Western Intercollegiate Fencing Conference Team Epee Trophy. The Castello Award, first presented in 1968, was awarded until 1978 when it was won by UCSC. The WIFC reorganized in 1979, excluding UCSC and some other long-time members. This trophy remained with Charles Selberg. Unfortunately, Charlie never added a plaque with the names of his team members.
Hi Doug
Ted Clark and I were 2/3 of that team. I don’t remember the name of our third teammate. Technically it was NorCal Athletic Conference. I won the epee individual and George Platt won the individual in Men’s foil. I have a small medallion from it. I can send you a pic.
Was it Tris Thompson? Seems like that would be around his time. And the NorCal AC was separate from Westerns. The respective conferences held the two big tournaments of the year. NorCal was, as you’d expect, some combination of UCSC, Stanford, SJSU, Sonoma, Sac State, Davis, SF State and maybe a few others. They came and went with the whims and fortunes of funding for fencing teams. Westerns incorporated SoCal schools like UCLA, Fullerton, Northridge, USC, UCSB and UCSD, as well as the Air Force Academy. As with NorCal, schools came and went over the years. After 1978, the only schools that could participate in the Westerns had to have an NCAA affiliation. That’s why UCSC and others were dropped. I don’t remember if the same was true for the NorCal championship. In 1978 when you won NorCals in epee and George won the foil, Marlowe Hood won the Westerns in foil. Charlie kept that trophy, too. I know because when I won Westerns in 1981 there was no big trophy for me to get my name on. That Westerns foil trophy is now in the Archive collection. Marlowe is on there and is the last winner listed.
Tris was on the Men’s saber team. He started fencing epee about the time of this tournament. UCSC had a good team that year.
I didn’t fence in the Westerns. School kind of got in the way. Peter Schiffrin would have been the odds on favorite I reckon. He was the most accomplished collegiate epee fencer at the time.
I don’t think I ever fenced in the WIFC championships. I do remember when Marlow won the foil, that was notable. I don’t think Selberg ever had an epee class. I could easily be wrong and maybe your memory is better regarding that. Since we didn’t have a team practice other than the classes, that is where I would have fenced epee. I went to UCSC for six years (two undergraduate degrees) starting in fall, 1974. My first epee competition was the All Cals in Jan. 1980. This tournament was where most of the UC system got together and competed in fencing every year. I seem to remember that was the first time I ever fenced epee and I was pretty happy when I won. I didn’t start focusing on epee until the 1981-82 season when I was at The Fencing Center.
I’m guessing you guys won both the NorCals and Westerns in epee that year….