and needed to tie the scoring machines into fencing time and the fact that that happened to be at the same time that Dan Burke was getting fencing time approved by the FIE. I've been involved helping Dan to test various different functionalities of fencing time.
So Dan had strip view, like you see on the TVs that we have at the final strip that sometimes show time and score in the final strip. We just show the score and the names on two TVs, but that will also show the whole, saving from all the information that's on the scoring machine. I had asked Dan to make a layout in strip view. That would give me what we needed for streaming and had all the information in a banner instead of in the layout that looks more like a scoring machine. He was happy to do that.
In fact, we did in [inaudible 00:14:45] World Championships which was 2018. We had the whole floor was an LED screen around the strips, around the replay strips.
[00:14:51] BW: I saw the picture that you sent me. Yes. That was cool.
[00:14:54] DB: Yes. So I had Dan make it so that I could make a different box for each or a different segment for each element that's on the strip view. So pretty much anything that turns on and off on the scoring machine I was able to make a box for that and lay them out on the floor. I was going to do that for streaming, but that's a lot of pieces. So I asked Dan to just make it all one string, so we can just actually open a different instance or a different scoring machine on strip view. We leave those running in the background. We can screen capture that with the streaming software.
[00:15:27] BW: You make it sound so easy, but it's – there's a lot going on.
[00:15:30] DB: Yes. That's how we're able to overlay that.
[00:15:32] BW: You talk about how you don't sit still. Anybody who's worked with you notices that you're always making advancements, and you've talked to me in my role about what if we did this and that. So like if we just were to dream for a second and you said what would you want the replay and streaming to look like, let's say, in five years as we're getting ready for LA 2028, and you had the budget to do so, what would you like to see? Like where could we go next in this space?
[00:15:58] DB: Well, I think that to stream further into the tournament. I think, ultimately, I'd like to see us get to where we could hopefully stream but maybe only record and post later any bout that happens on a replay strip. Sometimes, that's a round of eight. Sometimes, it's a round of 16. To record it and post it later just means somebody has to actually do that and be done after the fact but within a reasonable amount of time. The last month, I've been at a tournament other than a couple of days. So there are some logistics concerns about being able to do that.
Then for streaming, it would be a bandwidth concern that we just have to overcome. Bandwidth in the convention centers is ruinously expensive, and that becomes an obstacle for us. Sometimes, we have a lot of bandwidth that at Daytona Beach, we were able to stream on the house Internet because they just left it open because we were the only event there. But a lot of times, that's not the case. So we have other solutions for that.
But, yes, I'd like to see us streaming further into the tournament. I'd like to see for the final strip, I think, long term to get better lighting at the final strip. I look to what we see at World Cups, Grand Prixes, World Championships, and try and move us in that direction. Obviously, we don't have the same budget that they have or the same amount of time they have to set things up or break things down. However we can do things easily like that is kind of fun.
They did have – I guess it was the Asia zonal championships. They had a big LED wall next to the final strip or in the room anyway. When they did their walk-on announcements, they had recorded walk-on videos for people. So while they're walking on, you see them doing whatever fancy walk-on thing they want people to see they’re doing.
[00:17:37] BW: Yes. The presentation of the finals is definitely like an area for growth. Obviously, there's limitations there because we can't turn off all the lights and put a spotlight on the strip if there's semi-finals going on next door. But that brings me to my next question that you kind of alluded at when talking about the Asia zonals, and I’m looking in the room that you're recording in. I see a Tokyo 2020 banner. I see Lima Pan Am games. I see Santiago Pan Am games, a bunch of others.
So you've gotten to travel internationally as well to do largely the same stuff you do at USA Fencing National tournaments. But now, the stakes are even higher at the international level. So do you have some favorite experiences and memories there, and can you help give us a sense of what that role looks like and how you got some of those positions?
[00:18:24] DB: Yes. It’s been – I mean, obviously, the Olympic Games, I did Rio and Tokyo, and I'm slated for Paris and LA already. For those, for the games, I'm doing the bonus round strip for modern pentathlon which is the outdoor strip. That's kind of a neat experience. Aside from the Olympics part of it, it's kind of a neat experience because you're actually working outside, which is –
[00:18:44] BW: Yes. I want to ask you about that modern pentathlon.
[00:18:46] DB: Different than what we're used to.
[00:18:47] BW: Yes. Like that modern pentathlon, a lot of people, obviously, know that one of the five events in modern pentathlon is fencing. They're just one-touch epee bouts, right? So you get to do that as well. What I didn't know until chatting with you is that those are outdoor fencing. So that has to present some challenges.
[00:19:08] DB: As they've tried to modernize the sport, they've worked towards having all the events happen in the same stadium. So before, they would do one venue for one of each of the five sports and then calculate who won and announce that eventually, which wasn't really television-friendly. So they worked towards – and Tokyo was the first Olympics that they had all five sports in one venue. They had an outdoor swimming pool that I arrived as they were starting to set it up. So in a week, we saw them actually set up a swimming pool. That was quite the undertaking.
Made our one strip on a platform with a roof seem like kind of small, but they do a seating pool first where everyone fences everyone, one big round-robin pool. Then they come over to the main. In the Olympics, they did that the day before or two days before for one gender. Then they do the bonus round in the stadium, and it's a way to just have some fencing exhibited in the stadium. It's two bottom fencers hook up and fence, whoever scores the points. They have 30 seconds to score one touch. Double touches don't count. If they don't score a touch, the higher-seated fencer wins. So there's pressure on the lower-seated fencer. If you win, you stay on, and that gives you points. It gives you more pentathlon points.
It has a small effect on their placement in the tournament, but it's a way that gives them a chance to actually fence for the crowd. It’s kind of a fun thing. They get announced. There are commentators who are speaking over the house PA while they're fencing. So it's a much different environment than we are with regular fencing.
[00:20:42] BW: Oh, that’s interesting.
[00:20:44] DB: That's been adjustment. They play music while they're fencing. It's very different.
[00:20:49] BW: That's super fascinating. Let's talk more about the international fencing tournaments that you've worked at.
[00:20:54] DB: For the fencing tournaments, I've done – Santiago is my third Pan Am games. The first one was in Toronto. That was the first time I was working for absolute. Then I've done one Youth Olympics and then World Championships, Junior Cadet World Championships, now Veteran World Championships with Daytona Beach. Each time, I'm doing part of the role that I do at our national tournaments. Sometimes, I'm streaming. Sometimes, I’m doing replays. Sometimes, I'm sending the names to the machines and making sure all of that works. When I'm there for absolute, I'm making sure that the equipment that they've provided is working.
So I have a number of different jobs that I do, and we just kind of patch them together in whatever we need to make things work or to make the tournament work. Or whatever services that the tournament needs, we’re able to provide, so.
[00:21:39] BW: In any one of those –
[00:21:40] DB: It's kind of a [inaudible 00:21:41] point.
[00:21:41] BW: Well, yes. You can do it all, right? You've got kind of the Swiss army knife of skills, and it makes me think. We started by talking about when you were fencing in high school. Did you ever think that fencing – like that someday you'd be considered like the expert in fencing scoring machines and fencing video replay? Like was that ever a path for you?
[00:22:00] DB: Well, when I was on my high school fencing team, I was the team armory.
[00:22:03] BW: Okay, okay.
[00:22:04] DB: So I was trying to be involved to some extent or to have an understanding of how things worked and looking at that. So I guess it's always been there to –
[00:22:13] BW: The path was there, even if you maybe wouldn't have said, “Someday, there'll be this thing called YouTube,” and we'll be able to watch any bout, semi-final bout on that. So let's get into some of the personal stuff. When you're not at fencing tournaments, which as we've discussed isn't very often lately, but I assume you get a few weeks off here and there. You live in Rochester with your fiancé and two cats. I saw one of them walk by earlier. So how do you balance your personal life and some time off with all the different hats that you wear in fencing?
[00:22:44] DB: Well, I mean, fortunately, Maggie comes to some of the tournaments. So I get to see her there. When we're home, it's funny I'm here in Rochester, and I don't really explore Rochester much. Because when I'm home, it's just nice to be home. A lot of times, we like to stay in and be able to actually cook our own dinner, instead of eating out, and it's nice to stay in. I think that when time permits, I do like to go sailing and have other activities. Schedule seems to get busier and busier. It's turned into a real full-time job.
[00:23:15] BW: Yes. It's not like anybody's taking tournaments off the calendar these days. It seems to be the opposite.
[00:23:20] DB: Right, yes.
[00:23:21] BW: Which is good in a number of respects but keeps you even busier. Any advice for someone who says, “I'm also interested in the types of things that I see going on behind the scenes at a tournament,” any of the different roles that you have. How might someone get involved in doing that, whether they want to make it a weekend job or a full-time career?
[00:23:44] DB: I mean, obviously, a full-time career has taken me 20-plus years to evolve this into. For my crew, we're always looking for people. So if people are interested, they're welcome to come talk to me at a tournament or message me. I’m fairly easy to track down. We have three or four people that came on the crew this year, this season already. So we're trying to get – as I get more and more events, I need more and more people.
This season, I already missed. I was only at summer nationals for a day and a half because I was in Santiago at Central American and Caribbean games. I actually finished that event at 6:30 in the evening in San Salvador and got – by the next morning, I was walking into summer nationals in Phoenix at 11 o’clock in the morning.
[00:24:30] BW: Your schedule, when I've heard you talk about it, is just wild. So are you looking mainly for people who have worked at a local or regional tournament, have a little bit of experience there?
[00:24:40] DB: We like to look for people that have some experience in one of the skill sets that we use, whether that's some experience with the armory, some experience as a referee, some experience running fencing time or outside of fencing, people with experience with OBS or vMix, which are the two streaming softwares that we use or just general IT experience. It helps a lot with pieces of what we do.
If somebody comes in with one of the skills, one or two of the skills, then we're able to get them up to speed pretty quickly. Taking somebody from scratch is a little more work. But we have – among the people that are working with me, I have Manuel Belmonte, who is a longtime referee from Canada, FIE ref for many years. He was actually the FIE observer who observed me when I took my FIE test. So I've known him for a long time, where he was initially less comfortable with the technical side of it but was familiar with how to use the replay and what the questions the referees would have. So that helped a lot.
Maggie has come and helped with a lot of the things we do. Not so much at our US tournaments because she's working as bout committee chair. But she's done international events with me, and she actually helped do a lot of the documentation for how we do satellite bout committee or as we were establishing that. So she has – the fencing certainly has the fencing time side of it. Madison Haughie also is doing a lot with me for that.
Then I have people who are IT people that – Nick Bentley, Jim [inaudible 00:26:16], Michael [inaudible 00:26:18] who have more technical side that do help with a lot of the streaming, the IT, as well as doing the stuff out on the floor and operating the replay system. Once I have somebody who has enough of the skills, I end up using them for international events. I have sometimes two events in one weekend –
[00:26:36] BW: So they might get the call saying, “Hey, I need you in this country.”
[00:26:40] DB: So they got the call and –
[00:26:42] BW: Get the call up from David. That's really cool.
[00:26:44] DB: I think last season I sent two people. I sent two people without me to international events. One went with me to an international event outside the US. Then we had Central American Games, Caribbean Games, and Pan American Games that we had a crew of five people at. The World Championships when we were in Cairo, I had one other person with me. Then we were assisting with fencing time that had three people at.
[00:27:09] BW: So you've really not only been around the world yourself but also taken some of your teammates along with you. As we kind of wrap up here, I wonder like what's next like. Are there goals that you haven't yet achieved? Specifically, maybe we could say that the Paris Olympics. Like what are your goals for that or beyond things that you still want to do in a career where you've already done so much?
[00:27:31] DB: I mean, I think just seeing things grow, seeing us continue to try and imitate what we see at the higher levels of fencing and what we do here for our domestic events. I mean, who knows what the next big piece is to be added. But we keep trying to see what's there and how to make things work. Under our final strip, we have our LED screen with all the information on it, and that's been an adventure to get set up. This is our second one. The first one I worked within China and then Panama City, Panama, and then in the US for a long time. Finally, hopefully, its last appearance was in Cairo at the World Championships. So it's funny to have this large piece of equipment that was traveling all over the world, and we kept working on it.
[00:28:15] BW: Yes. I remember when I saw that setup at my first tournament in this role. I was like, “Wow, this is big time.” I mean, not that I didn't think it, but I was like this is a like professional-quality setup here, and it makes it – when someone gets to that final strip, it does make it seem more special. It sounds like from what I'm hearing from you that there was a time when it was – you might have had your final on strip J, too, right? So now, you have some this like special place that you get to go, and it creates a better experience for the fan but also for the fencer themselves. It makes it more special for them.
[00:28:48] DB: I think one of my favorite things, one of the most gratifying things that I see happen, whether people are on the final strip or they're on just one of the replay strips, is the many people that come up and get their picture taken next to their name before they start fencing. They don't even care that they're there fencing, whatever round they are, that they've made it so far in the tournament. They see their name up, and they want their picture next to their name. That makes some of the long nights a little more worth it to see people get that excited about something totally unrelated to the actual fencing part of it.
[00:29:21] BW: That's great. That's well said. Well, David, I appreciate and just have so much respect for you. You've taught me a lot about fencing in my year and a half in this role. So I just want to thank you for that and thank you for all that you do for USA Fencing. It's been an adventure and a lot of fun, and I'm excited for the next time we get to work together. So thanks for giving a few minutes to us on the podcast here.
[00:29:44] DB: Great. Thanks for having me.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[00:29:47] 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 a review. Until next time, I'm Bryan Wendell, and I hope to see you real soon out on the strip. Bye.
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