Charlie Selberg
Charles Selberg, Charlie to most, was a Fargo, ND native who discovered fencing at San Francisco State where he received his BA and MA with studio art being his primary focus. His first teacher was the long-time coach at SFSU, Erich Funke-d’Egnuff. He taught fencing for John McDougall at his San Francisco School of Fencing for a brief period, and concurrently learned from both Jack Nottingham and George Piller. In the early 1960s he returned to Fargo and opened the Selberg Fencing Academy where he had a very successful run with numerous students winning local and regional competitions.
READ MORE...Following his student and future wife Julie back to San Francisco, he taught briefly at Halberstadt Fencers Club after the death of Hans Halberstadt but left after being hired at the only-a-year-old University of California Santa Cruz. At Santa Cruz he built a reputation for being “the class” you had to take. His teaching skill and philosophical approach gained massive appeal and he was an extremely popular figure on campus.
In 1970, he, along with Michael D’Asaro, Ed Richards and others, was selected to compete at the Fencing Masters World Championships in London, where Selberg’s foil team took home the Gold medal. Retiring to the hills south of Ashland, OR in the early 1980s, his collection of fencing photos and memorabilia became the foundational collection for the Archive. His efforts in collecting and preserving fencing history alongside longtime friend and colleague John McDougall was hugely important for the impetus for the creation of the West Coast Fencing Archive.
Articles
The Zeppelin Sabre
Any trip to visit Charles Selberg would hardly have been considered a success without his regaling his visitor with some grand story.
The Selberg Instructional Series, Part Two
One of the first stories published here on the West Coast Fencing Archive was about the how-to-fence series of film clips that Charles Selberg put together with his former employer, Bill Snyder of Bill Snyder Films, based in Fargo, ND, Charlie’s home town. You can...
George Piller comes to San Francisco
Gyorgy Jekelfalussy Piller has gone down in history as one of the most successful competitors and coaches. If his name is unfamiliar, let me give you a brief run-down. He competed for Hungary in the 1928 Olympics on the Foil Team and reached the semi-finals,...
San Jose State Unknown Tournament in B & W
Here below, I’ve culled the best of the black & white negatives that were shot by Charles Selberg. And, fortune of fortunes, the negative pack was taped into a scrapbook that had many of these prints mounted inside.
Boffing: The sport of slugs
If you can say anything about the fencers at UCSC during the reign of Charlie Selberg, (and you could say a great deal) they knew how to have a good time.
1979 All Cals
The 1979 All Cals (as in, All of California) took place at the West Field House at the University of California, Santa Cruz. It was a collegiate competition for a conference that was in the process of dwindling as funding for fencing programs across the state were...
The Selberg Instructional Series
It’s funny how things have come together while gathering items for this Archive. When I was just starting to get things together, I went to visit Matthew Porter at his shop, American Fencers Supply.
The Hans Box
Mark Headley and I hold the distinction of having dismantled the salle d’armes that Charlie Selberg put together in the woods of Southern Oregon. On the outside, it looked like this: On the inside, like this: Taking it all down for transport to Berkeley and...
Photo Gallery
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