Stacey Johnson
Stacey Johnson began fencing in her home town of San Antonio, Texas. Her first coach was Gerard Poujardieu who correctly diagnosed that she was a natural lefty and had Stacy switch from right to left.
A top junior fencer, she opted to attend San Jose State University with fellow Texan Vinnie Bradford. There, she trained with Michael D’Asaro and his then-wife Gay. Stacey, Vinnie and Gay were an extremely successful team, winning the NIWFA collegiate team championships four years in a row and the US National team title three years in a row. Stacey also won two individual NIWFA titles and was named to the 1980 Olympic Team.
READ MORE...After retiring from competition, Stacey became an adept administrator for US Fencing and was USFA President for four years. She remains involved with FIE committees and in her international role helped with realizing the recognition of Women’s Epee and Sabre as Olympic events.
Articles
Short Stories
A number of things have come my way recently through various paths. Taken individually, they add to the collection in nice ways, but don’t necessarily give me the grist to crank out a full story around them.
The Maestro of Clay and Bronze
My first impression of Peter Schifrin was formed by my reaction to seeing his sculpture work used in a poster for a fencing tournament. It was a photo of his sculpt of his teammates, Vinnie Bradford and Stacey Johnson, and I was fascinated by it.
The Spartan Women, Part One
The last article I wrote, which featured Michael D’Asaro’s time in San Antonio and the Army, got me thinking about one of the reasons I decided to attend San Jose State to train with him. That reason was the awesome strength of his Women’s foil program.
The First NCAA Women’s Championship
Everything has a first time and 1982 was the year of the first Women’s Foil championship for the NCAA.
The San Jose Summer Workshops
Sometime prior to the summer of 1977, Michael D’Asaro and Charles Selberg devised a plan to create a summer workshop for fencers. Both were instructors at Universities, San Jose State and UC Santa Cruz, respectively
San Jose State University: Unknown Tournament
I’ve got two sets of pictures from the same event, courtesy of the Charles and Julie Selberg collection of fencing memorabilia. One set is black & white film, the other color slides. Today, in photo essay form, I present the best of the color slides. I can...
Photo Gallery
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