Sister Act

Feb. 12, 2004

by John Roth
Blue Devil Weekly

DURHAM, N.C. - For one weekend each year, ancient Card Gymnasium is transformed from the basketball team's auxiliary practice court to a fencing megaplex.

International flags and banners are draped from every inch of the balcony. Photographs, magazine covers, newspaper clippings and posters blanket the downstairs wall space. And six metallic fencing strips are positioned across the hardwood floor, each with its own exquisitely-appointed scoring booth, so the Blue Devils can host their annual Duke Invitational.

The event marks the only local and campus visibility for Duke's varsity fencing program each year, so coach Alex Beguinet and his team go all out to put on a good show. Such was the case last weekend when the Blue Devils invited six other schools to join them in the three-day affair. There was men's competition from sunrise to sunset on Friday, a women's meet all day long on Saturday, then Sunday was devoted to alumni matches where former Duke fencers took on members of the current team.

"I've been hearing about this for five years," freshman fencer Allison Schafer noted on Friday afternoon, after she'd spent the day keeping score for men's matches. (The Blue Devil men's team returned the favor on Saturday.)

"In high school we always had districts this weekend, so I'd never been able to come down for it. This isn't how other fencing meets are run. At other schools they'll put some tape down on the floor and that's about it. The detail that Alex puts into this, it took us 24 hours to put the gym together. We make sure all the details are taken care of. Alex just wants it to be that way."

Schafer had plenty of motivation, if not opportunity, to attend past Duke Invitationals because she is the third member of her family to fence for the Blue Devils. Oldest sister Kristina spent four years on the team before graduating in 2002, while sister Kimberly is a senior captain for this year's women's squad. All three were excited to be part of the Duke event this year -- Kimi and Ali for the varsity and Kristy at the alumni meet. Parents John and Cindy also made the drive down from their home in New Jersey to attend.

Before Duke, all three of the Schafer sisters fenced at Morristown High School and for the Colonial Fencers club team. Kristy got the family tradition started when she tried fencing as a second sport to fill her time between tennis seasons. Eventually she stopped playing tennis so she could concentrate on club fencing practice every fall.

Her club coach, UNC alumnus Bob Largman, is a close friend of Beguinet's and comes down to referee the Duke Invitational every year. Largman suggested she check out the Blue Devil program and she liked what she saw. When she factored in Beguinet's reputation and the engineering school, Kristy knew where she belonged.

"And that got the ball rolling," Beguinet says of the Schafer connection.

Kimi also took up the sport as an offseason activity between tennis campaigns but wasn't sure she wanted to follow Kristy to college, where their careers would overlap by two years. "I had a lot of doubts about that," Kimi explained. "My sister is very talented and she's a hard role to follow. In high school I would always get, 'Oh, you're Kristina's little sister.'

"I thought I might like to go my own route. I went on a college search and saw 12 colleges and couldn't see myself anywhere. Then I came down to visit her for a second time and I think I was finally ready to see myself at a school, and this was the only school I could really see myself at. I fell in love with it. This is such a great school. Anyone who spends a lot of time here will fall in love with it."

Ali never considered NOT fencing after seeing how much her older sisters enjoyed their teams and competitions in high school. It was her only sport, as marching band filled her other extracurricular hours. But initially she was even more reluctant to consider Duke than Kimi had been.

"People asked me where I was going to go and I'd say UNC, or anywhere but Duke," Ali noted. "I thought I might find another school I'd fall in love with, but when I was looking at schools I realized other schools just weren't like Duke, even though I thought they would be. Duke is just amazing in so many aspects."

Middle sibling Kimi has had a sister in school and on the team with her for three of her four college years. She and Kristy both fenced the same weapon, epee, so they would sometimes practice against each other. Kimi switched to foil this year because the team needed help in that weapon. Ali fences saber, so no head-to-head battles are likely between the Schafers ? at least not in the fencing context.

"We're very, very close, but we're also very passionate so we fight a lot," Kimi said. "Not so much any more, but growing up we fought a lot."

"We all have the same strong female personality we got from our mom," Ali said.

The sisters do have some different interests. Kristy earned her engineering degree and now works in that profession for a construction company in Washington, D.C. Kimi and Ali are more into social sciences, with Kimi majoring in psychology and working actively with Project Respect, a sexual assault prevention program in the Durham schools. Ali finds time to work as a sports photographer for the Duke Chronicle.

One subject on which they are in unanimous agreement is Duke fencing, the value of that experience to their collegiate careers and the impact of Beguinet, who is in his 19th season as the Blue Devils' coach.

"Alex is the reason it's such a special program," explained Kristy. "He has very strong ideas about how he thinks the program should run. He's very committed to the idea of the student-athlete. As nonscholarship student-athletes, school has to come first and he has always gone out of his way to make sure all the kids on his team can do both, that they can be exemplary students and excel on the team. He does everything he can to make that happen.

"The level of enthusiasm he brings to things -- the football team may have a hundred times more in their budget, but he made things just as nice for us. He's just a really amazing person."

"Alex is one of my favorite people in the world," added Kimi. "You won't find many people who have had him as a coach who would say anything different. He cares so much about the people on the team and he makes it fun. He wants you to do your best and try hard and he wants you to love it. Largely because of Alex's influence, the team is so close and we're always there for each other. It's an amazing atmosphere."

"Alex has a really neat program in that it's at a really high level but it doesn't have to be your entire life," said Ali. "You can concentrate on yourself at the same time. Coaches at other programs, none of them can compare to Alex. You'll hear only good things about him. And the kids on the team are wonderful people. It hasn't become my life, but it's such an important part of my life, and I never thought it would be that important to me."

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